Environmental durability of adhesively bonded FRP/steel joints in bridge applications

Book chapter, 2024

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites offer excellent properties, such as high specific strength and stiffness, corrosion resistance and light weight. Over the past 4decades, FRPs have been increasingly used for strengthening and repairing bridge structures. While there is extensive research on the short-term behavior of adhesively bonded FRP/steel joints, long-term performance remains a lingering concern, especially with respect to understanding the underlying degradation mechanisms and quantifying long-term performance. These uncertainties are currently offset by applying a multiplicity of large safety factors to the strength of composite materials, which necessitates significantly more material consumption and, thus, increases costs. In recent years, numerical methods have provided new possibilities to investigate complex issues such as long-term performance of materials more effectively. However, the results need to be correlated and verified by testing of structures under real conditions before they can be considered reliable. This chapter aims to shed some light on the aspects relating to the environmental durability of FRP/steel adhesive joints exposed to conditions relevant to bridges, with a focus on predicting the mechanical response of aged joints using experimental-numerical approaches.