Behaviour of tunnel lining strengthened by textile-reinforced concrete

In this paper, the effectiveness of textile-reinforced concrete (TRC), as a means of increasing the bending resistance of tunnel lining, was experimentally and analytically investigated. The short RC column strengthened by TRC on the side farthest from the axial load was designed to investigate the behaviour of tunnel lining strengthened by TRC. The parameters under study included the loading eccentricities, the number of textile layers and the preload ratio of the short RC columns. The experimental programme was composed of two control RC columns with different eccentricities. Five RC columns which were externally upgraded by TRC sheets were also analysed for their enhanced flexural capacity. Experimental responses of the reinforced concrete members strengthened in bending indicated that TRC substantially enhanced the bending resistance. Specifically, the gain increased with a concurrent increase in both the number of layers and eccentricity. The gain greatly worsened, however, with an increase in the preload ratio. An analytical method considering the non-linear behaviour of the materials was also proposed and validated through the test results. The study was extended analytically to include additional cases of TRC-strengthened specimens with some more parameters, including different concrete and steel types.