Bond Behaviour of FRCM Composites: Effects of High Temperature

Fire remains one of the serious potential risks to most buildings and structures, as recently it’s been witnessed in Paris’ historic Notre Dame Cathedral and London’s Grenfell Tower. Concrete and masonry construction materials suffer physiochemical changes and mechanical damage caused by heating that are usually confined to the outer surface but can eventually compromise their load-bearing capacity. FRCM systems could provide, when applied, supplemental fire insulation on pre-existing structural members, but there is a lack of knowledge about their properties in those conditions. This experimental work, thus, aims to evaluate the mechanical behaviour of carbon-FRCM and basalt-FRCM composites bonded to masonry substrate after high temperature exposure. Temperatures of 100 °C, 300 °C and 500 °C over a period of three hours were used to investigate the degradation of their mechanical properties. Single lap shear bond tests were carried out to evaluate the bond-slip response and the failure modes. For all the tested temperatures higher peak stresses were measured for carbon-FRCM composite than basalt ones. Furthermore, low-density basalt-FRCM composite showed higher peak stresses and lower global slips up to 300 °C than high-density one. Carbon-FRCM composite failure mode was not effected by temperature. High-density basalt-FRCM composite showed a change in failure mode between 300 °C and 500 °C.