Amir Mofidi - Associate Professor, Department of Engineering, Brock University, Canada,
Lijuan (Dawn) Cheng - Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California,Davis, USA
Omar Chaallal - Professor, École de Technologie Supérieure, University of Quebec, Canada
Mona Rajabifard - Research Assistant, Department of Engineering, Brock University, Canada,
Yixin Shao - Professor, Trottier Institute for Sustainability in Engineering and Design, McGill University,Canada

This paper presents accurate, reliable and practical theoretical design equations for reinforced-concrete (RC) beams strengthened in shear with near-surface mounted (NSM) FRP reinforcement. Unlike other existing design equations, the proposed design equations can be used for RC beams strengthened with both NSM FRP bars and laminate, and are capable of predicting the failure mode of the NSM -strengthened beams. A state-of-the-art fracture mechanics-based NSM bond model has been incorporated to develop the proposed evolutionary design equations. The accuracy of the proposed design equations was validated using relevant experimental studies in the literature. The proposed design equations were able to achieve superior accuracy when the predicted results were compared with those of the existing models in the literature using different statistical measures.

Near-surface mounted, FRP shear rehabilitation, bond model, fracture mechanics.