Mechanical behavior of CFRP confined low strength concretes subjected to simultaneous heating-cooling cycles and sustained loading

This study aims to present the mechanical behavior of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) reinforced low strength cylindrical and prism concrete specimens under both heating-cooling cycles and sustained loading. Heating-cooling cycles range from -10 to 50A degrees C and the applied sustained load level is 40% of the ultimate strength of concrete. After 200 heating-cooling cycles and/or sustained load testing, specimens were tested to determine the mechanical behavior under uniaxial compression. The experimental test results show that heating-cooling cycles alone have insignificant effect on the mechanical properties of CFRP-wrapped specimens. However, as for simultaneous exposure of sustained loading and heating-cooling cycles the main difference is on the shape of the stress-strain diagram, in which the bilinear response becomes clear. The other difference is on the ultimate strain, which decreases up to 29 and 15% for cylindrical and prismatic specimens, respectively.