INVESTIGATING EFFECTIVENESS OF COMBINED USEOF FERROCEMENT AND STEEL JACKETING FOR STRENGTHENING REINFORCED CONCRETE COLUMNS

Abstract

Reinforced concrete (RC) columns are strong and durable, but can suffer structural damage over time, such as cracking, spalling and corrosion. Various strengthening techniques have been developed to address these issues, including the use of ferrocement jackets. The use of ferrocement in reinforced concrete structures has become increasingly popular. However, ferrocement jacketing is not effective in providing lateral confinement in the strengthening of rectangular RC columns due to stress concentration at the column corners. As a result, this study aims to improve rectangular ferrocement jacketing technique by combining with steel jacket that alternatively consisting of angles and strips. In this thesis, a three-dimensional non-linear finite element numerical model is developed and validated against experimental results to investigate the effectiveness of RC columns made from a combination of ferrocement and steel jacket and subjected to lateral loading.The analysis is performed using the finite element program ANSYS R2 Mechanical APDL software. In this study, thickness of steel plate, width ofsteelangle, layers of wire mesh, and partial strengthening of column height are investigated as a variable. To validate the accuracy of the results, experimental finding of two studies which published on reputable journals are used as reference. The nonlinear finite element analysis revealed that the combined use of ferrocement and steel jacket is effective in strengthening the flexural strength of reinforced concrete column. In a reference to non-strengthened controlled specimen, the capacities of the specimens strengthened with three layer of wire mesh and 2mm, 5mm, and 10mm thick steel strips has shown improvement by 43.9%, 47.66%, and 50.97% respectively with respect to yielding load. In terms of ultimate load resisting capacity increment of 49.86%, 51.92%, and 54.5% is noticed respectively. In response to the increment of steel thickness by 2, 5 and 10mm resulted in an improvement of load carrying capacity by 7.66%,12.33% and 17.07%, respectively. In similar, in response to the increment of steel angle width by 30, 50 and 75mm, the load carrying capacity improved at a rate of 12.11%,23.3% and 25.87%, respectively. The results implies that the change of improvement in load carrying capacity becomes insignificant as the thickness andwidthof steel exceeded the 5 and 50mm, respectively.