Shear performance of steel plate-concrete joints connected with anchors and adhesive

Steel plate-concrete joints are often applied in strengthening of engineering structures. Eighteen steel plate-concrete joints (connection length of 260–520 mm, width of 80 mm) were tested, which were classified into three types: (a) anchor-connected specimens (BC specimens), in which the steel plates and concrete were connected with anchors; (b) adhesive-connected specimens (AC specimens), in which the steel plates and concrete were connected with adhesive; (c) anchor- and adhesive-connected specimens (BAC specimens), in which the steel plates and concrete were connected with both anchors and adhesive. The following conclusions were drawn. (1) For the same connection length, the ultimate loads of the BAC specimens (e.g. 127 kN) were approximately 78% of the sum of those BC and AC specimens (e.g. 112 and 53 kN). (2) For the BAC specimens, almost all of the load was borne by the adhesive and the anchor hardly shared any load before the specimens reached the peak load. (3) A modified semi-theoretical and semi-empirical formula (C-T model) has been used, which was used to predict the ultimate load of the BAC and AC specimen with satisfactory precision.