On the reduce of interfacial shear stresses in fiber reinforced polymer plate retrofitted concrete beams

One major problem when using bonded fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) plate is the presence of high interfacial shear stresses near the end of the composite (edge effect) which might govern the failure of the strengthening schedule. It is known that the decrease of plate thickness reduces the magnitude of stress concentration at plate ends. Another way is to use a plate end tapering. In this paper, the analytical solution of interfacial shear stresses obtained has been extended by a numerical procedure using the modal analysis of finite element method (FEM) in a retrofitted concrete (RC) beam with the FRP plate with tapered end, which can significantly reduce the stress concentration. This approach allows taking into consideration the variation of elastic properties of adhesive and plate as well as the complicated geometrical configurations and effects of thermal loads.