A general solution for predicting the interfacial debonding in plated beams

The flexural strength of reinforced concrete, steel, or timber beams can be enhanced by bonding a thin plate to its soffit. While this technique was shown to be highly effective, the development of predictive models for plate end debonding failures of such plated beams is essential for the wide application of this technique. Existing elastic interfacial stress analysis solutions fail to provide accurate predictions of debonding loads, where the bonded interface is subjected to nonlinear deformations. More recently the cohesive zone (CZ) model has been successfully used to predict the plate end debonding loads of a plated beam subjected to a three-point bending load. However, this existing solution is not general enough to assess plate end debonding failure loads of plated beams. So far only numerical modelling (e.g. finite element modelling) techniques exist as generally applicable methods for predicting interfacial stresses in plated beams. As a simple analytical alternative for such numerical modelling-based methods, this paper presents a simple yet accurate general solution for predicting plate end debonding loads of plated beams. The solution is applicable to all cases of plated beams covering all sectional (e.g. tapered beams), loading (e.g. distributed load) and boundary conditions (e.g. continuous beams). Accuracy of the solution is demonstrated through comparisons with finite element results.