An experimental study on the retrofitting effects of reinforced concrete columns damaged by rebar corrosion strengthened with carbon fiber sheets

This paper presents the results of an experiment study on the structural behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) columns damaged by rebar corrosion and the retrofitting effects of damaged RC columns strengthened with carbon fiber sheets (CFS). In the experiment, a cyclic horizontal loading test was carried out using RC columns damaged by different degrees of rebar corrosion and strengthened with CFS. As a result, it was revealed that the deterioration of their structural behavior was mainly caused by the decline in the confining effect due to the falling off of concrete cover and the reduction of mechanical properties of corrosion rebar. In addition, the test proved that shear strengthening using CFS is an very effective retrofit technique that prevents bond splitting cracks and shear cracks from growing and improves the ductility of RC columns with corroded rebars due to the confining effect of CFS. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.