Compressive Behavior of Circular Concrete Columns Confined by Basalt Fiber Reinforced Polymer (BFRP)

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study on the compressive behavior of circular concrete columns confined by a new class of composite materials originated from basalt rock, Basalt Fiber Reinforced Polymer (BFRP). The primary objective of this study is to observe the compressive behavior of BFRP-confined cylindrical concrete column specimens under the effect of different number of layers of basalt fiber as a study parameter (3, 6, and 9 layers). For this purpose, 8 small scale circular concrete specimens with no internal steel reinforcement were tested under monotonic axial compression to failure. The results of BFRP-confined concrete specimens of this study showed a bilinear stress-strain response with two ascending branches. Consequently, the performance of confined columns was improved as the number of BFRP layer was increased, in which all the specimens exhibited ductile behavior before failure with significant strength enhancement. The experimental results indicate the well-performing of basalt fiber in improving the concrete compression behavior with an increase in number of FRP layers.