a b s t r a c tFor the repair of damaged steel beams, Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) are effective under monotonic loads, but less information is available under fatigue loading. In this paper, fatigue tests were performed on nine CFRP reinforced cracked steel beams. The fatigue crack propagation curves showed that CFRP strips reduce the fatigue crack growth and extend the fatigue life. Experimental results also revealed the presence of a debonded area between the reinforcement and the steel substrate at the crack location. Debonding clearly has a detrimental effect on the reinforcement effectiveness. Finally, numerical and analytical studies are performed and compared to the experimental findings.

a b s t r a c tIn this paper fatigue crack growth in steel plates reinforced by using carbon fiber reinforced (CFRP) strips is investigated from the experimental, numerical and analytical point of view. Single edge notched tension (SENT) specimens were strengthened with different reinforcement configurations and tested at a stress ratio R of 0.4. Different initial damage levels were considered and the experimental results showed that the reinforcement application can effectively reduce the crack growth rate and significantly extend the fatigue life. Numerical models (finite elements) were also developed to evaluate the stress intensity factor (SIF) and the crack opening displacement (COD) profile. Based on the numerical results, an analytical model was proposed to predict the fatigue crack growth rate and the fatigue crack growth curves. The analytical results are validated by comparing the fatigue crack growth curves to the experimental ones.

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