Prediction of bond failure and deflection of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic reinforced concrete beams

Carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP) reinforced concrete beams can fail due to interface debonding, due to the high tensile strength of such rebars. A set of 16 concrete beams reinforced with different amounts of CFRP reinforcement was subject to static three-point bending. The beam dimensions and CFRP reinforcements used were selected to demonstrate a transition from compression failure to bond failure with decreasing reinforcement ratio. It is shown that accurate bond strength data to predict such failures can be obtained from a “hinged-beam” test configuration, rather than the conventional direct “pull-out” tests. Deflection under service loads can also be predicted more accurately using a proposed equation that includes the reinforcement ratio and the elastic modulus of the reinforcement.