Confinement of concrete columns with unplasticized Poly-vinyl chloride tubes

Abstract

In this paper an experimental study is presented to investigate the effectiveness of UPVC tube for confinement of concrete columns. UPVC tubes having 140 mm, 160 mm and 200 mm external diameters were used to confine the concrete having compressive strength 20 MPa, 25 MPa and 40 MPa. The concrete has been designed using IS code 10262-1982(Reaffirmed -2004) (BIS:10262–1982, Reaffirmed -2004). The testing of the specimens was carried out on a displacement controlled Instron make Universal Testing Machine of 2500 kN capacity. During the experiments mode of deformation and corresponding load-compression curves were recorded and obtained results are compared with the existing models for confined concrete available in the literature. It is found that the predicted capacities of columns using different models are within ±6% of the experimental capacities. It is found that UPVC tubes can be effectively used for confinement of the concrete columns and to enhance their load capacity, ductility as well as energy absorbing capacity.