An Experimental Study on Shear Performance of Adhesive Interface between Steel Plates and CFRP

CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) are widely used in steel structural reinforcement. For steel structures strengthened with CFRP, except the cases the structures have defects before strengthening, the adhesive interface is the weakest part and CFRP debonding is the most common failure mode. In order to investigate the failure mechanism of CFRP strengthened steel structures, this paper presents an experimental study on shear performance of adhesive interface between steel plate and CFRP by twin shear model. Six steel plates strengthened with CFRP are divided into two groups, one has no damage, another has a gap at the mid. The specimens are tested under tensile loadings. The study results show that, the plates with a gap failed for CFRPs debonding, the cracking loading and breaking loading are 14.85kN, and 17.88kN respectively; the strain-loading curves had long linear stages, two strains decrease and other strains of another side increased rapidly at the cracking loading, then they both rose until the plates failed.