Seismic Performance of High Toughness Cementitious Composite Enhanced by Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer Bars

Abstract

This paper aims to disclose the seismic performance of high toughness cementitious composite (HTCC) enhanced by carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) bars. To this end, several horizontal cyclic loading tests were carried out on CFRP-enhanced HTCC columns and CFRP-enhanced ordinary concrete columns at three different axial compression ratios. Then, the test results were discussed in details with the aid of hysteresis curves and skeleton curves. The results show that the structures are much less prone to brittle failure after the ordinary concrete was replaced with the HTCC; the HTCC is much more ductile than the ordinary concrete; when the axial compression ratio was between 0.2 and 0.5, using the HTCC instead of ordinary concrete can enhance the deformation performance and energy dissipation of structures at a high axial compression ratio, thus improving the seismic performance. The research findings provide new insights into the seismic performance of the HTCC column enhanced with CFRP bars.