ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Over the years, there has been an increased research interest on the use of adhesively bonded composite reinforcements for upgrading metallic structures. Although most of this work has concentrated on the use of composites for the fatigue repair of aircraft components (e.g. Baker & Jones 1988), recently, a small number of studies has focused on the use of bonded composite plates for strengthening metallic bridge members (e.g. Tavakkolizadeh & Saadatmanesh 2003a). However, the emphasis of this research has been on the strengthening of deteriorated or degraded steel members with only a handful of cases, where the strengthening of fatigue damaged steel bridge components was investigated (e.g. Tavakkolizadeh & Saadatmanesh 2003b).
