DEBONDING PREDICTION OF A REINFORCING CFRP PATCH ON CONCRETE STRUCTURES

Concrete substrate structures that are locally connected to or reinforced by a CFRP patch through an adhesive layer are often found in civil engineering. Under given thermomechanical loading, this typically leads to interfacial stresses with stress concentrations at the ends of the patch. In this situation, the onset of debonding cracks can be predicted and assessed by means of the concepts of finite fracture mechanics. In order to make the assessment easy, an approximate closed-form analytical approach is suggested, which is shown to work very efficiently.