Design against premature peeling failure of RC beams with externally bonded steel or FRP plates

The salient features are presented of a recently reported semi-empirical model for predicting the lower/upper bounds to plate peeling loads of simply supported RC beams strengthened in flexure by gluing external steel or fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) plates to their soffits. The original model was, however computer based, and involved certain iterative procedures. This potential drawback is overcome in the present paper which reports details of some simplified (but still reasonably accurate) procedures for predicting the lower bound (i.e. safe) steel or FRP plate peeling loads, with the proposed formulations being amenable to hand calculations, using a pocket calculator hence, of value to busy practising engineers.