Interfacial stresses in plated beams

Fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP) or steel plates can be bonded to the soffit of a beam as a means of retrofitting the beam. In such plated beams, tensil e forces develop in the bonded plate and these have to be transferred to th e original beam via interfacial shear and normal stresses. Consequently, de bonding failure may occur at the plate ends due to a combination of high sh ear and normal interfacial stresses. This paper star ts with a review of ap proximate closed-form solutions for interfacial stresses, identifying their assumptions and limitations, thereby clarifying the differences between th ese solutions. This review also establishes the need for a similar but more accurate solution, and such a solution is presented next in the paper. Thi s new solution is intended for application to beams made of all kinds of ma terials bonded with a thin plate, while all existing solutions have been de veloped focusing on the strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) beams, wh ich allowed the omission of certain terms. Finally, numerical comparisons b etween the existing solutions and the present new solution enable a clear a ppreciation of the effects of various parameters. (C) Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.