Chapter 7" Design Examples

7.1 Introduction

This book on the Design of FRP and Steel Plated RC Structures deals with a unique
and new form of structure, as it has numerous failure mechanisms that other existing
codes, such as RC and composite steel and concrete codes, do not address. It is not the
aim of this book to promote specific plating techniques nor to promote specific plating
materials, as we believe that this can severely restrict the use of plating. The aims of
this book are to: explain the fundamental behaviour of plated structures so that the
designer develops a feel for plating and, hence, the confidence to apply the plating
technique; illustrate the huge variety of plating options that are available and should
be considered in addressing a retrofitting problem; provide a generic approach for
debonding design that is independent of the design equations available; and to provide
comprehensive analysis tools, for those plating options, that not only illustrate what
can be done but also what cannot be done, so that they can be applied with
confidence. It is hoped that these aims will allow designers to develop their own
individual forms of plating, and allow them the freedom to combine different
techniques and materials in order to find an efficient solution to their specific plating
problem.
It is felt that the debonding failure mechanisms are now well understood and
generally agreed upon and these have to be designed for. Design equations, and
specifically characteristic or lower bound values, have been provided that can be used
in design. No doubt, and hopefully, these design equations will be improved with
time, and as more accurate equations become available these can be substituted into
the general design procedure. It is felt that a major improvement in quantifying the IC
debonding strain will help considerably. For example, if we could reduce the scatter
and start designing for IC debonding at strains that are closer to their mean resistances
in pull tests then this would allow us to use much thicker plates and higher stresses.
There is really little need to improve the PE debonding equations as any refinement
will only lead to nominal savings in material, particularly as this form of debonding
can be easily prevented by simply terminating the plate in a region of low curvature.
The CDC debonding equations are fairly accurate and allow a range of approaches
from complex iterative techniques that can be applied to any combination of plates to
simpler and direct approaches which may require a larger volume of plates. The fact
that the CDC debonding equations have been tied to prestressed code rules suggest
that they are more than adequate.
The examples used in this chapter are not meant to reflect the most efficient
choice but to simply illustrate and provide some feel for the design procedure.
Furthermore, they have not been restricted to within the range of test results from
which the design equations were derived. This chapter starts with a summary of the
debonding design approaches and design steps, and an illustration of the occurrence of
the different forms of debonding. The first structure to be plated is a continuous slab
in an internal bay. As slabs are usually designed without stirrups and, therefore, for
the concrete shear capacity, CDC debonding is rarely a problem. Hence this design
has been used to concentrate on IC debonding of tension face plates and, importantly,
the moment redistribution that the IC debonding resistance allows. PE debonding is
checked, just to illustrate how it affects the extent of plating. The second structure to