Numerical and Experimental Study on Deficient Short Steel Tubes Strengthened with CFRP Under Compression

In view of development and repair costs, support of structures is imperative. Several factors, for example, design and calculation errors, absence of appropriate installation, change of structures application, exhaustion, seismic tremor, fire and natural conditions diminish their strength. In such cases, structures have need of rehabilitation and restoration to achieve their original performance. One of the most up to date materials for retrofitting is carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) that can provide an amount of restriction to postpone buckling of thin steel walls. This paper provides a numerical and experimental investigation on CFRP strengthened short steel tubes with initial horizontal and vertical deficiency under compression. Ten square and circular specimens were tested to study effects of the following parameters: (1) position of deficiency, horizontal or vertical; (2) tube shape, square or circular; (3) CFRP strengthening. In the experiments, axial static loading was gradually applied and for the numerical study three-dimensional (3D) static nonlinear analysis method using ABAQUS software was performed. The results show that deficiency reduces load-bearing capacity of steel columns and the impact of horizontal deficiency is higher than the impact of vertical deficiency, in both square and circular tubes. Use of CFRP materials for strengthening of short steel columns with initial deficiency indicates that fibers play a considerable role on increasing load bearing capacity, reducing stress at the damage location, preventing deformation caused by deficiency and delaying local buckling. Both numerical and experimental outcomes are in good agreement, which underlines the accuracy of the models adopted.