Structural behavior and inter-layer displacements in CFRP plated steel beams – Optical measurements, analysis, and comparative verification

The linear elastic structural behavior of steel beams strengthened with externally bonded composite materials is experimentally and analytically investigated. The paper focuses on the full-field inter-layer relative displacements between the beam and the FRP layer. Such displacements result from the interaction between the adhesively bonded components and it is the integrated outcome of the interfacial conditions and the deformability of the adhesive. As such, it is commonly adopted as the state variable in simplified bond shear stress–slip representations. This aspect, as well as other aspects of the global and localized structural response, is analytically and experimentally quantified. The experiment includes a simply supported steel beam strengthened with a CFRP plate. A 3D image correlation technique with sequential measurements is used for the assessment of the full-field inter-layer displacements along the beam. The analysis adopts a high order modeling approach that accounts for the 2D stress and displacement fields through the depth of the adhesive and a 1D shear stress–slip approach using only a linear increasing branch. The comparison between the results provides validation of the analytical and experimental capabilities with emphasis on the inter-layer effects. One of the interesting findings which is discussed and explained in this paper is the fact that the slip values calculated with the shear stress–slip approach are notably different from the ones that can be measured experimentally and determined by the high order model.