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Preface

Retrofitting is a major growth area in civil engineering simply because the


infrastructure is forever expanding and aging and more of the available resources are
being used to maintain it. Hence, it is imperative to develop inexpensive and efficient
retrofitting techniques, and tests have shown that bonding longitudinal plates to the
surfaces of reinforced concrete structures can be economical, efficient and
unobtrusive. However, these tests have also shown that the plates can debond
prematurely so that much high quality research has been done around the world on
identifying and quantifying these debonding mechanics. It may be worth noting that
because plated structures exhibit unique forms of failure, they should be treated as a
new form of structure.
This book covers all forms of longitudinal plating reinforced concrete beams
and slabs. The plates can be either adhesively bonded or bolted, they can be flat plates
or of any shape and size and they can be made from any material such as steel,
aluminium or any type of fibre reinforced polymer (FRP). Furthermore, the issues of
premature failure and the ultimate strength and ductility which includes moment
redistribution are fully addressed. The aim of this book is to provide engineers with a
deep understanding of the fundamental behaviour of externally plated structures and,
in particular, to provide the design tools so that they can develop their own forms of
this retrofitting technique or to develop safe and efficient forms for their specific
structural problem.
Chapter 1 describes the numerous forms of longitudinal plating that can be
applied, and in particular the unique failure mechanisms associated with all plate
materials that have to be designed against and how this affects the choice of plate and
form of bonding. Intermediate crack (IC) debonding of adhesively bonded plates is
the dominant form of debonding as it directly affects the choice of plate, directly
affects the flexural capacity and ductility of the beam and indirectly affects the shear
capacity. Hence, it is the starting point of the design procedure and is covered in
Chapter 2. Having quantified the IC debonding resistance, it is used in Chapter 3 to
quantify both the flexural strength and ductility of adhesively plated beams and slabs.
The analysis for the flexural capacity of bolted plated beams is also covered in this
chapter as well as the ability to redistribute moment. IC debonding may be considered
the dominant form of debonding, but an analysis of published test results has shown
that it is not the most common form of debonding which is that due to the formation
of critical diagonal cracks (CDC). CDC debonding is covered in both Chapters 4 and
5 where it is shown that the addition of longitudinal plates can substantially increase
the shear capacity of beams or slabs without stirrups. However, it is also shown how
CDC debonding may prevent the use of adhesively bonded plates in some regions of a
beam. In which case bolted plates may have to be used as this is a ductile form of
retrofitting that is not affected by the formation of CDCs. The final major debonding
mode, that of plate end (PE) debonding, is covered in Chapter 6. This form of
debonding rarely controls or limits the design as it can be easily prevented by
terminating the plate in regions of low moment. However, it does allow the designer
to determine the minimum length of plate required and hence optimise the cost.
Finally, comprehensive and detailed design examples are given in Chapter 7 covering
virtually all forms of longitudinal plating beams and slabs. Of interest, it is shown
how combinations of plating techniques often provide the best solutions, can provide

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Preface

substantial increases in strength, and how moment redistribution can substantially


affect the choice of plating.
It is not the object of this book to prescribe one form of plating or plating
material as it is felt that this approach limits the use of plating. For example, the
calculations in Chapter 7 clearly show that if the designer is restricted to using
adhesively bonded FRP plates then this can severely limit the increase in strength.
Whereas, combining adhesively bonded FRP plates with adhesively bonded steel
plates or with bolted FRP plates can allow large increases in strength and in turn a
much larger use of FRP plates. The authors feel that adhesive bonding FRP plates
should typically be the first choice because of its durability and ease of application.
However, adhesively bonding FRP whilst having many benefits also has some
limitations. For example metal plates can be designed to yield prior to debonding
which is not an option available for FRP material which is an elastic brittle material.
Hence, FRP plates may have to be restricted to regions of continuous beams where
moment redistribution does not occur whilst metal plates can be used in regions where
moment redistribution is required. As another example, it may be determined by
calculations that it is not be possible to adhesively bond plates in negative moment
regions of continuous beams where the vertical shear is large and hence where stirrups
are required. In which case, metal or FRP plates can be bolted in these negative
regions and used in conjunction with adhesively bonded FRP plates in the positive
moment regions where the vertical shear is lower. It can now be seen why the object
of this book is to provide genetic design rules that cover all forms of longitudinal
plating so that designers can choose and develop their own unique plating systems.
This book is not meant to be a code or standard; nor has it attempted to
summarise the research on plating which has already been done in numerous papers
and books; nor has it covered the design of the plate material as it is assumed that the
plates are supplied by the manufacturers with guarantees such as against delamination
within the FRP plate and durability. Instead, this book is meant to be a design guide
that covers all of the major aspects of the mechanical design of plated beams and
slabs. It covers the fundamental principles that govern: the major aspects of plate
debonding; the shear capacity and flexural capacity of plated beams; and moment
redistribution in plated beams. Furthermore, these fundamental principles are
described in a form that can be applied to plates of any material, shape or position and
have been described in a way that can be applied to new forms of plating such as near
surface mounted plates. Near surface mounted plates have the potential to rapidly
expand the use of plating due to their large strain capacities which not only provide a
more efficient use of the material but more importantly provide much greater
ductility. In order to try and cover all of the major aspects of design, we have had to
introduce research concepts that are relatively new and in their early stages of
development; in particular moment redistribution where we felt that ductility, which is
often considered by structural engineers to be as important as strength and often more
important, had to be covered from the fundamental principles. Having described the
overall governing fundamental principles, we have developed design approaches
based on advanced work on IC debonding published by others. However, we have
used our own research on PE and CDC debonding as these are generic rules as they
can be applied to any plate material, plate shape and plate position.
The first author has been studying plating since the mid eighties during which
time he has had the privilege and enjoyment of working with and supervising some
outstanding researchers, in particular Dr. M.S. Mohamed Ali Sahib and Dr. Ninh T.
Nguyen whose contribution to the fundamental understanding of this field of research

Preface

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has allowed this book to be written. We would also like to acknowledge with thanks
the facilities made available at our University of Adelaide for the writing of this book
and the invaluable support provided by Professor Kitipomchai at Hong Kong City
University where the first author wrote his portion of the book whilst on study leave.
Thanks also to Professor Jin-Guang Teng at Hong Kong Polytechnic University for
his close collaboration and providing information and photographs, and above all and
in particular the support and encouragement by our wives Bernie and Joanne.

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