Verification of Safety and Serviceability of Concrete Structures Retrofitted with Externally-Bonded Continuous Fiber Materials

The technical research committee on continuous fiber (CF) sheet in Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) has been engaged in making a new design system for concrete structures retrofitted with externally-bonded CF sheets since 1998. This paper presents the framework and some tentative contents of the design system. The system is on the basis of the concept of performance-based design, in which a structure to be retrofitted is systematically verified if it can satisfy any required performance items during the residual service life. Performance items of structure are verified in terms of the verification index which represents each performance item quantitatively. Evaluation methods for several performance items under development are shown in this paper regarding structural safety and serviceability of structures. The importance of precise prediction of peeling-off the CF sheet from concrete is emphasized. In the verification process of performance items, time-dependent performance changes due to environmental and loading attack are taken into account, so that structural and durability design are unified in a rational way.