Use of advanced composite materials for innovative building design solutions/

Advanced composite materials become popular in construction industry for the innovative building design solutions including strengthening and retrofitting of existing structures. The interface between different materials is a key issue of such design solutions as the structural integrity relies much on the bond. Knowledge on durability of concrete/epoxy interface is becoming essential as the use of these systems in applications such as FRP strengthening and retrofitting of concrete structures is becoming increasingly popular. Prior research studies in this area have indicated that moisture affected debonding in a FRP-bonded concrete system is a complex phenomenon that may often involve a distinctive dry-to-wet debonding mode shift from material decohesion (concrete delamination) to interface separation (concrete/epoxy interface) in which concrete/epoxy interface becomes the critical region of failure. Such premature failures may occur regardless of the durability of the individual constituent materials forming the material systems. Thus, the durability of FRP-bonded concrete is governed by the microstructure of the concrete/epoxy interface as affected by moisture ingress. In this work, fracture toughness of concrete/epoxy interfaces as affected by combinations of various degrees of moisture ingress and temperature levels is quantified. For this purpose, sandwich beam specimens containing concrete/epoxy interfaces are tested and analyzed using the concepts of fracture mechanics.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Lau, Tak-bun, Denvid

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Oral Büyüköztürk.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53110

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/53110