An Experimental Investigation on the Structural Behavior of FRP-Concrete Composite Compression Members

In construction industries, new construction materials are needed to overcome some problems associated with the use of conventional construction materials due to the change of environmental and social requirements. Accordingly, the requirements to be satisfied in the design of civil engineering structures are diversified. As a new construction material in the civil engineering industries, fiber reinforced polymeric plastic (FRP) has a superior corrosion resistance, high specific strength/stiffness, etc. Therefore, such properties can be used to mitigate the problems associated with the use of conventional construction materials. Nowadays, new types of bridge piers and marine piles are being studied for new construction. They are made of concrete filled fiber reinforced polymeric plastic tubes (CFFT). In this paper, a new type of FRP-concrete composite pile which is composed of reinforced concrete filled FRP tube (RCFFT) is proposed to improve compressive strength as well as flexural strength of an RCFFT. The load carrying capacity of proposed RCFFT is discussed based on the result of experimental and analytical investigations.