Development of a user friendly guide for rehabilitation or strengthening of bridge structures using fiber reinforced polymer composites

A worldwide interest is being generated in the use of fibre reinforced polymer composites (FRP) in rehabilitation of reinforced concrete structures. As a replacement for the traditional steel plates or external post-tensioning in strengthening applications, various types of FRP plates, with their high strength to weight ratio and good resistance to corrosion, represent a class of ideal material in external retrofitting. Within the last ten years, many design guidelines have been published to provide guidance for the selection, design and installation of FRP systems for external strengthening of concrete structures. Use of these guidelines requires understanding of a number of issues pertaining to different properties and structural failure modes specific to these materials. A research initiative funded by the CRC for Construction Innovation is currently underway (primarily at RMIT) to develop a decision support tool and a user friendly guide for use of fibre reinforced polymer composites in rehabilitation of concrete structures. This paper presents the development of the user friendly guide and recommended procedures for the design and construction of externally bonded FRP systems for strengthening of aging reinforced concrete bridge based on the design guidelines reported by ACI committee 440, the European design guideline (FIB 14), AS 3600 (2002) and Austroads Bridge design code (1992).