External bonding of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites on the concrete structures has been proved to be an effective and efficient way to strengthen concrete structures. For a FRP strengthened concrete beam, it is usually observed that the failure occurs in the concrete and a thin layer of concrete is attached on the surface of the debonded FRP plate. To study the debond behavior between concrete and FRP composites, an analytical model based on the three-parameter model is developed to study the debonding behavior for the FRP-to-concrete joint under pure shearing. Then, nonlinear FEM analysis is conducted to verify the proposed analytical model. The FEM results shows good agreement with the results from the model. Finally, with the analytical model, sensitivity analyses are performed to study the effect of the interfacial parameters or the geometric parameters on the debonding behavior. ©Wuhan University of Technology and SpringerVerlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.