Experimental and numerical studies on seismic behavior of hollow bridge columns retrofitted with carbon fiber reinforced polymer

Abstract

Seismic behavior of reinforced concrete hollow rectangular bridge columns retrofitted with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) was carried out under constant axial loading and lateral bending. The failure characteristics, flexural ductility, dissipated energy, and hysteretic behavior were analyzed based on cyclic testing of eight specimens retrofitted with CFRP. A simplified CFRP-confined concrete model is developed by considering effective strength coefficient and area distribution ratio of CFRP sheets. The hysteretic behavior and its influencing parameters were studied using fiber element model in the OpenSees program. The results indicate that the failure modes and damages region would be changed and the ductility and dissipated energy of the rectangular hollow bridge columns with CFRP were improved greatly, but the lateral load capacity was not improved obviously. The simplified analytical method presented in this paper is effective for analyzing lateral force and deformation hysteretic behavior of hollow rectangular bridge columns retrofitted with CFRP.