Circular HSC columns confined with pre-tensioned steel straps

Abstract

Steel-straps tensioning technique (SSTT) has been proven to be an effective mean to confined High-strength concrete (HSC). The pre-tensioned force offers by this confining method can significantly restraint the small lateral dilation of HSC. However, most of the design guidelines only concerned with FRP-confined columns subjected to concentric compression. The direct application of these design guidelines on the SSTT-confined HSC column is being questioned due to different material and confining method adopted. Hence, a numerical study was carried out to compare the proposed model with the previous studies. The comparison between experiment results and previous studies has proven that external confinement using steel strap is comparable to others external confinement method. However, there is no definitive conclusion regarding the effectiveness of different confinement method as the geometry of the specimen is different.