Experimental and Numerical Study of FRP Encased Composite Concrete Columns

Abstract

A new type of composite column is presented and assessed through experimental testing and numerical modeling. The objective of this research is to investigate design options for a composite column without the use of ferrous materials. This is to avoid the current problem of deterioration of concrete due to expansion of rusting reinforcement members. Such a target can be achieved by replacing the steel reinforcement of concrete columns with pultruded I-shape glass FRP structural sections. The composite column utilizes a glass FRP tube that surrounds a pultruded I-section glass FRP, which is subsequently filled with concrete. The GFRP tube acts as a stay-in-place form in addition to providing confinement to the concrete. A total of four composite columns were tested under monotonic axial loading. The experimental ultimate capacity of each of the tested composite column was compared to the predicted numerical capacity using ANSYS program. The comparison showed that the predicted numerical values were in good agreement with the experimental ones.

Keywords

• composite column
• concrete
• frp
• confinement
• tube
• pultruded
• compression