Effect of Steel-Reinforced Grout Confinement on Concrete Square and Cylindrical Columns

This paper presents an investigation on the compressive behavior of plain concrete columns confined with steel-reinforced grout (SRG) composites. The test parameters include size and cross-sectional shape (square or circular) of the columns, and number of layers (one or two) and density (low or medium density) of the steel fiber sheet. Out of 46 specimens herein presented, 33 were confined with SRG, and the remaining 13 columns were left unconfined for comparison. The results indicate that application of SRG composites improves both the average strength and the ultimate strain of confined specimens with respect to the control (unconfined) columns. The best performance in terms of strength and ultimate strain increase with respect to the control columns is obtained for small square and cylindrical columns confined with two layers of low-density fiber sheet.