Modeling of passive and active external confinement of RC columns with elastic material

Abstract

One of the most attractive applications of composite materials is their use as confining devices for concrete columns, which may result in remarkable increases of strength and ductility. The current investigation focuses on the modeling of reinforced concrete columns passively or actively confined by composites, under axial load. Furthermore, the research highlights the effectiveness and modeling of ultra high extension capacity fiber ropes implemented as external confining reinforcement so as to upgrade ductility and strength of concrete columns. It concerns columns of square cross‐section with plain or steel reinforced concrete. The novel confining technique uses composite rope made of polypropylene fibers as passive or pretensioned reinforcement while it presents linear elastic behavior up to failure and is applied by hand. It may enable confined columns to dissipate enormous amounts of earthquake induced energy through concrete deformation. The proposed constitutive model is compared against available experimental results involving circular or square columns with passive or active FRP confinement.