Bond Behavior of Plain Bars in Concrete under Reversed Cyclic Loading

Plain bars with a diameter of 10 mm are widely used in reinforced concrete buildings, and the bond behavior between the bars and concrete has an essential effect on the seismic performance of concrete structures. Thus, to assess the safety of old buildings and repaired buildings with normal concrete, it was necessary to further investigate the bond performance of the plain bars in the concrete. The bonding tests under monotonic and reversed cyclic loading were carried out on the specimens reinforced with plain bars, and the influences of concrete grade and embedment length on the bond behavior were taken into consideration. The results indicate the maximum bond stress under reversed cyclic loading is less than that under monotonic loading, and this is the same for corresponding slip for the same test parameters. The concrete compressive strength positively affects the maximum bond stress, whereas the embedment length has a negative effect. Based on the elasticity analysis and test data fitting, the expressions of bond stress at characteristic points on the bond stress–slip curves were carried out. Consequently, the bond stress–slip model was established, which could be applied to calculate the bond stress–slip relationships under monotonic and reversed cyclic loading. By comparison between the test curves and proposed model, a good agreement is observed, which indicates that the proposed model can be used to predict the bond stress–slip curve of plain bars in concrete.