Size effect on the methodology with cylinder specimens for FRP-to-concrete debonding analysis

Abstract

This is a study about the size effect on the methodology with concrete cylinder specimens for analysis of the debonding phenomenon at the interface between concrete and carbon fiber reinforced polymer (FRP). The influence of the concrete specimen size variation is analyzed by maintaining the same geometry in adhered FRP. Direct tensile experiments were performed with three dimensions of cylindrical concrete specimens (diameter × height) for analysis of size effect: 50 mm × 100 mm, 100 mm × 200 mm, and 150 mm × 300 mm. Ten different geometries of the composite material were tested. Two failure modes were observed in the experiments: debonding between the two materials and tensile failure in concrete specimens. In experiments with interface failure, the size of concrete specimens has no significant influence on maximum force, shear stress to peak, and stiffness in debonding between concrete and FRP. However, the use of smaller specimens for analysis of interface collapse is limited because the concrete reaches its normal stress capacity with a lower tensile force, and therefore, the failure often occurs in the concrete.