Accepted Manuscript

Bond and cracking behavior of lap-spliced reinforcing bars embedded in hybrid fiber
reinforced strain-hardening cementitious composite (SHCC)

Won-Chang Choi, Seok-Joon Jang, Hyun-Do Yun

PII: S1359-8368(16)31447-0
DOI: 10.1016/j.compositesb.2016.09.086
Reference: JCOMB 4578

To appear in: Composites Part B

Received Date: 28 July 2016

Revised Date: 10 September 2016
Accepted Date: 28 September 2016

Please cite this article as: Choi W-C, Jang S-J, Yun H-D, Bond and cracking behavior of lap-spliced
reinforcing bars embedded in hybrid fiber reinforced strain-hardening cementitious composite (SHCC),
Composites Part B (2016), doi: 10.1016/j.compositesb.2016.09.086.

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Bond and Cracking Behavior of Lap-Spliced Reinforcing Bars

Embedded in Hybrid Fiber Reinforced Strain-Hardening
Cementitious Composite (SHCC)
Won-Chang Choi1, Seok-Joon Jang2 and Hyun-Do Yun2*

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1
Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Gachon University, Gyeonggido, Republic of Korea
2
Dept. of Architectural Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

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*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: wiseroad@cnu.ac.kr;
Abstract

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An experimental study was conducted to examine the effect of hybrid fiber, polyethylene (PE)
and steel fiber, reinforcement on the bond and cracking characteristics of lap-spliced
reinforcing bars embedded in strain-hardening cementitious composite (SHCC) in the tension

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zone and subjected to monotonic and cyclic tension loads. This study focused on the
confinement effects with respect to the compressive strength of SHCC mixtures with hybrid
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fiber reinforcement. The SHCC mixtures contained two types of reinforcing fibers:
polyethylene and steel fiber with aspect ratios of 1,000 and 79, respectively. The test
parameters include normal compressive strength (30 MPa) and high strength (100 MPa) and
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spliced lengths in tension (40% and 60% of the splice length recommended by ACI 318) for
the SHCC mixtures. The results indicate that SHCC mixtures can be used effectively to
reduce the development length of rebar up to 60 percent of the splice length required by the
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American Concrete Institute 318 equation according to splitting failure control by multiple
cracking behavior of SHCC mixtures.
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Keywords: strain-hardening cementitious composites (SHCCs), spliced length, bond stress,

cracking behavior, hybrid fiber, spliced bar
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1. Introduction
The structural performance of concrete structures is affected by the bond between the
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reinforcement such as steel bar or fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bar and the concrete.
Resistance to this bond is indicated by factors such as cracking, crack width, deflection,
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structural strength, energy absorption, and dissipation capacity [1-6]. In the existing
provisions, it has been established that the bond strength between concrete and steel rebar is
governed by the mechanical properties of the concrete, concrete cover, bar spacing, the
presence of confining reinforcement, etc. [7, 8]. To ensure a reliable force transfer, the
required development length (ld) in tension has been determined and reported in American
Concrete Institute (ACI) 318-14, which includes design parameters such as diameter,
concrete cover, location of rebar, surface texture of rebar, bond, unit weight of concrete, and
confinement. Among these design parameters, deformed rebar is effective for improving
bond strength and ductility in order to mitigate bond failure as well as to enhance the energy
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absorption and dissipation in both the compression and tension zones [9-16]. In general, two
classifications are used to represent bond failure: splitting failure and pull-out failure.
Splitting failure is known as a common failure mode in many structural applications [17].
When the bond strength between the concrete and spliced rebar is increased by increasing the
size of the deformed reinforcing bar, the pull-out failure mode results from the splitting
failure [12].

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Many numerical and experimental studies have been undertaken to understand bond behavior
and the effects of various related parameters. Zuo and Darwin noted that the high bearing
capacity in high strength concrete prevents the crushing of the concrete in front of bar ribs so

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that the bar slip is reduced [7]. Zuo and Darwin proposed a relationship based on the
extensive database used to determine the bond strength for the compressive strength of

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concrete ranging from 18 MPa to 108 MPa using normalized strength for the compressive
strength of concrete (f’c)1/4 [7].
Although Harajli [7] reported that the effect of concrete compressive strength on the average

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bond strength at failure through normalization with the compressive concrete strength (f’c)1/4
may be underestimated for short development lengths, the bond strength of spliced rebar in
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both normal compressive concrete and high strength concrete can be predicted accurately
using equations proposed in the literature [1, 17].
In more recent research, Harajli [18] studied the confinement effect using steel fiber-
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reinforced concrete on the bond stress-slip response for specimens subjected to cyclic loading.
The steel fiber increased the tensile strength of the concrete and induced confinement effects
in the bond capacity, which increased the bond strength and improved seismic performance
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[4]. Harajli [18] later summarized extensive experimental and analytical research results to
explain the bond characteristics between steel rebar and concrete with various confinement
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effects for plain concrete, steel-confined concrete, fiber-reinforced concrete, and fiber-
reinforced polymer-confined concrete.
Over the last two decades, significant research efforts have been focused on the development
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of high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composite (HPFRCC) such as strain-

hardening cementitious composite (SHCC) and engineered cementitious composite (ECC)
that exhibits significantly improved post-cracking behavior than conventional fiber-
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reinforced concrete (FRC) in direct tension [19-22]. Studies on the mechanical properties of
HPFRCC demonstrated that the hybridization of two or more different types of fibers for
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HPFRCC could improve the crack damage mitigation and strain-hardening performance than
mono fiber reinforced composite [23-25].
Review on the existing literatures related to HPFRCCs indicates that the research on the bond
behavior between steel reinforcement and HPFRCC is limited. Chao et al. [26] conducted the
pullout tests to evaluate the bond stress-slip response of steel bar and tendon in HPFRCC
under monotonic and cyclic loads. Their test results showed that the multiple cracking
behavior of HPFRCC delayed the splitting failure of pullout specimens and enhanced the
bond resistance of reinforcing bar and strand. From test results of beam specimens with
normal weight concrete and three HPFRCC mixtures, Bandelt and Billington [27] reported
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that HPFRCC normalized bond strength from four-point bending tests of beams with lap
splices increased by average 37% compared to concrete beam specimens. Kanakubo and
Hosoya [28] also investigated the bond behavior of reinforced SHCC elements through the
pullout and beam tests. As reported in the previous studies, they concluded that the bond
strength of SHCC mixture is higher than that of normal concrete.

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In the paper, the bond performance of lap-spliced steel reinforcement embedded in the hybrid
fiber reinforced SHCCs with different levels of compressive strengths (30 and 100 MPa) is
investigated from direct tension tests. To evaluate the effect of SHCC’s tensile properties on
the bond performance, the transverse reinforcement in the lap-spliced specimens is not

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provided.
This study adopts the equation proposed by Harajli [18] to evaluate the bond characteristics

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of hybrid fiber-reinforced SHCCs in the tension region. The test parameters include the
compressive strength of SHCC mixtures and the reduced splice length in tension that is
recommended by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) 318 equation.

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2. Experimental Program
2.1 Specimen and materials
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Twelve lap-spliced specimens without confinement reinforcement were fabricated to examine
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the bond performance of deformed steel bar embedded in SHCC mixtures using hybrid fibers
(polyethylene fiber and steel fiber) as shown in Figure 1. Two types of compressive strength
(normal compressive strength of 30 MPa and high compressive strength of 100 MPa) for the
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SHCC mixtures and conventional concrete mixtures were prepared. And the splice lengths of
lap-spliced SHCC specimens in the direct tension are 40% and 60% of the required spliced
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length according to Class B in ACI 318-14 specifications. The spliced specimens were loaded
under monotonic loading and cyclic loading for each mixture. The mechanical properties of
the fibers, mixture proportions of cementitious composites, and test parameters are
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summarized in Table 1, Table 2, and Table 3, respectively.

As shown in Table 2, four types of cementitious composites were mixed in this test: two
conventional concretes and two SHCC mixtures. Conventional concrete mixtures consist of
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normal strength concrete (C30) with compressive strength of 30 MPa and high strength
concrete (C100) with compressive strength of 100 MPa. The SHCC mixtures are also H30
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and H100 for hybrid fiber reinforced SHCC with compressive strength of 30 and 100 MPa,
respectively. For producing conventional normal and high strength concretes, the Ordinary
Portland cement (Type I), water, crushed sand with 5 mm maximum size, and crushed coarse
aggregate with maximum size of 25 mm were used. For high strength cementitious
composites, silica fume was added.
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Table 1 Mechanical properties of polyethylene and steel fibers

Specific Tensile Young's
Length, L Diameter, df Aspect ratio
Fibers gravity, strength, modulus,
mm µm L/df
kg/m³ MPa GPa
Polyethylene
0.97 12 12 1,000 2,500 75
fiber (P)

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Steel fiber (S) 7.85 32 405 79 2,300 206

Table 2 Mixture proportions of cementitious composites

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Fibers, % Unit weight, kg/m³
Composite f’c,
w/b Silica
type MPa P S Cement Water S G AE T

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fume
C30 0.50 30 350 175 - 770 981 - -
- -
C100 0.18 100 800 160 89 546 835 - -
H30 0.45 30 0.75 0.75 1,075 484 - 430 - - -

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H100 0.19 100 0.75 0.75 1,409 319 245 163 - 33 7
*P: polyethylene fiber, S: steel fiber, H: hybrid fiber (polyethylene + steel fiber)
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Note: AE is air-entraining agent; T is antifoaming agent.

Each specimen is identified in terms of spliced length, type of fiber, and compressive strength
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of the SHCC mixtures. For example, specimen 40H100 represents 40 percent recommended
spliced length, reinforced with a hybrid (H) mix of polyethylene (P) fiber and steel (S) fiber,
with 100 MPa compressive strength. The two types of reinforcing fiber with polyethylene (P)
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and steel (S) were used for the hybrid SHCC mixture with a combination of 0.75%
polyethylene fiber and 0.75% steel fiber.
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Table 3 Summary of test parameters

Specimen ID Specimen length (1) Spliced length (2), Composite types Load type
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(mm) ld (mm)
100C30 640 440 C30 Cyclic, Monotonic
100C100 440 240 C100 Cyclic, Monotonic
40H30 380 180 H30 Cyclic, Monotonic
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60H30 460 260 H30 Cyclic, Monotonic

40H100 300 100 H100 Cyclic, Monotonic
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60H100 340 140 H100 Cyclic, Monotonic

Note: (1) See Fig. 1; (2) splice length calculated using ACI 318-14 equation.

Figure 1 shows that the specimen has a rectangular cross-section of 80 mm x 100 mm

reinforcement and that the rebar is spliced in the middle of the specimen with a lap splice
length (ld). As shown in Figure 2, the three strain gauges were attached at the splice region
and at both ends of the steel rebar. In addition, a crack gauge was installed at the end of the
splice region to measure the crack width. The overall displacement of the specimen and strain
of the rebar were measured using dial gauges attached at both ends of the specimen. The
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deformed reinforcement used for the splice region has the following properties: nominal
diameter of 16 mm, yield strength (fy) = 528 MPa, strain at yielding (εy) = 2750 µ, and elastic
modulus (Es) = 193 GPa.

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(a) Dimension (b) Lap-spliced detail
Figure 1. Geometry of lap-spliced specimens

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Figure 2. Tension loading set-up for lap-spliced specimen

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2.2 Experimental procedure

Monotonic and cyclic direct tension loads were applied using the 50-kN capacity of a
Universal testing machine. For the cyclic tensile tests, the number of cracks and the crack
widths were measured at maximum stress so that the dispersion and mitigation of the cracks
that developed in the spliced zone could be examined. The cyclic loads, which were
controlled using two displacement gauges installed at the ends of the specimens, were
repeatedly applied at 500 µ, 1000 µ, and 2000 µ. During the test, the crack widths were
measured using a microscope with 60 magnifications. The averaged crack widths were
computed by measuring all the cracks at each level of deformation. Table 5 includes the
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averaged crack widths that correspond to the tensile strain of 0.1 percent of the
reinforcements in the splice zones of the concrete and SHCC mixtures.

3. Discussion of test results

3.1 Material properties of cementitious composites

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Compressive strength of each mixture was measured according to Korea industrial standard
(KS F 2405) [29]. Three cylindrical specimens with 100 mm in diameter and 200 mm in

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height for each mixture were tested to evaluate the average compressive strength. Table 4
provides the average compressive properties of cementitious composites at the age of 28 days.
Table 4 indicates that the average compressive strength of C30, C100, H30 and H100 were 32,

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87, 40 and 89 MPa, respectively.

Table 4 Compressive properties of cementitious composites

Composite Compressive strength Elastic modulus

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Type (MPa) (GPa)
C30
C100
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87.1
25.8
15.3
H30 40.1 36.4
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H100 89.3 28.6
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Flexural load versus deflection behavior of each composite was examined according to KS F
2408 [29]. For each mixture, three prismatic specimens with the dimensions of 100 x 100 x
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400 mm were manufactured and tested in third-point loading a span of 300 mm. The flexural
stress versus midspan deflection of the prismatic specimen was provided in Figure 3(a).
Bending test results showed that the compressive strength of composites increased the
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flexural strengths in both composites such as conventional concrete and SHCC. Normal and
high strength concrete prisms after the first cracking showed a brittle failure while both types
of SHCCs exhibited the deflection-hardening behavior without strength reduction after initial
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cracks. Average flexural strength of C30, C100, H30 and H100 were 3.7, 8.6, 9.6 and 16.7
MPa, respectively. The first cracking strength (fLOP) of concrete was marginally affected by
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the fibers, but its post-cracking behavior was clearly improved by incorporating fibers due to
the fiber bridging effect [30] .
Figure 3(b) shows the typical crack patterns on the bottom side, flexural-tensile side, of tested
prism with H30 and H100 SHCC mixtures. The visible multiple cracks were distributed on
the bottom side in the middle region of both H30 and H100 specimens. These multiple
cracking formatted by the stress redistribution and the bridging effect of PE and steel fibers
after first crack improved the flexural performance of SHCC prisms.
Five dumbbell-shaped specimens for each SHCC mixture were prepared for direct tension
test to evaluate the direct tensile strength and cracking pattern of SHCCs. More information
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on the geometry and loading setup of direct tensile specimens is available in the literature
[31]. Typical behavior of H30 and H100 dumbbell-shaped specimen under direct tension are
presented in Figure 4(a). Both tensile stress versus strain curves of specimens from hybrid
fiber reinforced SHCC mixtures exhibited strain-hardening behavior. Average cracking
strengths of H30 and H100 were 3.2 and 6.2 MPa, respectively. Average tensile strengths and
strain of H30 and H100 were 5.2 and 7.8 MPa, 2.6 and 0.9%, respectively. Figure 3(b) shows

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the typical cracking procedure of both SHCC specimens. As expected, the first crack strength

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(a) Flexural behavior

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(b) Final crack patterns on the bottom side of prisms

Figure 3. Flexural properties of SHCC prisms

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(a) Tensile behavior
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(b) Cracking procedure
Figure 4. Tensile properties of SHCC dumbbell-shaped specimens
and ultimate tensile strength increases with the increase of SHCC’s compressive strength

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while the ultimate strain capacity and multiple cracking behavior decreases with the increase
of compressive strength.
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3.2 Tensile stress-strain response and failure mode of lap-spliced specimens
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Figure 5 presents the tensile stress-strain relationship in the lap splice region when the
specimens were subjected to monotonic and cyclic loading. Without any confinement, the
control specimens for both normal strength and high strength concrete indicate a sudden load
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drop after reaching the peak tensile stress in the first cycle whereas the remaining specimens
show confinement effects due to the fiber reinforcement in the SHCC mixture. The responses
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for both monotonic loading and cyclic loading show a similar tendency, except for specimen
C100. Also, clearly the fiber-reinforced confinement, compressive strength of the SHCC
mixtures, and the spliced lengths influenced the maximum tensile stress and confinement.
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(a) C30 (b) C100

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(c) 60H30 (d) 60H100

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(e) 40H30 (f) 40H100

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Figure 5. Tensile stress-strain in spliced region

The experimental results are summarized in Table 5 and include experimental results from
related research conducted by the authors [16]. They similarly fabricated the specimen with
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containing polyethylene. The table includes (1) tensile strength, (2) tensile strain, (3) average
crack width at 0.2 percent tensile strain, (4) average bond strength determined by Equation
(2).
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Table 5 Summary of experimental results

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Initial crack
Specimen (1) (2) (3) (4)
ID Strength, (MPa) (%) (µm) (MPa)
Strain, %
MPa
Con30 95 0.008 316 0.06 89 31.9
Con100 149 0.002 168 0.06 84.7
40H30 170 0.001 378 0.73 47 40.1
This study
60H30 65 0.001 474 0.23 46 40.1
40H100 121 0.016 331 2.05 43 94.4
60H100 100 0.013 420 0.15 36 94.4
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40P30 125 0.003 375 0.83 43 41.4

Choi et 60P30 73 0.005 491 0.18 43 41.4
al.[16] 40P100 89 0.005 316 2.13 47 81.7
60P100 89 0.003 401 0.14 34 81.7
Note: (1) tensile strength (MPa); (2) tensile strain (%); (3) average crack width (µm) at 0.1% tensile
strain; and (4) average bond strength (u, MPa) as determined by Equation (2).

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The tensile strength of the SHCC specimens for Class B in the ACI 318 specifications
exceeded the 50 percent yield strength of the reinforcement (264 MPa) regardless of the
splice length for both fiber-reinforced specimens. These results indicate that 60 percent of the

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lap splice length required by the ACI code equation can be used safely.
Tensile strength can be resisted by the cement matrix and rebar under axial tensile loading.

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Figure 6 presents the contribution of the cement composites as part of the tensile stress that
develops in the splice region for each specimen. The tensile stress of the cement composites
is computed by subtracting the tensile strength of the rebar (D16) from the tensile stress of

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each specimen. The cement matrix in the control specimens C30 and C100 make few
contributions to tensile stress of the cement matrix. For the SHCC specimens that contain
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fibers, however, the cement matrix contributes to the tensile strength in the splice region over
three times that of the concrete mixtures. For the normal strength SHCC mixtures, the tensile
stress is about 10 percent to 30 percent higher than in the high strength SHCC mixture
depending on the type of fiber. The specimens with hybrid fibers show higher tensile stress
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than the control specimens.
Furthermore, the use of cement composites enhances the tensile strength of the specimens,
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which then leads to improvements in terms of strength and deformation.

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Figure 6. Tensile strength of cement matrix in lap-spliced specimens

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(a) C30 specimen

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(b) C100
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(c) 40H30
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(d) 60H30

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(e) 40H100
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(f) 60H100
Figure 7. Typical cracking pattern of lap-spliced specimens after monotonic testing
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Typical cracking pattern after direct tension tests for lap-spliced specimens are shown in
Figure 7. Tensile cracks initiated at the end of splice region of all lap spliced specimens. As
the tensile load increased, tensile cracks formed at the inner of splice region and pass
perpendicular to the axis of spliced specimen. For normal and high strength concrete
specimens, longitudinal splitting cracks were initiated from transvers tensile cracks near the
end of lap-spliced bar. After the formation of splitting cracks, the concrete specimens showed

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an explosive failure with spalling cover concrete over the splice region as presented in
Figures 7(a) and (b). The multiple cracking and strain-hardening behavior of hybrid fiber
reinforced SHCC retarded an abrupt splitting failure and mitigated crack-damage of lap-

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spliced region as shown in Figures 7 (c) through (f). The tensile strength and strain capacity
of SHCC mixture in direct tension controlled the bond strength of lap-spliced reinforcement
and the ductility of spliced region. Loading type and spliced length had insignificant effect on

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the cracking pattern of the SHCC spliced region.

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3.3 Steel strain response
Figure 8 shows the strain distributed through the rebar in the tension zone as measured by the
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strain gauges installed as shown in Figure 1(b). Without reinforced fibers in the control
mixtures, the strains do not increase proportionally until bond failure, whereas the strains in
the SHCC mixtures with fiber reinforcements show consistency in increasing the load until
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the maximum load. Also, the strains in the rebar are evenly distributed, corresponding to each
load case without any significant differences, which indicates that the fiber reinforcement
distributes the bond stress throughout the developed spliced length. While, a sudden increase
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of strain in the steel rebar at the point where crack was localized for high-strength SHCC
specimens can be observed that the steel bar strain is localized at the point of crack
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localization for strain-hardening high-strength concrete, and this causes a decrease in the
ductility of reinforced concrete beams [32].
C EP
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(a) C30 (b) 60H30 (c) 40H30

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(d) C100 (e) 60H100 (f) 40H100

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Figure 8. Strain distribution of steel rebar

4. Analytical predictions

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4.1 Local maximum bond strength
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The maximum bond strength (umax) with a splitting failure mode can be computed using
several equations that are available in the literature. With regard to a recent proposed
equation, the maximum bond strength can be computed using the following equation
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proposed by Harajli [14]. The equation includes the confinement effects in the spliced region.
 /

  0.78 ∙     (1)

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where c is the minimum concrete cover, kc is the confinement parameter (kc = 0.45c(vf L / df)),
vf is the volume fraction of the steel fibers, L is the length of the fiber, df is the diameter of the
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fiber, and db is the diameter of the steel rebar.

The confinement parameter kc in this study is computed based on the steel fiber because steel
fiber that has a high elastic modulus value is more beneficial for controlling macrocracks than
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polyethylene fiber that has a low elastic modulus value. Also, the high deformation capacity
of the polyethylene fiber is good for controlling microcracks.
The measured steel strain values were used to determine the measured maximum local bond
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stress (u) by summing the surrounding bond force along the spliced length, as follows:
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 ∙

  (2)
∙

where Ls is the splice length, and fs is the stress of the spliced reinforcement at failure.
Comparing the maximum bond strength test results and the predicted values in Figure 9 with
respect to compressive strength in the SHCC mixtures and the ratio of the predicted
maximum bond strength and the measured maximum bond strength (MPa) indicates that the
proposed equation by Harajli provides good agreement for the specimens with 40 percent and
60 percent less development length according to Class B in the ACI 318 equation. However,
the predicted equation tends to overestimate the maximum bond strength of the control
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specimen without any confinement.

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Figure 9. Comparison between predicted maximum bond strength and measured maximum

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bond strength with respect to the compressive strength of SHCC mixtures

4.2. Average bond strength

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The average bond strength at failure is computed based on the average strain obtained from
three gauges. Also, an analytical equation is available: Zuo and Darwin [2] proposed
Equation (3) to predict the effects of compressive strength with normalization using the
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compressive strength (f’c)1/4. The average bond strength U is the function of the ratio of the
bar diameter to the development/splice length Ld (db/Ld) and a ratio of the smallest side cover
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to the bar diameter (c/db).

  -
"/#  $9.52 + 19.03   + 587.5   , 0.1 + 0.9 (3)
 !  +
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where U and f’c are in MPa, and c is the smallest side cover, bottom cover, or half the clear
distance between the bars.
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Figure 10 shows the bond strength normalized to (f’c)1/4, including the experimental results
obtained by the authors in other research [16]. The effect of the concrete strength on the
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average bond strength may be drastically underestimated for short development/splice lengths
(less than 16 Ld/db). These results match well with research results obtained by Harajli [14].
However, it can be observed that the difference in the average bond strength and the average
bond strength normalized to (f’c1/4) for both the high strength and normal strength concrete
specimens tends to be mitigated considerably within the practical range of the
development/splice length [12]. As a result of the large rate of reduction in the normalized
average bond strength with an increase in Ld/db, Equation (3) that is used to predict the
average bond strength does not properly consider the confinement effect from the reinforced
hybrid fiber including steel fibers.
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Figure 10. Normalized average bond strength Uave/f’c1/4 versus Ld/db

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5. Conclusions
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In order to evaluate the interaction between SHCCs and reinforcement, direct tensile tests
were performed for high strength and normal strength SHCC mixtures with two types of
developed/spliced lengths that are 40 percent and 60 percent shorter than those recommended
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in the ACI provisions. The following results have been obtained.
1) The modified pull-out test results show that the tensile strength values of all the SHCC
specimens are above the allowable stress level for Class B splices according to the ACI 318
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equation and also show steady strength reduction and ductile behavior after reaching
maximum strength.
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2) Using hybrid fiber in a SHCC mixture leads to clear increases in bond strength,
specifically in the normal strength SHCC mixture, and also noticeable improvement in
ductility.
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3) Tensile strength values in the splice region are lower for the high strength SHCC mixture
than for the normal strength SHCC mixture. This result may be due to the large amount of
autogenous shrinkage of the high strength SHCC mixture in the early stage. Macrocracks in
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the specimens with the SHCC mixture containing hybrid fibers were more pronounced than
those of specimens with the SHCC mixture that contained polyethylene fiber in the related
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research result.
4) The analytical results show that the average bond stress and cracks along the splice length
are more distinct in the SHCC mixture with hybrid fiber than in the other SHCC mixtures and
that the hybrid mixture increased the normal compressive strength. Increasing the splice
length for both compressive strength levels leads to a decrease in the bond stress.

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