Using textile reinforced engineered cementitious composite for concrete columns confinement

Confining concrete structures with fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) is proven to be an efficient technique in improving the dilation and axial performance of concrete columns. However, a few drawbacks of using FRP, such as brittleness of FRP sheet and poor performance of the material at high temperatures, have been found in recent years. A feasibility study of a newly developed strengthening system, basalt fibre textile reinforced engineered cementitious composite (ECC), is presented in this paper. A combination of basalt textile and ECC-based matrix was used in this research to evaluate how effectively this technique to confine concrete columns. All the specimens were tested under axial load, which was applied to the concrete cores only to create pure hoop tensile stress at the confinement layer. The experimental results revealed that ECC is a promising material that can effectively bond to textile fibres. A new confinement model was also developed to predict the compressive strength for textile reinforced ECC confined concrete. The technique could be an effective alternative to overcome the drawbacks of the traditional strengthening methods.