Stress Field Approach for Prediction of End Concrete Cover Separation in RC Beams Strengthened with FRP Reinforcement

End concrete cover separation is one of the most common failure modes for RC beams strengthened with external FRP reinforcement. The premature failure mode significantly restricts the application of FRP materials and could incur serious safety problems. In this paper, an innovative stress field-based analytical approach is proposed to assess the failure strength of end concrete cover separation and the conventional plane-section analysis is extended to evaluate the corresponding carrying capacity of FRP-strengthened RC beams. First, the dowel action of reinforcement and the induced concrete splitting, reflecting the interaction between concrete, steel and FRP, are considered in establishing the geometrical relationships of stress field for cracked concrete block. Then, the cracking angle and innovative failure criterion, considering the arrangement of steel and FRP reinforcement and cracking status of concrete and its softening effect, are derived to predict the occurrence of concrete cover separation and related mixed modes of debonding failure. Subsequently, an extended sectional analytical approach, in which the components of effective tensile strain of FRP resulted from flexural and shear actions are both considered, is presented to evaluate the carrying capacity of strengthened beams. Finally, the proposed calculational model is effectively validated by experimental results available in the literature.