BEHAVIOR OF CARBON FIBER REINFORCED POLYMER STRENGTHENED REACTIVE POWDER CONCRETE COLUMNS

An experimental investigation was conducted to investigate the behavior of ultra-high strength reactive concrete(RPC) columns before and after strengthening with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets jacketing under eccentric axial load. Twelve columns were tested up to failure, strengthened and retested to examine strengthening efficiency and to evaluate the effects of variation of the concrete type(normal or RPC), presence of steel fibers and main steel reinforcement ratio.Experimental results showed that CFRP jacketing increases the ultimate failure load of strengthened columns up to 185%, highly stiffens them (reduces lateral displacements) and allow more ductile failure than the original columns. Also,inclusion of steel fibers in RPC columns increases failure loads up to 86%,prevents palling of the concrete cover and increase the ductility.