Behaviour of the adhesive bond between low-grade wood and GFRP reinforcements using epoxy resin

In this study, shear tests and pull-off tests were carried out to investigate the bond performance of glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) strips bonded to low-grade poplar wood (Populus x euroamericana I-214). Accordingly, 180 shear specimens and 72 pull-off specimens were produced using three different structural epoxy adhesives. These specimens were divided into two joint types (wood-wood and wood-GFRP configurations), which were tested under dry conditions and after exposure to hydrothermal cycles (i.e., accelerated ageing). The results showed that the epoxy adhesives exhibited good behaviour in the wood-GFRP samples exposed to different hydrothermal conditions. The samples exhibited shear strength values between 4.93 MPa and 8.49 MPa and pull-off strength values between 1.72 MPa and 2.69 MPa. Additionally, there were different main failure modes between the dry specimens and the aged specimens. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
This work was supported by the University of Valladolid through the programme ``Movilidad Doctorandos UVa 2017"and in collaboration with the Laboratory of Structures (LEST) of the University of Minho (Portugal).