Behavior of Damaged Concrete Columns Repaired with Novel FRP Jacket

Jacketing using prefabricated fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite shells is an attractive repair system for deteriorating structures exposed to the marine environment. However, most available techniques lack an effective joining system capable of providing structural continuity along the hoop direction. This paper addresses the evaluation of the efficiency of a FRP jacket with an innovative joining system and the behavior of damaged concrete columns repaired with jackets considering several parameters, that is, level of steel corrosion, level of concrete cover damage, and the shape effect. The results showed that the jacket restored the load-carrying capacity by 99% and 95% for columns with 25% and 50% corrosion damage, respectively. Moreover, the jacket effectively restored the axial load capacity of columns with 50% and 100% concrete cover damage by 95% and 82%, respectively. The proposed system was more effective in circular columns because the axial load capacity of the repaired columns was 43% higher than the square columns. A theoretical analysis of the axial load capacity of the repaired columns indicated an excellent agreement with the experimental results.