FRP REPAIR OF DAMAGED LARGE-SCALE CIRCULAR REINFORCED

CONCRETE COLUMNS
Stephen RUTLEDGE
Graduate Research Assistant
Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
strutled@ncsu.edu
Rudolf SERACINO
Associate Professor
Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
rudi_seracino@ncsu.edu*
Mervyn KOWALSKY
Professor
Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
kowalsky@ncsu.edu
Sarah WITT
Senior Vice President
Fyfe Company, LLC
San Diego, CA 92126, USA
sarah@fyfeco.com

Abstract
Very little research is available on the repair of damaged columns that were previously subject to
realistic earthquake load histories. This paper presents the design philosophy developed as well
as the experimental results of 2 large-scale columns, 600 mm in diameter and 2.4 m tall that were
previously damaged, repaired using CFRP alternatives, and then subjected to reversed-cyclic
loading. The overall objective of this research program is to demonstrate the ability to restore
the lost strength and displacement capacity of damaged columns by means of FRP repair. Todate, two different FRP repair alternatives were executed, utilizing unidirectional carbon fiber
sheets in the hoop and longitudinal directions; the latter anchored into the RC footing with 30
mm diameter carbon fiber anchors. Force-displacement responses from the tests were compared
to a 3 cycle set aftershock test, which was performed on a column that had been subjected to
an earthquake load history and not repaired afterwards. The responses show that FRP repair
systems can restore the lost strength and displacement capacity of damaged RC columns.
Keywords: carbon fiber anchors, reversed-cyclic loading, FRP repair, damaged RC columns,
earthquake load history
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1.

Introduction

Depending on the severity of an earthquake, plastic hinges may form in the columns of RC
buildings and bridges (similar to that shown in Figure 8a). These columns must then be replaced
or repaired in order to restore the structural integrity to the originally intended design
performance. A number of different techniques have been developed for strengthening existing
RC columns including: wrapping; filament winding; and prefabricated shell jacketing [1]. These
strengthening techniques may also be utilized in repair to provide additional confinement to the
column, allowing the confined concrete to reach higher compressive stresses with enhanced
ductility. Traditionally, strengthening systems have been utilized to increase confinement and
shear strength of members with reinforcing deficiencies, delay longitudinal bar buckling, or
confine deficient splice lengths. However, this paper presents a new and innovative FRP repair
approach, which utilizes unidirectional CFRP sheets with carbon fiber anchors inserted into the
RC footing to increase the flexural strength and displacement capacity of previously damaged
RC columns containing buckled longitudinal reinforcement.
2.

Experimental program

2.1

Test specimens and material properties

The experimental program focused on the repair of damaged RC columns with vertical
externally bonded CFRP sheets which are anchored into the footing with carbon fiber anchors
and confined by CFRP sheets in the hoop direction. The specimens used in these tests represent a
single degree of freedom bridge column. The columns are 2.4 m high and 600 mm in diameter
containing 16 #6 (db = 19 mm) ASTM A706 [2] longitudinal reinforcing bars and #3 (db = 9.5
mm) ASTM A706 spiral reinforcement with a 50 mm pitch as shown in Figure 1b. The material
properties used in design of the FRP repair and the RC columns are given in Table 1 where the
CFRP sheet and carbon fiber anchor material properties are that of the gross composite.
The columns were subjected to real earthquake load histories prior to repair, and each reached
different, but similar, peak tensile strains and displacement ductility levels as summarized in
Table 2. Each of the columns contained buckled longitudinal reinforcement after the initial
earthquake load histories as may be seen in Figure 8a. The repair systems were designed to
relocate the plastic hinge to a location higher in the column where the longitudinal reinforcement
has a much higher residual strain capacity relative to that at the original hinge location near the
base of the column.
Table 1 Material properties

Longitudinal Steel

Transverse
Steel

Concrete

Yield

Max

Yield

fc

469 MPa

654 MPa

511 MPa

42.1 MPa

Carbon Fiber Sheet

Tensile
Strength
834 MPa

Page 2 of 8

Tensile
Modulus
82 GPa

Carbon Fiber Anchors

Tensile
Strength
745 MPa

Tensile
Modulus
61.5 GPa

Hydraulic Jacks
for Axial Load

Cyclic Lateral Load

610 mm

760 mm
610 mm

760 mm
2440 mm

16 #6 ASTM A706.
13 mm cover to outside of
spiral steel

610 mm

2440 mm

610 mm

#3 ASTM A706.
Spiral at 50 mm pitch
inside column

1220 mm

460 mm

460 mm

Column Cross Section

Lab Strong Floor

2440 mm

(a)

(b)

Figure 1 Test setup and reinforcement details

Table 2 Previous load history effects

Column
Load History
Peak Displacement
Displacement Ductility
Peak Tensile Strain

2.2

C2A
Kobe 1995
210 mm
10
0.059

C3A
Chile 2010
184 mm
8.7
0.051

C3A
Cyclic Aftershock
169 mm
8
0.048

Design philosophy

The design philosophy of the repair was to relocate the plastic hinge to a higher location in the
column, yet still achieve the same displacement capacity and strength as the original undamaged
column. It was decided to relocate the plastic hinge to 400 mm above the base of the column,
because at this location the longitudinal reinforcement experienced much smaller strains as
compared to the region in the bottom 400 mm of the column height. This location was
determined by observing the peak strains in the longitudinal bars from the original test data and
also from visual inspection of the column damage. In order to force the plastic hinge to a higher
location, the base of the column needed to be both repaired and strengthened so as to take the
tension force lost by the buckled longitudinal reinforcing. Vertical CFRP reinforcement
anchored into the footing was necessary to make this possible. For the vertical fibers to develop
their full capacity at 400 mm above the footing, a development length of 200 mm was provided.
Conveniently, the CFRP sheets were 600 mm wide, allowing for fibers in the hoop direction to
cover the inner layers of vertical fiber and the splayed anchor fans, starting from the base of the
column. Due to this repaired and strengthened elastic region at the base of the column, a higher
curvature is therefore required by the column section at the new plastic hinge location to achieve
the same displacement at the top of the column. Therefore, the design process began by
conducting a moment-curvature analysis of the column incorporating a confinement model that
considers the effect of both the internal steel spiral and the external CFRP hoop reinforcement
[3]. It was found that 6 layers of CFRP in the hoop direction were needed to achieve the
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required curvature. Therefore, 6 layers of hoop reinforcement were applied from the base of the
column up to 1200 mm in column C2A. A moment-curvature analysis was then conducted to
design the number of layers of fibers in the vertical direction in the bottom 400 mm of the
column to ensure that the moment capacity at the new plastic hinge location could be reached
corresponding to the curvature required to achieve the same column displacement as in the
original column. This moment-curvature analysis assumed that the vertical fibers carried no
force in compression, and used cyclic stress-strain curves from OpenSees for the longitudinal
steel reinforcing bars in order to represent the stress-strain characteristics based on their residual
strain from the original test. It was determined that three layers of vertical fibers were required.
The moment curvature responses for the RC section, the RC section + 6 layers of hoop fibers,
and the RC section + 3 layers of vertical fibers + 6 layers of hoop fibers can be seen in Figure 2.
Figure 3 shows the nominal moment capacities of the original RC column section (817 kNm)
and repaired column sections compared to the triangular moment distribution from the target
applied lateral load.
Capacity
2400 mm

Moment Applied
817 (RC Only)

1200 mm
930 (6 Layers Hoop)
600 mm
400 mm
1160 (3 Vertical + 6 Hoop)
1100
M, kN-m

Figure 2 Moment-curvature responses

Figure 3 C2A column capacity

In order to develop the three layers of vertical fibers at the base of the column, anchors were
needed to develop the vertical tension force at the footing interface. Carbon fiber anchors were
designed to resist the total rupture force of the vertical fibers. A total of 12 - 30 mm diameter
anchors were needed; six on either side of the column. These anchors were embedded into the
footing 350 mm with an anchor fan length of 350 mm splayed on the column. The anchor design
was based on work done by Kim and Smith [4] on the pullout resistance of single FRP anchors
which were significantly smaller than the anchors used here.
2.3

Repair procedure

The repair of the columns began by removing any loose concrete from the column and the
footing. The concrete cross-section was then restored using a commercial cementitious patching
system. No special attention was given to the buckled longitudinal steel reinforcing bars. A wet
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layup technique was used to apply the CFRP system to the columns where the fibers were first
impregnated by the epoxy resin and then applied to the column.
For columns C2A and C3A a single layer of vertical fibers was first placed on the column from
the base up to 600 mm around the circumference. The dry carbon fiber anchors were then
impregnated with the same epoxy and inserted into evenly distributed holes that were 38 mm in
diameter and 350 mm deep that were previously drilled into the footing. Figure 4 shows the
carbon fiber anchors prior to impregnation and Figure 5 shows the insertion of the anchors into
the footing. The anchor fans were then splayed onto the column. Two more layers of vertical
fibers, 600 mm long, were then applied to the base of the column sandwiching the anchor fans
between the layers of vertical fibers. The final step was to wrap the repaired region with six
individual CFRP sheets with fibers in the hoop direction, each with a 300 mm overlap. For
column C2A only, six layers of hoop fibers were also wrapped around the 600 mm to 1200 mm
region of the column to confine the expected new plastic hinge region as discussed in Section
2.2.

Figure 4 Anchors before impregnating

2.4

Figure 5 Inserting anchors into footing

Test setup and procedure

The columns were stressed to the lab strong floor through the footing and a hydraulic actuator
applied a lateral load to the top of the column through the loading cap. For the axial load, a
spreader beam was placed on top of the column with two bars running through it into the lab
strong floor. These bars were tensioned by two hydraulic jacks on top of the column. The test
setup can be seen in Figure 1a.
A displacement-controlled symmetric three cycle set load history was used for these specimens
based on the original yield displacement of the undamaged column. The loading protocol
consisted of single push and pull cycles to Fy, Fy, Fy, and Fy followed by three cycles of
1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. This load history is often used to evaluate the seismic
performance of structural components.

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3.

Results

During the research program that damaged the columns used in this investigation, column C3A
was subjected to the Chile 2010 load history and then subjected to a three cycle set aftershock
load history to induce buckling of the longitudinal reinforcement. This aftershock load history
serves as the baseline for the comparison of the repaired columns, and its force-displacement
response can be seen in Figure 6.

400

500

500

400

400

300

300

200

200

100
0
200 100 0

200

400

Force(kN)

Force(kN)

The force-displacement response for repaired column C2A is shown in Figure 6a. For this
column, there is a 30% increase in lateral force capacity compared to that of the aftershock study,
as summarized in Table 3. While flexural cracking was visible in the region near 600 mm from
the column base, the plastic hinge finally formed at a location just below the top of the footing as
may be seen in Figure 7a. This is evidence that the confinement provided by the 6 layers of hoop
reinforcement in the 600 mm to 1200 mm region of the column exceeded the predicted capacity
forcing the failure back into the footing. Consequently, the repair of column C3A was the same
as that of C2A, except that no hoop fibers were provided for confinement of the 600 mm to 1200
mm region of the column. Figure 6b shows the force-displacement response of repaired column
C3A. Interestingly, a similar increase in strength was achieved and the plastic hinge was fully
relocated to a location approximately 700 mm above the top of the footing, which can clearly be
seen in Figure 7b. The lack of additional hoop confinement in the higher location of the column,
allowed the plastic hinge to fully form with ruptured and buckled longitudinal reinforcement as
shown in Figure 8b. Both of the repaired columns were able to exceed the displacement capacity
of the original columns.

400

200

100
0
200 100 0

200

400

200

300

300
C2A
Aftershock

400

400

500
Displacement(mm)

C3A
Aftershock

500
Displacement(mm)

C2A

C3A
Figure 6 Hysteretic response comparison

For comparison, the force-displacement envelopes for the repaired columns, as well as a three
cycle set of an undamaged reference column, can be seen in Figure 9.

Page 6 of 8

Table 3 Peak lateral forces

Aftershock
Max
Max
Push
Pull
288.8 kN -298.4 kN

Peak

7.92

Max
Push
397.6 kN

C2A
Max
Pull
-390.6 kN

Peak

11.95

Max
Push
386.1 kN

C3A
Max
Pull
-410.6 kN

(a) C2A 10 Push

(b) C3A 12 Push
Figure 7 Hinge location comparison of repaired columns

(a) Hinge prior to repair - Aftershock 8

(b) Relocated hinge Repaired 12
Figure 8 C3A hinge relocation

Page 7 of 8

Peak

11.90

Figure 9 Force-displacement envelopes

4.

Conclusions

This paper presents the preliminary results of a study on the use of unidirectional carbon fiber
sheets and carbon fiber anchors to repair RC columns by relocating the plastic hinge under
simulated seismic loading. Despite the limited number of tests to-date, these results clearly show
that carbon fiber anchors are a viable option for repairing and flexural strengthening damaged
RC columns containing buckled longitudinal reinforcing steel. Research on this topic is
ongoing, including the repair of severely damaged RC columns containing fractured longitudinal
reinforcing steel.
5.

Acknowledgements

The first three authors would like to thank Fyfe Co. LLC for their support of this research
through the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Integrating Composites in
Infrastructure (CICI).
6.
[1]
[2]

[3]
[4]

References
TENG, J. G., CHEN, J. F., SMITH, S. T., and LAM, L., FRP Strengthened RC
Structures, John Wiley and Sons, England, 2002, pp. 148.
ASTM Standard A706-09b/A706M-09b, 2009, Standard Specification for Low Alloy
Steel Deformed and Plain Bars for Concrete Reinforcement, ASTM International, West
Conshohocken, PA, 2009, DIO: 10.1520/A0706_A0706M-09B, www.astm.org.
HU, H., Development of a new constitutive model for FRP-and-steel-confined
concrete, MS Thesis, Civil Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2011.
KIM, S. J. and SMITH, S., Pullout Strength Models for FRP Anchors in Uncracked
Concrete, Journal of Composites for Construction, Vol. 14, No. 4, July-August 2010,
pp. 410-411.

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