Bond characterization of adhesively bonded joints made with the resin infusion (RI) process

In this research, the bond characteristics between concrete and FRP plates processed with resin infusion technique are studied. The bondline thickness is varied and a new modified single lap shear (MSLS) test set-up is implemented to monitor the interface during the experiments. Based on MSLS test set-up, the relative displacement between FRP adherend and substrate can be monitored with higher precision. Nonlinear analysis of the MSLS test results indicates that the maximum applied load increases for thicker bondline until a certain amount of thickness, optimum bondline thickness, beyond which no increase in load is achieved. Therefore, a relationship is proposed to estimate the maximum applied load based on bondline thickness. In addition, the interfacial performance of RI processed plates is also compared with the pultruded laminates bonded to the concrete. Results show that the samples processed by RI technique follow the same debonding mechanism as the pultruded specimens. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.