Structural reliability of bonding between steel rebars and recycled aggregate concrete

Unlike compressive strength, the bond between Recycled Aggregate Concrete (RAC) and steel rebars is a topic not completely understood by researchers, although it is one of the fundamental factors affecting the mechanical behaviour of reinforced concrete structures. For this reason, a theoretical and experimental investigation of the structural reliability of the bonding between reinforcing steel and RAC has been undertaken and is presented in this paper, which consists of two consecutive parts. In the first part, the results of an experimental study aimed at comparing the bond strength of natural and recycled aggregate concrete are described. In the second part, a reliability analysis is carried out to determine whether the existing design formulas for the anchorage length and lap splice can be relied on in the case of RAC.