Anchor Plates Bonded on Reinforced Concrete: A Preliminary Experimental Investigation

Nowadays, thinking about energy production is a synonym of thinking about how to produce more energy with less input. The solution to this complex equation is the life extension of the existing facilities as per nuclear ones. Hence, the nuclear industry has been looking for non-intrusive and medium-duty fasteners to enable the maintenance of existing assets while saving time and reducing operational costs. Under such a perspective, a solution consists in adopting surface-bonded connection; plates or additional reinforcement can be bonded by an adhesive to hardened concrete. In general, bonding steel plates to reinforced concrete element was investigated as supplementary bending [1] or shear [2] reinforcement, also focusing on the influence of glued plates on stiffness, cracking, and ultimate capacity of strengthened members [3]. However, to the authors’ knowledge, no public result is currently available regarding bonded plates used to transfer tensile or shear actions from an attached element to a reinforced concrete element. In this frame of work, COLD PAD and Électricité de France (EDF) co-developed and patented a non-intrusive composite and fastener bonded “on” concrete rather “in” concrete, called C-BLOCKTM. This innovative fastener should be used for permanent applications. This paper presents the results of a first exploratory test campaign performed by COLD PAD and EDF jointly with Politecnico di Milano, discussing the potentiality of such a fastening technique.