Shear strength of RC beams strengthened with bonded steel or FRP plates

Bonding by epoxy resins of metallic or nonmetallic plates to the tension face of a reinforced concrete (RC) member (i.e., plate bonding technology) is now a widely used technique to retrofit/upgrade existing RC structures that have been damaged or are structurally inadequate. To ensure successful and cost-effective applications, engineers must improve their knowledge of the actual behavior of these structures, especially with regard to the interaction mechanisms between concrete and the bonded plate. This paper presents a truss model capable of describing the ultimate behavior of externally bonded RC beams. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is validated by comparing the obtained numerical results with some experimental data that is available in the literature.