S.R. De Barros
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Adhesive bonding of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) patches is increasingly used to strengthen steel structures. While carbon FRP (CFRP) and epoxy adhesives are the primary materials in industrial applications, this study explores hybrid Carbon/Flax FRP as an alternative for reinforcing steel plates under flexural loading. Four composite layups were tested: F5 (flax), C5 (carbon), CFC, and FC (carbon/flax hybrids). These patches were bonded to steel plates using three adhesives: a flexible and ductile silane-modified polymer (SMP-FD), a medium flexibility-ductility acrylate (ACR-MFD), and a rigid and brittle epoxy (EP-RB), representing a wide range of adhesive properties. Three-point bending tests were conducted to evaluate mechanical performance compared to unreinforced steel plates. Results demonstrated that composite patch bonding significantly enhances load-bearing capacity. The EP-RB adhesive provided the highest reinforcement, followed by ACR-MFD and SMP-FD. Hybrid FC and CFC configurations achieved reinforcement comparable to or greater than pure carbon (C5), highlighting the potential of hybrid designs for structural applications.
This chapter discusses the mixed-mode loading of adhesive joints. The importance of mixed-mode loading is first introduced and then test methods commonly used to measure the mixed-mode fracture resistance of adhesive joints are presented and briefly discussed. The approaches to determine the fracture resistance are briefly reviewed and then the partitioning of mixed-mode fracture energies is discussed. The limitations of the local singular field and global approaches to mixed-mode partitioning are discussed and the use and application of a semianalytical cohesive zone analysis partitioning scheme is evaluated. The limitations of the global partitioning approach are further discussed in the context of developing a scheme to design and analyze adhesive joints with dissimilar adherends (a bi-material interface). A longitudinal strain criterion is proposed in addition to the matching of flexural rigidities and the approach is validated numerically. Finally, the practical issues of crack stability, failure path selection, and the use of mixed-mode failure envelopes is considered.