Accurate measurement of the bond stress between rebar and concrete in reinforced concrete using FBG sensing technology

Recent earthquakes in several developing countries have shown that reinforced concrete (RC) buildings with improper structural detailing experience severe damage under seismic motions. Using low-quality construction materials such as brick aggregates, resulting in low-strength concrete, significantly impacts the bond between rebar and concrete. Accurate evaluation of the bond performance of such low-strength concrete is one of the key issues for seismic safety assessment of RC buildings, especially in Bangladesh; thus, the bond performance is usually evaluated through laboratory tests. However, conventional measurements of bond stress based on rebar strains measured by electrical resistance strain gauges are likely to negatively impact the bond behavior/performance because of the reduced total contact area between rebar and concrete as well as the changing rebar surface boundary conditions. Under the above social and academic backgrounds, in this study, a new measurement technique that applies fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors embedded in optical fiber to rebar strain measurements is developed, and its effectiveness is investigated to realize more accurate measurements of the bond stress between rebar and concrete. Two 70% scaled RC beam-column joint specimens in which the beam rebar was anchored in a straight manner were constructed with identical detailing, except for the beam rebar strain measuring methods. The specimens were then subjected to cyclic lateral loading until failure. By comparing the experimental data acquired by the above two different devices (the FBG sensors and conventional strain gauges), it was found that the experimental bond strength on the beam rebar based on the strain data measured by the FBG sensors was much higher than that from the data measured using conventional strain gauges. Which negatively impacted the test data on the beam-column joint’s capacity in the specimen applied the conventional measuring method, indicating the necessity of the presented method not only for accurate evaluation of the bond stress between rebar and concrete but also for seismic safety assessments of RC buildings.