ABSTRACT
Deterioration of reinforced concrete structures due to corrosion of the rebars or continual upgrading of service loads (increase of the traffic load on bridges for example) has resulted in a large number of structures requiring repairing or strengthening. Various methods are available to repair or strengthen those structures. External bonding of steel plates to damaged reinforced concrete structures is one of these methods and has been shown to be quite an efficient and a well-known repair or strengthening technique. It has been largely studied in France (L’Hermite, 1967), (Bresson, 1971) and intensive research performed in the beginning of the eighties (Theillout, 1983) resulted in French rules concerning the design of those structures (SOCOTEC, 1986). The use of composite materials represents an alternative to steel as it can avoid the corrosion of the plates. FRP materials are also very lightweight, have a high strength to weight ratio and are generally resistant to chemicals. The price of these materials, especially of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastics (CFRP), could represents a drawback but the ease in handling the material on construction sites, due to the light weight, helps to reduce labour costs. This technique has been largely investigated especially in Switzerland (Meier, 1995) where existing structures have been retrofitted using epoxy-bonded composite materials.
