Improved interfacial stress analysis of a plated beam

A plated beam is strengthened by bonding a thin plate to the tension face; it often fails because of premature debonding of the thin plate from the original beam in a brittle manner. A sound understanding of the mechanism of such debonding failure is very important for the effective use of this strengthening technique. This paper presents an improved analytical solution for interfacial stresses that incorporates multiple loading conditions simultaneously, including prestress, mechanical and thermal loads, and the effects of adherend shear deformations and curvature mismatches between the beam and the plate. Simply supported beams bonded with a thin prestressing plate and subjected to both mechanical and thermal loading were considered in the present work. The effects of the curvature mismatch and adherend shear deformations of the beam and plate were investigated and compared. The main mechanisms affecting the distribution of interfacial stresses were analyzed. Both the normal and shear stresses were found to be significantly influenced by the coupled effects of the elastic moduli with the ratios Ea/Eb and Ea/Ep.