Compressive Strength of RC Columns Strengthened with Longitudinal CFRP Composites

Confining RC columns by FRP composites with fibers oriented in the hoop direction is the most common method of strengthening columns. In the present study, however, the application of CFRP composites with fibers aligned along the column’s axis to improve compressive strength of RC columns has been investigated. Global buckling of composite with longitudinal fibers may result in debonding of FRP from column surface, and thus, the compressive load carrying capacity of the strengthened column would not be increased considerably. To limit the global buckling of composite under compression, a newly introduced strengthening method, named as Grooving Method (GM), was utilized in the present study and its effect on postponing the buckling of CFRP fibers when aligned along the column axis was investigated. For this purpose, 12 circular RC columns with diameter of 150 mm and height of 500 mm were tested under axial compression. Experimental results showed that while the effect of installing CFRP with conventional EBR method was negligible on the columns’ load capacity, the grooving method considerably enhanced the columns’ maximum loads.