Compressive behaviour of concrete columns confined with steel-reinforced grout jackets

This paper investigates the compressive strength of concrete columns confined with a new jacketing system using high strength steel reinforced fabrics embedded in an inorganic matrix (SRG). A comprehensive experimental programme was conducted on 52 cylindrical columns with SRG jackets and 15 control specimens under monotonic uniaxial compression load. The test specimens were designed to investigate the influence of different design parameters including the density of the fabric (1, 1.57, 4.72 cords/cm), number of layers (1, 2), overlap length (24, 36 cm), bonding agent (4 different types of mortar) and the concrete strength (16–30 MPa). The test results highlight the efficiency of the proposed method, where one-layered and two-layered SRG jackets could increase the strength capacity of the unconfined specimens by up to 122% and 193%, respectively.