EVALUATION METHOD FOR ADHESION TEST-RESULTS OF BONDED MORTARS TO CONCRETE SUBSTRATES BY SQUARE OPTIMIZATION METHOD

Research work on the adhesion of bonding repair or finish mortars to c oncrete substrates has been focused on the following: 1). type of bond ing material; 2). type of adhesion test method; 3). type of substrate treatment. However, no significant work has been reported to evaluate and interpret the adhesion strength test results in conjunction with t he type of failure mode distribution for the adhesion test. In this pa per; a simple and precise method, called the square optimization metho d, is proposed to simultaneously take into consideration the adhesion strength and the failure mode of bonded mortars. The method is applica ble for any type of adhesion test, irrespective of the adhesion test c onditions, and helps to assess the quality of adhesion bonding of the bonded mortars to concrete substrates.