Creep of Bonded Concrete / Composite Interfaces Coupled with Hygrothermal Aging: Experimental and Analytical Studies

Abstract

An innovative experimental device was designed forcharacterizing the creep behavior of the concrete/compositebonded interface, whilst this latter is simultaneously subjected tohydrothermal ageing. This test setup can load simultaneouslyto a hydro-pneumatic accumulator. Test bodies are compatiblewith an existing single shear test setup used for assessing theresidual capacity of aged specimens. A prototype of the creepdevice involving three double-shear specimens was first designedand built in order to validate the concept. This paper aims atdescribing the proposed creep setup and its instrumentation, thevalidation stages, as well as the development and the validationof an analytical model for studying the creep behavior of bondedconcrete/FRP interfaces. Then, we describe an ongoingexperimental program involving fourteen test specimensreinforced with two different commercial FRP systems, installedin a climatic room (40°C, 95% R.H.) in order superimposehygrothermal ageing to the creep load.