Overlay systems have been used by many states for the protection of bridge decks, but the premature delaminations and failures have been observed in many cases. A comprehensive study was recently defined to investigate overlay performance in collaboration with the West Virginia Department of Transportation-Division of Highways (WVDOH).;As part of a comprehensive program, the present study is concerned with the properties of several types of overlay mixtures and the interface bond strengths between them and substrate concrete. All the materials used are of interests to WVDOH. Both fresh and hardened concrete properties of seven different overlay types were characterized. Four of the seven were selected for the study of interface bond strength, which included latex modified concrete, silica fume modified concrete, fiber-reinforced concrete and slag modified concrete. With these four selected overlays, statistical design of experiments were conducted for the evaluation of the influences on bond strength of four factors: aggregate types, surface preparations, use of bonding slurry, and substrate age using a recently developed direct shear test apparatus.;Results show that except for bonding slurry, all the parameters had strong influence on shear bond strength. The results of this study will serve the purpose of screening and selection of overlays from a large number of variables, and will finally help to develop guidelines by WVDOH for future implementations of concrete overlays in the field