A predictive investigation associated with design recommendations for CFRP-confined concrete in aggressive service environments

This paper presents predictive investigations into the axial behavior of concrete exposed to aggressive service environments. Two types of concrete cylinders are studied: unconfined and confined with carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite sheets. The aggressive environment and service traffic load are represented by freeze–wet–dry cycles with various levels of instantaneous compression load varying from 0% to 60% of the capacities of the unconfined and confined control concrete. Research approaches include three-dimensional deterministic finite element and probabilistic models, associated with a previously conducted experimental program. Effect of the instantaneous live load is significant on the performance of the unconfined and confined concrete, including the variation of compliance and volumetric characteristics. The efficacy of CFRP-confinement increases when the intensity of the live load increases. Reliability performance of the confined concrete is influenced by the environmental and physical conditioning. Refined design recommendations such as strength reduction factors are proposed to address the detrimental contribution of the environmental and physical attributes to the performance of CFRP-confined concrete, based on a Monte-Carlo simulation that can cover over 95% of all possible cases in a normal probability distribution of the confined concrete.

► A probabilistic model is presented for concrete confined with CFRP subjected to aggressive environments.
► Efficacy of CFRP-confinement is examined.
► Design recommendations are presented.