Bond strength characterization and estimation of steel fibre reinforced polymer - concrete composites

Composite materials are effective in forming externally bonded reinforcements which find applications related to existing structures repair, attributed to their high strength-to-weight ratio and ease of installation. Among various composites, fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) have somewhat been largely accepted as a commonly utilized composite for such purposes. It is only recently that steel fibres have been considered as additional members of the FRP fibre family, intuitively termed as steel reinforced polymer (SRP). Owing to its low cost and permissibility of fibre bending at sharp corners, SRP is rapidly becoming a viable contender to other FRP systems. This paper investigates the bond behaviour of SRP-concrete joints with different bonded lengths (50, 75, 100, 150 and 300 mm) and widths (15, 30, 40, 50, and 75 mm) using single-lap shear tests. The experimental specimens contain SRP strips with a fixed density of steel fibres (0.472 cords/mm) bonded to the face of concrete prisms. The load responses were obtained and compared in terms of corresponding load and slip boundaries of the constant region and the peak loads. The failure modes of SRP composites are discussed, and the range of effective bonded length is evaluated herein. In the end, a new analytical model was proposed to estimate the SRP-concrete bond strength using a genetic algorithm, which outperforms 22 existing FRP-concrete bond strength models.