Mechanical Behavior of Slender Concrete-Filled Fiber Reinforced Polymer Columns

The mechanical behavior of concrete-filled glass fiber reinforced polymer columns is affected by various factors including concrete strength, stiffness of tube, end confinement effect, and slenderness ratio of members. In this research the behavior of slender columns was examined both experimentally and analytically. Experimental works include 1) compression test with 30cm long glass fiber composite columns under different end confinement conditions, 2) uni-axial compression test for 7 slender columns, which have various slenderness ratios. Short-length stocky columns gave high strength and ductility revealing high confinement action of FRP tubes. The strength increment and strain change were examined under different end confinement conditions. With slender columns, failure strengths, confinement effects, and stress-strains relations were examined. Through analytical work, effective length was computed and it was compared with the amount of reduction in column strength, which is required to predict design strength with slender specimens. This study shows the feasibility of slender concrete-filled glass fiber reinforced polymer composite columns.