Experimental and analytical behaviour of RC members strengthened by means of high performance jacket

The strengthening of existing RC structures, built according to the Italian construction practice of the ’60-‘70s, has become an important and urgent issue. The reasons for strengthening are the need of strength upgrading to withstand underestimated loads; increasing the load-carrying capacity and fulfilling the seismic code requirements. A new technique for the strengthening of existing R/C structures, based on the application of a low thickness high performance fiber reinforced jacket, is investigated herein. The application of this technique has been studied for the strengthening of beams, columns and beam-column joints by full scale experimental tests which results showed that the application of a HPFRC jacket allows to significantly increase the strength of the elements, reaching also an adequate level of ductility. Subsequently, the experimental results are compared with analytical evaluations of the load carrying capacity of the retrofitted elements, showing that the analytical formulations are consistent with the experimental evidence.