The Effect of Debonding on the Flexural Behaviour of Reinforced Concrete Beams Strengthened with Fibre Reinforced Polymer

In recent years, the use of fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) as a means of rehabilitating or strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) beams has generated much interest in the construction industry. The most popular means of utilising FRP for this purpose involves externally bonding the FRP strip to the extreme tensile fibres of the beam. In previous work, predictions on the behaviour of a beam undergoing debonding have been made utilising experimental FRP strain data to account for the strain incompatibility at the debonded zone. In this paper, previous work has been extended such that strain incompatibility is taken into account through a simple theoretical development to the simple beam theory rather than using experimental measurements of FRP strain data. The model has been verified and used to study the effect of debond length on the flexural behaviour of the beam