Ductility Behaviour of Rectangular Compression Members Retrofitted by Modified Technique of FRP Wrapping

This paper presents an experimental investigation on ductility behaviour of reinforced concrete compression members, rectangular in cross section, modified to elliptical shape in cross section by bonding precast segment covers followed by Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer wrapping (CFRP) under concentric and eccentric loading conditions. Eighteen reinforced concrete rectangular compression members of size 100mm×150mm in cross section and 300mm in height were prepared using normal-strength concrete. Reinforcement ratio was kept at minimum, to simulate compression members that need retrofitting. Out of eighteen specimens, nine specimens were converted to elliptical shape in cross section. From nine remaining rectangular specimens, three specimens retained as it is without wrapping FRP and designated as Group1, remaining six specimens were wrapped with one and two layers of CFRP and designated as Group2. Out of nine elliptical specimens, three specimens were retained as it is without wrapping FRP and designated as Group3, remaining six elliptical specimens were wrapped with one and two layers of CFRP and designated as Group4. Specimens were tested upto failure under monotonic axial compression with concentric and eccentric load conditions. From the experimental results, it is observed that rectangular compression members shape modified to ellipse in cross section and then wrapped with CFRP show outstanding increase in the ultimate load carrying capacity which may be due to increased cross sectional area and effective confinement of FRP wrapping. As the number of layers of CFRP increases the ultimate load carrying capacity increases. With increase in eccentricity, the ultimate loads of the compression members were found to be decreased. Elliptical specimens wrapped with one and two layers of CFRP reported exponential increase in deformation ductility under concentric load condition and considerable increase under eccentric load condition compared to rectangular specimens wrapped with CFRP.