ABSTRACT
During the recent decades, the number of vehicles passing the bridges has dramatically increased in many many countries around the world compared with initial design consideration. Excessive cycling loading lead to fatigue degradation in the structural element and if untreated, severe damage may occur. Externally bonded Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRPs) has become one of the successfully methods of upgrading and retrofitting reinforced concrete RC structures such as bridges and highways. Although extensive research has been carried out to investigate the performance of this exterior strengthening systems, the majority of report studies addressed the effectiveness of this technique under monotonic loading. However, to date, no unique design guidelines specified the fatigue life behaviour of this externally FRP anchorage devices when subjected to cyclic loading. This paper presents the experimental results of externally FRP bidirectional sheets bonded to RC beams and subjected to different cyclic load application. The results demonstrated on the basis of maximum stress ratio and relative fatigue number of cycles. The outcomes of this study showed that there is no fatigue degradation when the maximum stress ratio is 60% of the ultimate static capacity, and the fatigue test remained running until 5.6 million cycles without observing any crack initiation along the bond line. Further details of the test results with recommendation for future research study are also outlined.
