CAPACITY OF REINFORCED CONCRETE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS RETROFITTED WITH GFRP UNDER CYCLIC LOADING

摘要

The aim of this study is to evaluate the improvement in seismic behavior of Reinforced Concrete (RC) structural elements as a result of retrofitting such elements using Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics (GFRP) or enhancing the concrete quality using High Strength Concrete (HSC). A mathematical model was developed for the analysis of RC structures wrapped with FRP and linked to the inelastic damage analysis computer program IDARC3M, developed earlier by the authors for the analysis of HSC structural frames. The results predicted by the developed model were in good agreement with the experimental results obtained in the literature. The predicted results showed that wrapping the studied frame connection with GFRP improved its ductility and increased its capacity over the control connection (before retrofitting) by 82% and 160%, respectively. On the other hand, the analysis of HSC studied column using the computer program showed a large increase in its capacity. However, special precautions should be taken to achieve good confinement in order to obtain acceptable ductility of HSC structural elements.