TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 655: Recommended Guide Specification for the Design of Externally Bonded FRP Systems for Repair and Strengthening of Concrete Bridge Elements examines a recommended guide specification for the design of externally bonded Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) systems for the repair and strengthening of concrete bridge elements. The report addresses the design requirements for members subjected to different loading conditions including flexure, shear and torsion, and combined axial force and flexure. The recommended guide specification is supplemented by design examples to illustrate its use for different FRP strengthening applications.

In December 1996, the then CEB established a Task Group with the main objective to elaborate design guidelines for the use of FRP reinforcement in accordance with the design format of the CEB-FIP Model Code and Eurocode2. With the merger of CEB and FIP into fib in 1998, this Task Group became fib TG 9.3 FRP Reinforcement for concrete structures in Commission 9 Reinforcing and Prestressing Materials and Systems. The Task Group consists of about 60 members, representing most European universities, research institutes and industrial companies working in the field of advanced composite reinforcement for concrete structures, as well as corresponding members from Canada, Japan and USA. Meetings are held twice a year and on the research level its work is supported by the EU TMR (European Union Training and Mobility of Researchers) Network "ConFibreCrete”. The work of fib TG 9.3 is performed by five working parties (WP): Material Testing and Characterization (MT&C) Reinforced Concrete (RC) Prestressed Concrete (PC) Externally Bonded Reinforcement (EBR) Marketing and Applications (M&A) This technical report constitutes the work conducted as of to date by the EBR party. This bulletin gives detailed design guidelines on the use of FRP EBR, the practical execution and the quality control, based on the current expertise and state-of-the-art knowledge of the task group members. It is regarded as a progress report since it is not the aim of this report to cover all aspects of RC strengthening with composites. Instead, it focuses on those aspects that form the majority of the design problems. several of the topics presented are subject of ongoing research and development, and the details of some modelling approaches may be subject to future revisions. as knowledge in this field is advancing rapidly, the work of the EBR WP will continue. Inspite of this limit in scope, considerable effort has been made to present a bulletin that is today’s state-of-art in the area of strengthening of concrete structures by means of externally bonded FRP reinforcement.