Experimental and Numerical Evaluation of Concentrically Loaded RC Columns Strengthening by Textile Reinforced Concrete Jacketing

Abstract

Nowadays, Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) has become a very popular strengthening technique for concrete structures. This paper presents an investigation on the applicability of TRC for strengthening reinforced concrete column. Both experimental and numerical studies are conducted to evaluate the confinement effects of various TRC strengthening schemes. The experimental study is performed on a series of six reinforced concrete square columns tested to failure. Two of them were un-strengthened as references, the other four were strengthened by one or two layers of Carbon Textile Reinforced Concrete (CTRC). The results indicated that the application of carbon TRC enhanced the ductility and ultimate strength of the specimens. Failure of all strengthened columns was together with tensile rupture of textile reinforcements at the corners of column. Finite element models of the CTRC strengthened columns based on ATENA software package were developed and verified with the experimental results. The analytical results show that in the specimen corner areas, textile reinforcements are subjected to a 3D complicated stress state and this may be the cause of their premature failure.