Magazine of Concrete Research, 2008, 60, No. 7, September, 523533 doi: 10.1680/macr.2008.60.7.

523

Behaviour of CFRP-strengthened slender square RC columns

Z. Tao* and Q. Yu
Fuzhou University; Tsinghua University

The objective of this paper is to investigate the performance of slender square reinforced concrete (RC) columns strengthened with carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) jackets subjected to eccentric loading. Tests were conducted on eight RC columns strengthened with CFRP jackets, and another eight unstrengthened ones served as reference specimens. The main variables explored in this test programme include: (a) load eccentricity (0 150 mm); (b) with or without CFRP strengthening; and (c) CFRP configuration (unidirectional and bidirectional). Compared to those unstrengthened RC specimens, the test results showed that no obvious strength increase was observed for specimens confined by unidirectional CFRP jackets, while an increase of 22.861.8% was obtained for those strengthened by bidirectional CFRP jackets. The longitudinal fibres were effective in enhancing loadcarrying capacity of slender RC columns subjected to eccentric loading.

Notation
B D Ec Ef Es e e/r fcu ff fu fy L L0 N Nu um um,ult overall width of square section: mm overall diameter of circular section: mm concrete modulus of elasticity: MPa elastic modulus of CFRP: MPa steel modulus of elasticity: MPa load eccentricity: mm load eccentricity ratio, r B/2 compressive cube strength of concrete: MPa tensile strength of CFRP: MPa ultimate strength of steel: MPa yield strength of steel: MPa specimen length: mm effective buckling length of column in the plane of bending: mm axial load: kN ultimate strength: kN mid-height deflection: mm mid-height deflection at peak load: mm axial shortening: mm

cu

strain axial strain at extreme compression fibre corresponding to peak load

Introduction
During the recent few decades, fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have become increasingly popular in strengthening application to deficient reinforced concrete (RC) structures. This is mainly attributable to their high strength-to-weight ratio, high corrosion resistance and ease of installation.15 A major application of FRP in structural engineering is confining concrete, thus leading to an increase in strength and/or ductility. This beneficial effect of FRP confinement has been clearly demonstrated in numerous tests on axially loaded concrete cylinder/ prism specimens and short RC columns.17 At the same time, the passive confinement efficiency of FRP jackets was also found to be greatly affected by many different factors, such as cross-section type, concrete and FRP strength, FRP type and its modulus of elasticity, number of wrap layers, column slenderness, load eccentricity and so on. Numerous models have been developed from the significant research devoted to axially loaded circular short columns strengthened with FRP. More recently, information available on FRP-confined square or rectangular short columns under axial compression has increased.8 To date, however, the research on FRP-strengthened RC columns 523

* College of Civil Engineering, Fuzhou University, Qi Shan Campus, 2 Xue Yuan Road, University Town, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, 350108, Peoples Republic of China Department of Construction Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, Peoples Republic of China (MACR-D-07-00131) Paper received 21 October 2007; last revised 17 February 2008; accepted 14 March 2008

www.concrete-research.com 1751-763X (Online) 0024-9831 (Print) # 2008 Thomas Telford Ltd

Tao and Yu under eccentric loading is still quite limited, especially incorporating slenderness effects.917 In practice, RC columns are usually subjected to intentional or unintentional bending moments, and may also be subjected to the influence of slenderness. This may greatly affect the effectiveness of FRP strengthening.18 Against the above background, a research programme has been carried out by the authors and their collaborators to investigate the effects of load eccentricity and slenderness ratio on the performance of FRPconfined circular RC columns.19 Sixteen tests were conducted on RC columns with a slenderness ratio L0 /D of 8.4 or 20.4 respectively, where L0 is the effective length, D is the cross-sectional diameter of the circular RC columns. Only unidirectional carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CFRPs) were used to confine eight of the RC columns with fibres oriented in the hoop direction. The test results were reported by Tao et al.,19 which demonstrated that significant strength and ductility enhancements may still be expected for slender circular RC columns, but these improvements reduce with an increase in either the slenderness ratio or the load eccentricity. The strength increase ranged from 22.8% to 61.8% compared to those unstrengthened specimens. As the majority of RC columns are constructed with square or rectangular cross-sections in engineering practice, a wider study is carried out in this paper to study the performance of slender square RC columns strengthened with CFRP jackets. A test programme involving 16 RC columns was conducted, in which eight of them were strengthened with CFRP jackets, and the rest were unstrengthened and served as reference specimens. The effects of load eccentricity, with or without FRP strengthening, and FRP configuration are investigated.

Experimental programme
General A total of 16 slender square RC columns were prepared and tested in two series at different times. In the first series, four RC columns were strengthened with unidirectional CFRP jackets, and another four unstrengthened columns were fabricated and served as reference specimens. The only difference for specimens in the second series is that bidirectional CFRP composites were used to strengthen the test specimens. All columns were tested under a compressive axial load with eccentricities (e) of 0, 50, 100 and 150 mm respectively. Table 1 provides a summary of the test specimens, in which specimen designations starting with US and BS refer to specimens in the first and second series respectively. The last letter U in the specimen labels is used to identify unstrengthened specimens, and R is used for strengthened ones. The main variables explored in this test programme include (a) load eccentricity ratio e/r (r B/2, where B is the overall sectional width ignoring the contribution from CFRP jackets), from 0 to 2 (b) with or without CFRP strengthening (c) CFRP configuration (unidirectional and bidirectional). All tested columns had corbelled ends and the same cross-sectional width (B) of 150 mm in the test region, as shown in Fig. 1. The total length of all columns (L), including the end corbels was 3000 mm. All specimens were longitudinally reinforced with four 12 mm diameter deformed reinforcement and 6 mm diameter plain transverse reinforcement spaced at 100 mm centres. The steel stirrups were anchored with a 1358 bend at each end, which extended approximately 60 mm into

Table 1. Details of specimens and test results

No. Specimen label US-1U US-1R US-2U US-2R US-3U US-3R US-4U US-4R BS-1U BS-1R BS-2U BS-2R BS-3U BS-3R BS-4U BS-4R L0 : mm 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 3060 B: mm 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 150 L0 /B e: mm 0 0 50 50 100 100 150 150 0 0 50 50 100 100 150 150 fcu : MPa 61.5 61.5 61.5 61.5 61.5 61.5 61.5 61.5 62.3 62.3 62.3 62.3 62.3 62.3 62.3 62.3 cu : 106 2862 3414 2494 1809 1363 2021 1336 1535 2965 2844 2986 3067 1382 1590 1266 1914 um,ult : mm 10.5 18.4 35.0 33.9 32.85 28.55 29.8 29.7 15.2 10.3 47.1 43.0 32.4 38.3 27.6 48.2 Nu : kN 988 910 248 220 120 112 72 75.5 904 1110 258 329.6 110 178 75 106.5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4 20.4

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Behaviour of CFRP-strengthened slender square RC columns

50 50 100 100 A 50 50

15 300
A 150 150 3000 150 150 15 150 AA 15

Fig. 1. Details of RC columns

the concrete core. The clear cover to the stirrups was 15 mm. To prevent possible premature failure, the corbels were heavily reinforced with two additional 12 mm deformed steel bars, and the steel stirrups were concentrated at the column ends with a centre-to-centre spacing of 50 mm as shown in Fig. 1. CFRP composites were used in the fabrication of the FRP strengthening system. The strengthening for unidirectional CFRP strengthened specimens was achieved by the external wrapping of two layers of unidirectional carbon fibre sheets with the fibres oriented in the lateral direction of the specimens. In the case of bidirectional CFRP strengthened specimens, it was achieved by bonding two layers of bidirectional carbon fibre sheets with the fibres oriented in both lateral and longitudinal directions. Material properties Tension tests were performed on three steel samples of each bar size to determine mechanical properties. Table 2 lists the measured average yield strength (fy ), tensile strength (fu ) and modulus of elasticity (Es ). It should be noted that the specimens in series US and BS were not fabricated at the same time, thus the steel bar properties were a little different even with a same bar diameter. The same concrete mix was used to fabricate all RC columns. The concrete mix was designed for a cubic strength (fcu ) at 28 days of approximately 50 MPa. The mix proportions were as follows: cement, 466 kg/m3 ; water, 185 kg/m3 ; sand, 569 kg/m3 ; coarse aggregate, 1210 kg/m3 . The measured average cubic strengths (fcu ) at the time of tests for specimens in test series US and

BS were found to be 61.5 MPa and 62.3 MPa respectively; the average values of modulus of elasticity (Ec ) were 37 500 MPa and 37 100 MPa respectively. Both the unidirectional and bidirectional carbon fibre sheets used in the current tests had a same nominal thickness of 0.17 mm per layer. The bidirectional sheets were woven with equal fibre content running in the two perpendicular directions. The mechanical properties of the composite jackets obtained through tensile testing of flat coupons according to ASTM D3039,20 were calculated on the basis of the nominal thickness of 0.17 mm for unidirectional sheets and 0.085 mm for bidirectional sheets, respectively. For unidirectional CFRP, the average elastic modulus Ef was 255 000 MPa with an ultimate tensile strength ff of 4212 MPa. To measure the material properties of bidirectional carbon fibre sheets, tensile tests were carried out on CFRP coupons made from both fibre directions. The test results demonstrated that the material properties in both directions were nearly the same. The average elastic modulus Ef was 244 000 MPa with an ultimate tensile strength ff of 4155 MPa.

Specimen preparation All specimens were horizontally cast in steel moulds, with the concrete compacted using a poker vibrator (Fig. 2). These moulds were custom-made with a precisely controlled corner radius of 25 mm to prevent the possible premature fracture of the CFRP at an otherwise sharp right-angled corner. For comparison purposes, rounded corners were also provided for those reference unstrengthened columns. The fabricated spe-

Table 2. Material properties of steel

Specimen series US series BS series Steel type 12 mm deformed bar 6 mm plain bar 12 mm deformed bar 6 mm plain bar Yield strength fy : MPa 388.7 397.3 358.1 382.2 Ultimate strength fu : MPa 557.9 548.1 520.5 456.5 Modulus of elasticity Es : MPa 196 000 216 000 186 000 211 000

15

150

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Tao and Yu

LVDTs

Axial strain gauge

Fig. 2. Specimen preparation

Transverse strain gauge Variable eccentricity e

cimens were then cured in the laboratory environment until the day of testing. Before wrapping of carbon fibre sheets, the RC specimens had been cured for 28 days. Before the wrapping operation, the specimen surface was ground, cleaned with water and left to dry. Surface voids were filled with epoxy putty. Hand-mixed epoxy adhesive was first applied evenly on the concrete surface. The sheets were presaturated with resin and then applied to the resin-wetted concrete surface. A roller was used to squeeze out extra epoxy and any entrapped air. To ensure adequate bond and continuity of the jacket, a 150 mm overlap was used for the fibre sheets. The wrapped specimens were left to cure in the laboratory environment at room temperature for about one month before testing. Instrumentation and loading set-up A 5000 kN capacity testing machine was used for the compression tests of all specimens, and a computerised system was used for data logging. For each test specimen, eight strain gauges were installed on the column surface in the mid-height region, including four gauges with a gauge length of 120 mm for axial strains and four gauges with a gauge length of 20 mm for lateral strains (Fig. 3). Two linear variable displacement transducers (LVDTs) at 1808 apart were used to measure the axial shortening during the tests, and five LVDTs were used along the specimen span to monitor the deflections (Fig. 3). Axial loading was applied through V-shaped edges to each column, which were installed with steel caps at both ends prior to loading (Figs 3 and 4). Grooves 6 mm in depth were machined on each steel cap to receive the V-shape loading edge so that the load eccentricity could be precisely controlled. The effective length of the column L0 , defined as the distance between the tips of the V-shaped edges, was 3060 mm for all test specimens, leading to a slenderness ratio (L0 /B) of 20.4. Load intervals of less than one tenth of the estimated 526

Fig. 3. Test set-up

load capacity were used. Each load interval was maintained for about 8 to 10 min. At each load increment, the strain readings, deflection and axial shortening measurements were recorded. To study the softening response of the specimens, the loads were applied slowly and continuously near and after the ultimate load with an approximately constant displacement rate.

Experimental results and discussions

Test observations and failure modes The test results of the columns are summarised in Table 1, where the axial strain cu at peak load is from the strain gauges located at the extreme compression fibre, and um,ult is the mid-height deflection at peak load. Figure 4 shows a general view of typical unstrengthened and CFRP-strengthened specimens after testing. It was observed that almost all columns, with or without CFRP strengthening, failed in a typical flexural mode with large lateral deflections, except the specimens US1U, BS-1U and BS-1R. These three specimens were axially loaded and failed in a brittle manner, characterised by the compressive crushing of concrete (Figs 5 and 6(a)). Despite this, significant bending deformation had also developed at the time of failure for them owing to the large slenderness ratio. For all other unstrengthened columns, several flexural cracks near the mid-height were observed at the tensile surface shortly after testing, and spalling of compressive concrete finally occurred after the peak load had been attained. For all columns strengthened with unidirectional CFRP, the first crack loads were generally 1.62.5
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Behaviour of CFRP-strengthened slender square RC columns

(a)

(b)

Fig. 4. A general view of typical specimens after testing: (a) unstrengthened column; (b) CFRP-strengthened column

US-1U

US-1R US-2U US-2R

US-3U US-3R

US-4U

US-4R

(a)

BS-4U

BS-4R

BS-3U

US-3R (b)

BS-2U

BS-2R

BS-1U BS-1R

Fig. 5. Failure modes of specimens: (a) unidirectional CFRPstrengthened specimens; (b) bidirectional CFRP-strengthened specimens Magazine of Concrete Research, 2008, 60, No. 7

times greater than those of the unstrengthened reference columns. This may be attributed to the fact that the tensile strength of epoxy was higher than that of concrete. All tests on unidirectional CFRP strengthened columns were finally stopped owing to excessive lateral deflections, with the FRP jackets remaining intact except for the epoxy cracking. This phenomenon was also observed for the slender circular RC columns strengthened by unidirectional CFRP presented in Tao et al.19 In contrast to unstrengthened columns, no concrete spalling was observed owing to the presence of the CFRP jackets (Fig. 5). This is especially worth attention for the specimen US-1R, which is similar to specimen BS-1R with a load eccentricity of 0, but demonstrated a different failure mode. As mentioned earlier, concrete crushing was observed for specimen BS-1R near mid-height (Fig 6(a)). The difference can be explained by the higher confinement of unidirectional CFRP compared to that of the bidirectional CFRP used in the test programme, since the unidirectional CFRP had a double fibre content in the lateral direction. Owing to the presence of longitudinal fibres, no concrete cracking could be observed for those columns strengthened by bidirectional CFRP during the tests. Unlike the strengthened specimens in series US, three different failure modes were recognised for the bidirectional CFRP strengthened specimens as shown in Figs 527

Tao and Yu

Concrete crushing and CFRP rupture Flexural failure at end

(a)

(a)

CFRP rupture

Flexural failure at end

(b)

(b)

Fig. 6. CFRP failure of specimens: (a) BS-1R; (b) BS-2R

Fig. 7. Flexural failure of the specimens at column ends: (a) BS-3R; (b) BS-4R

6 and 7. The first failure mode was characterised by the compressive crushing of concrete (specimen BS1R). The concrete crush occurred at a mid-height deflection um of about 30 mm and the concrete expansion led to the rupture of CFRP, as shown in Fig. 6(a). The second failure mode was observed in the specimen BS2R, in which the longitudinal fibres at the extreme tension face ruptured near mid-height when the deflection um attained about 90 mm (Fig. 6(b)). The third failure mode was observed in specimens BS-3R and BS-4Rthat is, a flexural failure occurred at the top ends, as shown in Fig. 7. This is attributed to the discontinuity of CFRP jackets at the ends, thus leading 528

to a change of the failure locations. More discussions on these three failure modes will be given in the next section. During the tests, the lateral deflections of all columns were found approximately in the shape of a half sine-wave. This observation is illustrated in Fig. 8 with two typical specimens US-3R and BS-3R, where the measured deflections of columns are compared with corresponding sine curves shown as dashed lines for different levels of axial loads before and after failure. The axial load levels are represented by the axial load ratio n which is defined as the ratio of the applied load N to the ultimate axial load Nu .
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Behaviour of CFRP-strengthened slender square RC columns

4 n 054 071 086 100 096 089 n 3 n n n 2 n

1 After peak 0 0 20 40 Deflection f: mm (a) 4 n 051 073 091 100 099 092 60 80

its peak load, it can be concluded that the second failure mode (rupture of CFRP) is more preferable than the other two failure modes. In practical design, the first failure mode (compressive crushing of concrete) can be avoided by decreasing the column axial load ratio, and the third failure mode (flexural failure at the end of column) can be prevented by improving the anchor system of CFRP or by checking the flexural strength of cross-sections at the column ends. The measured ultimate strength (Nu ) are given in Table 1. Fig. 11 shows the effect of load eccentricity on the ultimate strength (Nu ). As expected, an increase in the load eccentricity results in a significant decrease in the failure load, for both strengthened and unstrengthened specimens. Effect of CFRP strengthening It is observed from Fig. 9 that a bidirectional CFRP strengthened specimen exhibited a higher flexural stiffness compared with its unstrengthened counterpart, while the unidirectional CFRP had less effect on the flexural stiffness. This different influence in stiffness mainly resulted from the contribution of longitudinal fibres in bidirectional CFRP which could bear tensile stresses in flexure. The strengthened columns are also seen to show more ductility than the reference specimens, and this effect is especially evident for axially loaded columns owing to the confinement effect (Fig. 9). Once again, there is an exception for specimens BS-3R and BS-4R owing to the flexural failure that occurred at the top ends. Figure 11 also illustrates the effect of CFRP strengthening on Nu . It can be seen from Fig. 11 that the measured Nu for the columns strengthened by unidirectional CFRP is quite close to that of unstrengthened ones. No obvious strength increase was observed owing to the slenderness effect. A strength gain of 14.440% was, however, reported for unidirectional CFRP strengthened circular RC columns with a same slenderness ratio L0 /D of 20.4.19 The CFRP configuration and material properties used in Tao et al.19 were roughly the same as in this paper. Although it is well known that FRP jacketing is more efficient in confining circular RC columns than square ones, it is further concluded from the test results that the cross-section type has an even more significant influence on slender columns than on short ones. From Fig. 11, it is evident that a strength enhancement has been achieved for bidirectional CFRP strengthened columns. The increase in strength ranges from 22.8% to 61.8%. Fig. 12 shows the gain in strength for the strengthened specimens with different load eccentricity ratios. As can be seen, the strength gain increases generally while the load eccentricity ratio increases. This phenomenon is easy to understand, as the longitudinal fibres become more effective when bending becomes dominant. The strength gain was, 529

Distance away from the bottom support H: m

Distance away from the bottom support H: m

n 3 n n n 2 n

1 After peak 0

20

40 Deflection f: mm (b)

60

80

Fig. 8. Column deflections under different load levels: (a) specimen US-3R; (b) specimen BS-3R

Effect of load eccentricity The axial load (N) is shown against the mid-height lateral deflection (um ) for all test columns in Fig. 9. The effect of load eccentricity (e) on Num curves is illustrated in Fig. 10. As can be seen, an axially loaded column exhibited a much higher flexural stiffness compared with eccentrically loaded ones, while load eccentricity had only a moderate influence on the flexural stiffness of the eccentrically loaded specimens. It can also be seen from Fig. 10 that the post-peak curves become steeper with decreasing load eccentricity. The greater the load eccentricity, the more ductile the column. This is not, however, the case for bidirectional CFRP strengthened columns owing to the failure mode change of the specimens BS-3R and BS-4R. As mentioned above, there are three different failure modes observed in the tests for bidirectional CFRP strengthened columns. From Fig. 10(d), it seems that the failure of specimen BS-2R was more ductile than the other two specimens with larger eccentricity. As the CFRP rupture for specimen BS-2R occurred at a quite large column deflection (about 90 mm) after reaching
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Tao and Yu
1200 US-1U e 900 0 US-1R 120 US-2U US-2R 600 e 300 50 mm 150 e 100 mm

Axial load N: kN

Axial load N: kN

90

150 mm

60 US-3U US-4U US-3R US-4R 80

30

20 40 60 Mid-height deflection um: mm (a)

80

20 40 60 Mid-height deflection um: mm (b) BS-3U e 100 mm BS-3R BS-4U BS-4R

1200 BS-1U 900 BS-2U e 600 e 300 50 mm 0 BS-1R BS-2R

240

180

Axial load N: kN

Axial load N: kN

120

60 e 150 mm

30

60

90

120

150

30

60

90

120

150

Mid-height deflection um: mm (c)

Mid-height deflection um: mm (d)

Fig. 9. Axial load N plotted against mid-height deflection um curves

12

12

Normalised axial load N/Nu

Normalised axial load N/Nu

09

09

06

US-1U US-2U

06

US 1R US 2R

03

US-3U US-4U

03

US 3R US 4R

20

40

60

80

20

40

60

80

Mid-height deflection um: mm (a) 12 12

Mid-height deflection um: mm (b)

Normalised axial load N/Nu

09

Normalised axial load N/Nu

09

06 BS-1U BS-2U 03 BS-3U BS-4U 0 0 30 60 90 120 Mid-height deflection um: mm (c) 150

06

BS-1R BS-2R

03

BS-3R BS-4R

0 0 30 60 90 120 Mid-height deflection um: mm (d) 150

Fig. 10. Effect of load eccentricity on Num curves

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Behaviour of CFRP-strengthened slender square RC columns

1200 Reference specimen 900 Strengthened specimen

600

300

50 100 Load eccentricity e: mm (a)

150

1200 Reference specimen 900 Strengthened specimen

600

300

50 100 Load eccentricity e: mm (b)

150

Fig. 11. Effects of CFRP strengthening and load eccentricity on peak loads: (a) unidirectional CFRP-strengthened specimens; (b) bidirectional CFRP-strengthened specimens

80

Strength gain: %

60

tension faces of the unstrengthened and unidirectional CFRP strengthened specimens failed after the concrete or epoxy cracking. From Fig. 13 it can be seen that the test specimens exhibit more gradual strain behaviour with the increase of load eccentricity. The measured longitudinal strains (cu ) at extreme fibres in compression at peak load are given in Table 1. As can be seen, the value of cu decreases while the load eccentricity increases. This is because the column with a larger load eccentricity failed at a much smaller load level. At the same time, it can be observed that most strengthened specimens developed a higher strain of cu than those unstrengthened counterparts owing to the CFRP confinement. A similar phenomenon has also been reported by Hodhod et al.13 and Mirmiran et al.18 The lateral strains measured at mid-height can be used to evaluate the confinement provided by the CFRP wrap. It was observed that only lateral strain measured at the compression face (cl ) developed to some extent during the test. This demonstrated that the test specimens were dominated by flexural deformation. It was also found that, the maximum cl was observed in those axially loaded specimens with a value of only around 0.001, thus leading to a quite limited confinement effect. This helps to understand the limited effect of CFRP strengthening for the specimens in series US. It can also be concluded that the strength gain for bidirectional CFRP strengthened specimens was mainly from the contribution of longitudinal fibres. Figure 14 shows the normalised axial load (N/Nu ) plotted against axial shortening (/L) relations for all columns, where the axial shortening () was an average value measured from the two LVDTs located at the bottom end of the column. As can be seen from Fig. 14, the non-linearity exhibited by axial shortening is of the same nature as that exhibited by mid-height deflections.

Peak load Nu: kN

Peak load Nu: kN

40

20

Conclusions
A series of tests were carried out in this study to observe the performance of slender CFRP-strengthened square RC columns under eccentric compression. The following conclusions can be drawn within the limitations of the study. (a) All unidirectional CFRP-strengthened columns failed in a typical flexural mode with large lateral deflections. Three different failure modesconcrete crushing, CFRP rupture and flexural failure at endswere observed for bidirectional CFRP strengthened columns, in which the CFRP rupture failure is more preferable. (b) No obvious strength increase was observed for specimens confined by unidirectional CFRP jackets, while an increase of 22.861.8% was obtained 531

05 1 15 Load eccentricity ratio e/r

Fig. 12. Strength gain plotted against load eccentricity ratio (series BS)

however, less for specimen BS-4R than for specimen BS-3R. The reason is attributed to the premature failure of BS-4R at the top end. Strain analysis Figure 13 shows the axial load (N) plotted against extreme fibre strains () for all test columns. It should be noted that all axial strain gauges mounted on the
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Tao and Yu
1200 US-1U US-1R US-2U US-2R 150 120 US-3U US-3R US-4U US-4R

Axial load N: kN

Axial load N: kN

900

90 60 30 0 8000

600

300

0 8000

4000

0 Strain : 10 (a)

4000
6

8000

4000

0 Strain : 10 (b)

4000
6

8000

1200

200 160

Axial load N: kN

Axial load N: kN

900

600

BS-1U BS-1R BS-2U BS-2R

120 80 40 0 8000

BS-3U BS-3R BS-4U BS-4R

300

0 8000

4000

0 Strain : 10 (c)

4000

8000

4000

0 Strain : 10 (d)

4000
6

8000

Fig. 13. Axial load plotted against extreme fibre strain curves

12 10 08

12 10 08

N/Nu

06 04 02 0 0 1000 2000 /L( 10 6) (a) 3000 4000 US-1U US-1R US-2U US-2R

N/Nu

06 US-3U 04 02 0 0 2000 4000 /L( 10 6) (b) 6000 8000 US-3R US-4U US-4R

12 BS-1U 10 08 BS-1R BS-2U BS-2R

12 10 08

N/Nu

06 04 02 0

N/Nu

06 04 02 0 0 10 000 20 000 /L( 10 6) (d) 30 000 40 000 BS-3U BS-3R BS-4U BS-4R

6000

12 000 /L( 10 6) (c)

18 000

24 000

Fig. 14. Normalised axial load (N) plotted against axial shortening () curves

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Behaviour of CFRP-strengthened slender square RC columns for those strengthened by bidirectional CFRP jackets. (c) Although the lateral confinement has little effect on strength enhancement for slender square RC columns, it can somehow enhance the column ductility, especially for axially loaded columns.
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Acknowledgements
The research reported in this paper is part of Project 50608019 supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and a key Grant from the Chinese Ministry of Education (No. 205083). Their financial support is highly appreciated. The authors express their appreciation to Yuan-Zhi Zhong for his assistance in the experiments.

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