Construction and Building Materials 17 (2003) 499–506

Experimental study on seismic strengthening of RC columns with

wrapped CFRP sheets
L.P. Ye*,1, K. Zhang, S.H. Zhao, P. Feng
Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China

Abstract

Eight specimens, including two strengthened after being loaded to yield level to imitate strengthening with some damage and
one strengthened under a sustained axial load to imitate strengthening under service condition, were tested under constant axial
load and lateral cyclic load to investigate seismic performance of RC columns strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced polymer
sheets (CFRP sheets). The ductility enhancement with the confinement of CFRP sheets was studied by the strain development
and distribution in the CFRP sheets. Based on the experimental results, a confinement factor of CFRP and an equivalent
transversal reinforcement index were suggested. Thus, the seismic design method of the current Chinese seismic design code for
RC columns can be directly used in determining the amount of CFRP required for seismic strengthening.
䊚 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Carbon fiber reinforced polymer sheet; Seismic strengthening; Reinforced concrete column; Ductility

1. Introduction strength and strain. With the confinement of FRP, a

In recent years, repair and seismic retrofit of concrete
structures with CFRP sheets has become more and more
common. The strengthening of RC columns with
wrapped CFRP sheets to improve seismic performance
is one of the major applications of this new strengthen-
ing method. The wrapped CFRP sheet around the plastic
hinge region of RC columns provides not only enough
shear strength which results in a ductile flexure failure
mode in accordance with the concept of strong shear
and weak flexure, but also confinement of concrete in
the plastic hinge region to increase the ductility of the
column.
Saadatmanesh w1,2x found that the strength and duc-
tility of bridge concrete columns can be significantly
increased by wrapping FRP straps around the columns
due to the confinement of concrete and prevention of
the buckling of longitudinal reinforcement bars. The
confinement effectiveness of various influence parame-
ters, such as concrete compressive strength, thickness
and spacing of FRP straps and type of FRP, were
studied. A stress–strain model for concrete confined by
FRP was suggested and used to predict the compressive
*Corresponding author. Fax: q86-10-6277-1132.
E-mail address: ylp@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (L.P. Ye).
1
Member of Chinese Concrete Structure Standard Committee.
desirable ductile flexural failure mode rather than a
brittle shear failure mode can be achieved in seismic
strengthening for concrete columns. In Saadatmanesh’s
w3x subsequent study on the strengthening method of
bridge concrete columns pre-failed in a severe earth-
quake using wrapped FRP sheets, the enhancement of
concrete compressive strength and strain were also
found.
Xiao w4x and Purba w5x studied seismic retrofitting of
RC columns with prefabricated FRP products. The
seismic performance of RC columns was also found to
be improved by increased ductility with the confinement
by FRP composites or sheets. In Xiao’s study, an
analytical model, which takes into consideration the
bond-slip deterioration of lap-spliced longitudinal bars,
was developed for seismic assessment and retrofit
design.
Although the confinement effect of FRP sheets or
jackets were studied and some useful stress–strain rela-
tion models were suggested in previous research for
seismic strengthening of RC columns with FRP, the
determination of the amount of CFRP for design purpose
dose not appear to have been properly resolved by
existing research. In this paper, the confining effect of
CFRP sheets is carefully studied by examining the strain
development in the CFRP sheets and an effective con-

0950-0618/03/$ - see front matter 䊚 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0950-0618(03)00047-3
500 L.P. Ye et al. / Construction and Building Materials 17 (2003) 499–506

Fig. 1. Specimen and section reinforcement. Fig. 2. CFRP wraps, loading and strain gauges on CFRP wraps.

finement factor of CFRP and an equivalent transverse one along the three section sides (two on the opposite
reinforcement index are suggested. With the suggested compressive and tensile sides and one on the other side).
equivalent transverse reinforcement index, the seismic The specimens were divided into three groups: (1)
design method of the current seismic design require- the first group, having five specimens, was used to
ments of RC column in Chinese design code w8x can be investigate the effect of the amount of CFRP on ductility
easily used in determining the amount of CFRP. enhancement. The constant axial load N (s0.48f cbh)
and cyclic lateral load V were applied after the column
had been strengthened; (2) the second group, having
2. Outline of experiment only one column, was strengthened under a sustained
axial load of 230 kN by prestressed tendons to imitate
The specimen was a vertical cantilever column fixed strengthening under service condition; (3) there are two
to a bottom base beam, as shown in Fig. 1. The base columns in the third group. The two specimens were
beam of the specimen, fixed to the test platform, was named CF30-5-319 and CF30-6-489 before strengthening
strong enough to provide a fixed end for the column. and were firstly loaded in the same way as for the
The column section size was b=hs200=200 mm with specimens in group 1 to a degree that the tensile
round corners of 20-mm radius to avoid stress concen- reinforcement of the column just reached the yield
tration of CFRP sheets, where h, called the section strength so that the column was still repairable. Then
height, is the section size in the direction of lateral load, the specimens were strengthened with wrapped CFRP
while b, called the section width, is the section size in strips after unloading and renamed as CF30-5-31 and
the perpendicular direction of lateral load. The transverse CF30-6-48, and then continued to be tested under the
steel hoops were 6 mm in diameter with a spacing of same load condition.
200 mm for all specimens. Eight longitudinal reinforce- The parameters of all specimens are shown in Table
ment bars with a diameter of 16 mm were placed around 1, in which, f cu is the average compressive strength of
the perimeter of the section. All specimens were tested three 150 mm cubes; ayh is the shear span ratio, in
under a lateral reversal cyclic load V acting at 600 mm which a, called the shear span, is the height of the
from the bottom of the column with a push–pull
hydraulic jack and a simultaneous constant axial load N Table 1
on the top of the column (Fig. 2). Unidirectional CFRP Parameters of specimens
strips were impregnated with polyester resin and
Group Test no. f cu (MPa) ayh lCFS lsv n bCF sCF
wrapped around the column. Different strip widths bCF
and centre to centre strip distances sCF were employed 1 CF30-0-48 34 3.0 0 0.0171 –0.48 –
to provide different amounts of CFRP strengthening. CF30-1-48 34 3.0 0.0354 0.0171 0.48
15 60
The overlap length of CFRP strips was 100 mm, and CF30-2-48 34 3.0 0.0589 0.0171 0.48
25 60
CF30-3-48 34 3.0 0.0825 0.0171 0.48
35 60
no CFRP rupture was observed in overlap zone in the CF30-4-48 34 3.0 0.1414 0.0171 0.48
Fully
tests. Strain gauges were installed on the surface of Wrapp-
CFRP strips in the fiber direction to study the stress ed
development and confinement effect of CFRP. Each 2 CF30-5-44 37.2 3.0 0.0449 0.0163 0.44 20 60
CFRP strips in the potential plastic hinge zone, approx- 3 CF30-5-31 53 3.0 0.0369 0.0134 0.31 20 60
CF30-6-48 34 3.0 0.1061 0.0171 0.48 45 60
imately 1.5h, was provised with strain gauges one by
 L.P. Ye et al. / Construction and Building Materials 17 (2003) 499–506 501

Fig. 3. Lateral load–displacement hysteresis loops of first and second groups.

lateral force action point from the bottom of the column;
lCFSsrCFS,v(f CFS y f c), is called the volume transverse
reinforcement index of CFRP sheets, where rCFS,v is the
volume ratio of CFRP sheets to the confined concrete,
f CFS is the tensile strength of CFRP sheets and f c is the
compressive strength of concrete (f cs0.76f cu is adopted
according to the Chinese concrete structure design code
w8x); lsvsrsv(f yv y f c), is called the volume transverse
reinforcement index of steel hoops, where rsv is the
volume ratio of steel hoops to the confined concrete,
f yv is the tensile strength of steel hoops; nsNy f cbh is
called the axial load ratio, and ns0.48 was adopted for
most of the columns which is equal to the maximum
axial load limit of the Chinese design code w8x for
ordinary building columns.
The tensile strength and elastic modulus of CFRP
sheet are 3500 MPa and 235 GPa, respectively. The
thickness of CFRP sheet is 0.111 mm.
3. Experimental results
The hysteresis lateral load V and displacement D
relations obtained from the tests of the first and second
groups are shown in Fig. 3. The specimen CF30-0-48
was the control column without strengthening, which
failed in the shear mode due to a low shear capacity.
The specimen CF30-1-48 also failed in the shear mode
because of less CFRP strengthening and the CFRP strips
finally ruptured due to large shear deformation of diag-
onal shear cracks, but the shear strength was obviously
502 L.P. Ye et al. / Construction and Building Materials 17 (2003) 499–506

Table 2
Main experimental results

Specimens Flexural cracking Diagonal cracking Yielding Maximum load Ductility factor Failure
modes
V D V D V D V D q y
kN mm kN mm kN mm kN mm
CF30-0-48 39.0 1.2 73.1 3.33 69.4 2.94 80.6 8.75 3.34 y3.05 CS, B
CF30-1-48 58.9 1.86 88.7 4.8 86.8 4.66 98.6 9.04 3.41 y3.37 CS
CF30-2-48 y75 y2.8 90.1 7.28 75.6 3.76 93.9 9.49 3.87 y3.85 CF
CF30-3-48 y85 y3.7 105 9.35 87.7 3.85 105 9.27 4.50 y4.48 CF
CF30-4-48 90.9 6.27 – – 76.1 3.34 96.9 15.1 5.77 y5.70 CF
CF30-5-44 90.0 4.0 105 4.8 y99 y4.0 111 8.15 3.99 y3.95 CS
CF30-5-319 y82 y3.5 y90 y4.6 y88 y7.0 101 8.82 y y S
CF30-5-31 y y y y y y 102 14.3 4.10 y3.85 CF
CF30-6-489 71.2 2.96 79.3 4.47 79.3 4.47 86.6 9.76 y y S
CF30-6-48 y y y y y y 96.0 18.8 4.26 y5.00 CF
Note: V is the lateral load; D is the lateral displacement; (2) CF30-5-319 and CF-30-6-489 denote the two specimens CF30-5-31 and CF30-6-
48 before strengthening, respectively; (3) ‘q’ represents the push load direction, ‘y’ represents the pull load direction; and (4) Failure Modes:
CS—Compressive and Shear; CF—Compressive and Flexural; B—Bond failure of longitudinal steel bars; S—Shear.

increased compared to the control specimen CF30-0-48
(see Table 2). As the amount of CFRP sheet was
sufficient to suppress the shear failure mode, the lateral
load capacities of the remaining three columns in the
first group were almost not increased due to flexure
failure at the bottom section of the column, while
ductility was increased with the amount of CFRP. As
the flexural deformation increased, the concrete of the
compressive zone at the bottom part of the column
expanded more, which resulted in tensile stresses in the
wrapped CFRP strips and finally the CFRP strips also
ruptured due to the expansion of concrete, but fewer
shear cracks were observed. The specimen CF30-4-48,
fully wrapped and had the largest amount of CFRP,
showed the largest ductility and best seismic perform-
ance among all specimen. The failure modes of the
specimens of the first and the second groups are shown
in Fig. 4.
The specimens in the third group were firstly loaded
to yield at a drift angle RsDyas1y125 before strength-
ening. Some diagonal shear cracks appeared and damage
could obviously be observed. After unloading, the spec-
imens were strengthened with CFRP sheets and then the
test continued. The lateral hysteresis load–displacement
relations before and after strengthening are shown in
Fig. 6. It can be seen from Fig. 6 that the columns
repaired after damage can also endure larger deformation
than the control specimen CF30-0-48, but with a reduced
initial stiffness due to cracks and damage-induced before
strengthening.
The cracking, yield and maximum lateral loads, cor-
responding displacements and failure modes of all spec-
imens are listed in Table 2. The ductility factor is
defined as msDu yDy, where Dy is the yield lateral
displacement and Du is the ultimate lateral displacement.
For the third group specimens, the yield displacement
before strengthening was adopted as Dy. The displace-
ments in the push and pull directions at CFRP rupture
are defined as the ultimate lateral displacements Du in
the push and pull directions, respectively. When CFRP
ruptured, the lateral load dropped suddenly and the
capacity of the column lost abruptly. The ductility factors
of all specimens are also given in Table 2. Fig. 5 shows
that the ductility factor increases with the total transverse
reinforcement index (lsvqlCFS ). It was found from the
test results of the second group specimen CF30-5-44
that the ductility factor had a less increasing tendency
for same amount of CFRP sheet due to the initial axial
load applied before strengthening. Because only one
specimen of this kind was tested, the issue needs to be
further studied in future research.
4. Analysis of strains in the CFRP jacket
4.1. Specimens of group 1
The development of strains in the CFRP in the
specimens of the first group is shown in Fig. 7. It was
found that the CFRP strains developed very slowly
before the yielding of longitudinal reinforcement bars
but quickly afterwards due to the concrete expansion in
the plastic hinge (the CFRP strain also developed
quickly for specimen CF30-1-48 due to large shear
deformation after the appearance of shear cracks). As
the amount of CFRP increases, the contribution of
concrete expansion to the development of CFRP strains
becomes larger. Fig. 8a, in which H is the distance from
the bottom of the column, shows the vertical distribution
of CFRP strains at the ultimate lateral load Vu for
specimen CF30-4-48, which had the maximum strength-
ening amount of CFRP. It can be seen that the CFRP
strain has the largest value at about half section height
0.5h(s100 mm) from the column bottom. This is
because that the base beam provided confinement to the
 L.P. Ye et al. / Construction and Building Materials 17 (2003) 499–506 503

column bottom, resulting in reducing CFRP strains,

while the CFRP strains reduce forwards to the top of
the column as a result of reduced moment. Another
phenomenon that should be noticed in Fig. 8a is that
the CFRP strains of side 2, the compressive side under
flexure moment, is larger than those of side 1, the side
parallel to the shear force. This is due to the larger
concrete expansion of the compressive side 2 than that
of side 1 because of a strong shear and weak flexure
failure mode.
The wrapped CFRP strips contribute to both the shear
strength of and the confinement of concrete in columns.
Thus, the strains of CFRP were derived from both shear
deformation and expansion of compressive concrete. It
is difficult to separate the two parts of the CFRP strains.
In the previous research by the authors w6x on the shear
strengthening of RC columns with CFRP sheets, the
CFRP strains in the lateral load direction (side 1 in Fig. Fig. 5. Relationship of ductility factor with the total transverse rein-
forcement index (lsvqlCF).
8) were found to develope more quickly than the CFRP
strains in the transverse direction (side 2 in Fig. 8)
because of shear deformation in the lateral load direc-
tion. Thus, when a column fails in the flexure mode

Fig. 4. Photos of specimens in the first and second groups after failure.
504 L.P. Ye et al. / Construction and Building Materials 17 (2003) 499–506

rather than the shear mode, the CFRP strains are

expected to be caused mainly by the expansion of
concrete rather than shear deformation.
To determine the failure mode of a column, a strong
shear and weak flexure (SSWF) factor ksVS yVM is
defined, where VS is the lateral load obtained from the
shear strength of the column and VM is the lateral load
obtained from the flexural strength of the bottom section
of the column. It is easy to understand that a flexural
failure will occur when the SSWF factor ksVS yVM is
greater than 1.0.
The author has suggested a shear strength calculation
Fig. 7. Strain development of CFRP in specimens of group 1.
method for RC columns strengthened with CFRP sheets
w6x, which is given in Eq. (1).
where, Mu is the flexural strength of the bottom section
VSsVRCqVCFSsVRCqnØrCFSfCFSbh0 (1) of the column; a is shear span.
The SSWF factors ksVS yVM of the specimens in
1.639Ž0.403y1.053nq0.176ayh. groups 1 and 3 are listed in Table 3. It is known that
ns (2) these SSWF factors are all greater 1.0 except specimen
yrCFSfCFSyftq1.207 CF30-1-48, which failed in the shear mode.
where, VRC is the shear strength calculated by the
reinforced concrete part and it can be determined by an 4.2. Specimen of group 2
existing concrete design code; f t is the tensile strength
of concrete; and h0 is the effective depth of section. The strain development in the CFRP in specimen
The lateral load capacity VM can be expressed as, CF30-5-44 is shown in Fig. 9a. Compared with the
results of specimens in group 1, the CFRP strains are
Mu seen to be less developed. This is due to the fact that
VMs (3) the concrete expansion under the initial axial load before
a
strengthening was not confined by the CFRP sheets. A

Fig. 6. Lateral load–displacement hysteresis loops of the third group before and after strengthening.
 L.P. Ye et al. / Construction and Building Materials 17 (2003) 499–506 505

Fig. 8. CFRP strain distributions in CF30-4-48. (a) Vertical distribution at Vu and (b) Distribution around section. Note: Vpsmaximum lateral
load; Vusultimate lateral load. The lateral load direction is horizontal in (b).

Table 3 a decreasing tendency after yielding compared with that

Effective confinment factor of group 1.
Specimens ksVS yVM nq
d ny
d Average
5. Effective confinement factor
CF30-1-48 0.949 0.511 0.483 –
CF30-2-48 1.044 0.462 0.459 0.465
CF30-3-48 1.121 0.376 0.381 For specimens with SSWF factor greater than 1.0, it
CF30-4-48 1.287 0.559 0.553 is known from previous analysis that the CFRP mainly
CF30-5-31 1.080 0.409 0.439 0.387 provided confinement to the concrete in the plastic hinge
CF30-6-48 1.191 0.311 0.390
zone. Because of the square section shape and stress
concentration at the corners, the CFRP strains did not
confinement reduction factor should be considered in attain its rupture strain ´u at the ultimate lateral load
the following Eq. (4) for this kind of strengthening corresponding to the maximum lateral displacement.
which is more common in practical application than Therefore, an effective confinement factor of CFRP is
strengthening method without the presence of defined as,
preloading.
nds´¯ CFSy´u (4)
4.3. Specimen of group 3
where, ´¯ CFS is the average CFRP strain in the plastic
The development of the CFRP strains in the speci- hinge zone at the maximum lateral displacement Du.
mens repaired after damage in group 3 is shown in Fig. The test values of nd are listed in Table 3, except
9b. It can be seen that the CFRP strains developed some specimen CF30-1-48 that failed in shear and the speci-
more quickly before yielding than those of specimens mens of group 2. Because of the maximum concrete
in group 1. This is due to larger shear deformation as a expansion occurred at about half section height from the
result of diagonal cracks-induced before strengthening. bottom, the average CFRP strain ´¯ CFS of this section
However, the development of the CFRP strains showed was adopted in determining the value of nd.

Fig. 9. Strain development of CFRP in specimens of group 2 and 3.

506 L.P. Ye et al. / Construction and Building Materials 17 (2003) 499–506
Fig. 10. leym relationship.
With the confinement factor nd defined in Eq. (4), an
equivalent transverse reinforcement index le for the
confinement from both steel hoops and wrapped CFRP
strips can be expressed as,
leslsvqndØlCFS
The test results of the relationship between the dis-
placement–ductility factor m and this equivalent index
le are shown in Fig. 10. It can be seen that m increases
with the equivalent index le. For RC columns with steel
hoops, the relationship between the displacement–duc-
tility factor m and the transverse reinforcement index
lsv was suggested by Weng w7x to be,
y1q30alsv
ms
0.045q1.4n
where, a is a factor representing the type of hoops, as
1.0 for square hoops; n is the axial load ratio. If the
parameter lsv is replaced by le of Eq. (5) for an axial
load ratio of 0.48 that was used in the tests and as1.0,
the myle relation of Eq. (6) is also drawn in Fig. 10.
It can be seen that Eq. (6) gives a smaller prediction of
the ductility factor, which may be partly due to the fact
that Eq. (6) was obtained for RC columns with a shear
span ratio ayhs4.6, while the shear span ratio ayh
equals 3.0 in the present tests. Despite this different in
the shear span ratio, the prediction of the ductility factor
of Eq. (6) for RC columns wrapped with CFRP sheets
is on the safe side. Thus, it is reasonable to use the
equivalent transverse reinforcement index le of Eq. (5)
to represent the confinement parameter of steel hoops
as for ordinary RC column. With the requirement of the
equivalent transverse reinforcement index in the Chinese
concrete design code w8x for seismic ductility demand,
the amount of CFRP sheets can be determined with Eqs.
(5) and (6). A safety margin of the prediction is
necessary because of the brittle fracture of CFRP sheets
at the maximum displacement.
6. Conclusions and suggestions
The ductility of RC columns can be substantially
improved by strengthening using wrapped CFRP sheets
due to the confinement from CFRP when strong shear
and weak flexure factor is greater than 1.0. The CFRP
contribution to confinement can be represented by the
confinement factor nd, which is the ratio of the average
CFRP strain in the plastic hinge zone of the column at
displacement Du to the CFRP fracture strain. The amount
of CFRP needed for the seismic strengthening of RC
columns can be determined using the suggested equiv-
alent transverse reinforcement index leslsvqndlCFS
and Eq. (6).
(5)
Acknowledgments
This research forms part of the key project ‘Funda-
mental Study on the Application of Advanced FRP
Composities in Civil Infrastructure’ supported by Chi-
nese National Natural Science Foundation. (Grant No.
50238030).
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