Evaluation of the mechanical performance of short concrete column confined with CFRP and GFRP

Concrete has been successfully used to build strong and economic structures. However severe environmental exposures slowly deteriorate concrete strength until complete failure reducing its designed service life. Fiber Reinforced Polymer “FRP” has been recently introduced in the construction industry to strengthen and retrofitting several structural elements including columns. In this research two types of FRP have been used to wrap concrete column in order to increase its capacity; these are Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer “CFRP” and Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer “GFRP”. Twelve short concrete columns have been wrapped with one and two FRP layers including CFRP and GFRP to evaluate their mechanical performance. Mechanical testing has shown that, in general, concrete columns wrapped with FRP produced higher modulus of elasticity compared to the control sample. Results showed that one layer of CFRP have 85.8% increases where as one layer of GFRP showed an increase of 64.5%. Furthermore, two layers of CFRP and GFRP showed 112.5% and 77.2% increase respectively.