Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Three-dimensional nite element analysis of reinforced concrete

columns with FRP and/or steel connement
J.G. Teng a,, Q.G. Xiao a, T. Yu b, L. Lam a
a
b

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
School of Civil, Mining & Environmental Engineering, University of Wollongong, Northelds Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 8 March 2014
Revised 10 March 2015
Accepted 11 March 2015
Available online 17 April 2015
Keywords:
Connement
Columns
Concrete
FRP
Finite elements
Plastic-damage model

a b s t r a c t
The strength and ductility of reinforced concrete (RC) columns can be substantially enhanced though
lateral connement which may be provided by transverse steel reinforcement and/or a supplemental
ber-reinforced polymer (FRP) jacket. Despite extensive past research on conned concrete columns,
most of the existing work has been either experimental or empirical, particularly when discrete steel
hoops/spirals need to be considered. This paper instead is focused on the alternative approach of
three-dimensional (3D) nite element (FE) analysis of circular FRP-conned RC columns, with the discrete nature of transverse steel reinforcement properly captured. The key to the success of such FE analysis lies in an accurate constitutive model for the concrete which is under 3D compressive stresses, and
this is achieved in the present study by building on an accurate plastic-damage model recently proposed
by the authors group. In implementing this plastic-damage model, a local stressstrain model for
concrete under uniform connement, obtained by resolving a number of issues associated with 3D FE
modeling, is employed to generate data for the input parameters. The proposed FE approach is capable
of providing accurate prediction for both FRP-conned RC columns and steel-conned RC columns as
demonstrated through comparisons with existing test data. FE results obtained for steel-conned circular
RC columns are also examined in detail to gain an improved understanding of the connement
mechanisms in these columns.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
When concrete is under lateral connement (including both
active connement by a constant conning pressure and passive
connement by a conning pressure that depends on the dilation
of concrete), it experiences signicant enhancement in both
strength and ductility. As a result, the use of conned concrete in
columns has increased signicantly in the past few decades, especially in structures designed to resist seismic loading. Different
techniques, such as transverse steel bars and ber-reinforced polymer (FRP) jackets/tubes, have been used to achieve lateral connement to concrete in columns. Columns in which the concept of
concrete connement is exploited are referred to as conned concrete columns in this paper. Only circular columns are explicitly
considered in the paper, although the approach presented in the
paper is generally applicable to conned concrete columns of other
cross-sectional shapes.
To understand the behavior of conned concrete columns,
researchers
have
traditionally
relied
on
experimental
Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 27666012; fax: +852 23346389.
E-mail address: cejgteng@polyu.edu.hk (J.G. Teng).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2015.03.030
0141-0296/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

investigations (e.g. [13]). A major aim of these experimental studies has been to establish empirical or semi-empirical uniaxial
stressstrain models for the conned concrete to facilitate the
analysis of such columns in design; many such models have been
proposed based on experimental observations (e.g. [1,3,4]). While
these uniaxial stressstrain models have played a useful role in
the approximate analysis of conned concrete columns for design
purposes, they do not allow the fundamental behavior of conned
concrete columns, including the interaction mechanisms between
the conning material and the concrete, to be explored. For example, these uniaxial stressstrain models ignore the discrete nature
of steel hoops in reinforced concrete (RC) columns, and instead
assume that the connement provided to the concrete is invariable
over the height. This assumption of uniformity over height leads to
signicant uncertainty when an FRP-jacketed RC column is under
consideration: interaction between the non-uniformity of steelhoop connement and the brittle FRP jacket may well have
undesirable consequences as the FRP jacket can be expected to
rupture when local high hoop strains reach its hoop rupture strain.
To overcome the inadequacy of uniaxial stressstrain models
for conned concrete in predicting the three-dimensional (3D)
behavior of conned concrete columns, one may resort to a 3D

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J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

nite element (FE) model, with all details explicitly represented, in

conjunction with appropriate constitutive models for the all
materials involved. As constitutive models for steel bars and FRP
jackets/tubes are well established, the key to the success of such
3D models lies in the accuracy of the constitutive model for
concrete under general 3D compressive stresses.
For circular RC columns conned with transverse steel bars (i.e.
steel-conned RC columns), 3D FE models have been presented by
previous researchers [5,6,810] based on different constitutive
models for concrete. Abdel-Halim and Abu-Lebdeh [5] used a nonlinear elastic model for concrete; their model succeeded in closely
predicting the axial stressaxial strain curves of core concrete but
failed to properly depict the dilation behavior of core concrete. Liu
and Foster [6] employed an explicit microplane model for concrete
[7]. The values of parameters for this constitutive model were
obtained from a back analysis of circular concrete cylinders under
various conning pressures; using the calibrated parameters, the
model was shown to provide close predictions of the stressstrain
behavior of core concrete. Barros [8] used an associated plasticity
model for concrete; a scaling technique was introduced for the
hardening/softening rule, and as a result, the model was shown
to provide accurate predictions for the peak stress and the slope
of the softening branch of axial stressstrain curves of core
concrete. Because an associated ow rule was used by Barros [8],
the model was unable to predict the dilation behavior of steelconned concrete closely. Imran and Pantazopoulou [9] used a
non-associated plasticity model for concrete; this model was
shown to provide reasonably accurate predictions for the dilation
behavior of steel-conned concrete. Grassl and Jirsek [10] used
a plastic-damage model for concrete; the model was shown to
provide close predictions of both the axial stressstrain curve
and the dilation behavior of steel-conned concrete. It should be
noted that in predicting the axial stressstrain behavior of
steel-conned concrete, the accuracy of the model in predicting
the dilation behavior is not so critical, as the conning pressure
does not depend on the dilation of concrete once the steel has
yielded. For FRP-conned concrete and other passively-conned
concrete, this dilation behavior controls the variation of the
conning pressure. Although some of the above-mentioned
constitutive models can predict the behavior of steel-conned
concrete closely, all of them have recently been shown to be
incapable of properly depicting the dilation behavior of conned
concrete [16].
For circular FRP-conned RC columns where interactions
between the discrete steel hoops/spirals and the FRP are important
in the connement mechanism, 3D FE models have been presented
by Montoya et al. [11] who used the compression eld theory for
concrete; by Rougier and Luccioni [12] who used a plastic-damage
model for concrete; and by Eid and Paultre [13], Karabinis et al.
[14] and Doran et al. [15] who used a DruckerPrague (DP) type
plasticity model for concrete. The studies reviewed above have
achieved partial success in predicting the behavior of conned RC
columns, but there is also considerable room for improvement.
For instance, Montoya et al.s model [11] is inconvenient for
implementation in a FE analysis driven by strain or displacement
increments as a special algorithm is needed to determine the value
of Poissons ratio corresponding to the current conning pressure.
In particular, the accuracy of these 3D models, as a predictive tool,
is still limited. This is because they all suffer from the lack of an
accurate constitutive model [16] for FRP-conned concrete which
is predominantly under three-dimensional compressive stresses.
For instance, the constitutive models used in [1215] failed to
closely predict the dilation behavior of FRP-conned concrete.
Yu et al. [17,18] recently assessed the accuracy of existing DP
type constitutive models in predicting the response of conned
concrete; their assessment showed that although one of the DP

models (i.e. [19]) has the potential to provide accurate predictions

for actively-conned concrete or steel-conned concrete, none of
them can properly capture all the key features of FRP-conned
concrete. Based on Yu et al.s study [17,18], it can also be deduced
that other plastic-damage models available also suffer from similar
problems as they do not include the key features identied by Yu
et al. [17,18] for the accurate modeling of concrete under a general
state of connement. On the basis of this knowledge, Yu et al. [18]
developed an improved plastic-damage model to provide accurate
predictions for FRP-conned concrete. This model includes four
components, which are the yield surface, the hardening rule, the
ow rule, and the damage variable. Connement-dependent characteristics were introduced into these four components to eliminate the deciencies of the previous DP type plasticity models
in modeling FRP-conned concrete. Yu et al.s model [18] has been
successfully implemented in ABAQUS [20] for the FE analysis of
two types of FRP-conned concrete columns with uniform connement over the column height and obtained accurate predictions:
FRP-conned plain concrete cylinders and hybrid FRP-concretesteel double-skin tubular columns (abbreviated as DSTCs in [21]).
Due to the uniformity of connement over height in FRP-conned plain concrete columns and FRP-concrete-steel double-skin
tubular columns, Yu et al.s FE analysis [18] employed a slice model
containing a single layer of solid elements. While such a slice model
can closely represent the mid-height region of these two types of
FRP-conned concrete columns, it is incapable of representing the
3D behavior of FRP-conned RC columns and steel-conned RC columns (e.g. end constraints, transverse steel bars, and buckling of
longitudinal steel bars). This paper presents the rst accurate FE
approach for the 3D behavior of steel- and FRP-conned RC columns under concentric axial compression that employs the accurate plastic-damage model for conned concrete that was
recently developed by Yu et al. [18]. This FE approach offers a
powerful tool for understanding the complex behavior of concrete
under non-uniform connement as commonly found in real columns. It should be noted that the present study is concerned only
with FRP-conned RC columns and steel-conned RC columns
under monotonic loading as the constitutive model used here for
conned concrete has only been veried under this type of loading.
The paper starts by providing a brief summary of the plasticdamage model proposed by Yu et al. [18], which is then followed
by a calibration of the plastic-damage model for the three-dimensional behavior of FRP-conned circular plain concrete cylinders
with particular attention to the end restraint effects. The calibrated
model is next veried using test data of steel-conned and FRPconned RC columns. Finally, FE results obtained using the veried
FE approach are used to investigate the validity of the arching
action assumption, which has been commonly used in modeling
the behavior of concrete conned by transverse steel bars.

2. Constitutive models
2.1. Yu et al.s model for conned concrete and renement
Yu et al.s model [18] was based on a good understanding of the
behavior of conned concrete accumulated at The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University (e.g. [3,24]) over many years and formulated within the theoretical framework of the Concrete Damaged
Plasticity Model (CDPM) provided in ABAQUS. A brief summary
of the model is provided below; further details of the model can
be found in [18]. In the model, a four-parameter Lubliner criterion
[23] is adopted as the yield function. Three of the four parameters
are related to the tensile strength, ft, uniaxial compressive strength,
0
0
f co , and equal biaxial compressive strength, f b , of concrete. The
fourth parameter K is dened as the ratio of the square root of

J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

the second invariant of deviatoric stresses on the tensile meridian

to that on the compressive meridian. This parameter describes the
shape of the yield surface in the deviatoric plane and controls the
predicted connement effect of concrete under tri-axial compression (referring to axial compression in combination with equal lateral compressive stresses; to be differentiated from states of
0
0
general 3D compressive stresses), for a given ratio of f b =f co . In
the case of tri-axial compression, this yield surface can be repreq
sented in the I1  J 2 (I1 is the rst invariant of effective stresses,
and J 2 is the second invariant of deviatoric effective stresses) plane
by a linear line. This linear line corresponds to a strength equation
0
0
0
in the form of f cc f co k1 rl , where f cc is the peak stress of concrete under a uniform lateral conning pressure, rl. Teng et al.
[22] suggested a value of 3.5 for k1, and the corresponding value
of K can be shown to be 0.725 [18]. In addition, Yu et al. [17] found
that most of the existing DP type plasticity models tend to predict
almost identical slopes for the second branch of stressstrain
curves for concrete under different conning pressures if the hardening rule is related only to the uniaxial stressstrain curve of
unconned concrete, a phenomenon which is not consistent with
experimental observations. Therefore, Yu et al. [18] proposed a
connement-dependent hardening rule to eliminate this discrepancy. This connement-dependent hardening rule is obtained
from a set of stressstrain curves of concrete under uniform active
connement generated by a so-called analysis-oriented stress
strain model [22] that accounts explicitly for the degree of active
or passive connement via an incremental analysis; the uniaxial
stressstrain curve of unconned concrete is always included in
this set of stressstrain curves as a special case with its conning
pressure being equal to zero. Similarly, the damage variable in
Yu et al.s model [18] is also set to be connement-dependent
and is also obtained from the same set of stressstrain curves of
concrete under uniform active connement. A DP hyperbolic
function is used as the ow potential; which can be very close to
the DP linear function with proper parameter setting [18]. As a
result, the dilation angle in the ow rule becomes a major parameter. When a constant dilation angle is used, the volumetric plastic
strain increment and the deviatoric plastic strain increment are in
proportion, which is also not consistent with experimental observations. To eliminate this discrepancy, the dilation angle in Yu
et al.s model [18] is taken as a function of the equivalent plastic
strain ~epl and the rate of the connement increment.
The preceding connement-dependent features require an
analysis-oriented stressstrain model for concrete under uniform
active connement that works well for both active and passive
connement (e.g. [22]) to produce the necessary material parameters. In Yu et al.s model [18], Teng et al.s model [22] was adopted
to generate a connement-dependent hardening rule and a connement-dependent dilation angle for the CDPM.
In the present study, Teng et al.s model [22] was replaced by
Jiang and Tengs model [3] as the latter provides closer predictions
for weakly conned concrete. In addition, the characteristics of
non-uniform connement on the damage variable and the hardening rule are further accounted for by dening an effective conning
pressure, rl,eff, as follows [18]:
0

rl;eff

2af co  r2 af co  r3
0
af co
0
2af co  r2  r3

where r2 and r3 are the two principal lateral stresses respectively,

and a is a constant to be determined based on test results. In the
present study, compressive stresses and strains are dened as negative while tensile stresses and strains are dened as positive, unless
otherwise specied. It was suggested by Yu et al. [18] that the best-

17

t value for a is 0.0039. Based on the denition of rl,eff, the rate of

the connement increment, keq, is dened as follows:

keq 2rl;eff =e2 e3

where e2 and e3 are the two principal lateral strains respectively. In

the subsequent sections, keq is referred to as the equivalent connement stiffness for brevity. While not explicitly given in the paper,
Yu et al. [18] adopted the denition of equivalent plastic strain in
ABAQUS. In the present study, the following denition is adopted
for the equivalent plastic strain increment so that the connement-dependent characteristics incorporated into the model is limited to the compressive zone:

d~epl d~epl
min

where ~epl
min is the principal plastic strain with the smallest algebraic
value. This equivalent plastic strain increment is the same as that
dened in the CDPM model in ABAQUS for the compression zone.
In a slice model, the axial direction is always one of the principal directions for both stresses and strains, and the other two principal directions (i.e. lateral directions) are always perpendicular to
the column axis. In addition, the principal stress and strain in the
axial direction are normally larger in magnitude than the principal
stresses and strains in both lateral directions. In the specic case
where the connement received by the concrete is uniform (e.g.
FRP-conned circular concrete cylinders), e2 > 0 and e3 > 0 hold,
and the keq given by Eq. (2) is always positive. For concrete under
non-uniform connement, however, e2 6 0 or e3 6 0 may happen,
and this may lead to a negative or innite value of keq. For instance,
when concrete is under uniaxial-strain compression, both e2 and e3
are zero and rl,eff is positive, which results in an innite value of
keq. To address this problem, the following assumptions were
adopted in implementing Yu et al.s model [18] in the present
study, without compromising the generality of the model for practical applications:
(a) r2 and r3 in Eq. (1) are the two principal stresses with larger
algebraic values while e2 and e3 used in the ow rule are the
two principal strains with larger algebraic values.
(b) r2 (or r3) is ignored in calculating rl,eff, if it becomes positive
(i.e. r2 > 0 or r3 > 0), as the effect of tensile stresses on conned concrete is unclear.
(c) e2 + e3 > 0. If e2 + e3 is found to be negative or zero, it is taken
as a very small positive value in determining the ow rule.
The purpose of these assumptions is to limit the revised part of
the CDPM model to the compressive zone. In addition, two mate0
rial parameters, the unconned concrete strength, f co , and the
corresponding axial strain, eco , are required to generate the input
parameters for Yu et al.s model [18].
It should also be noted that an analysis-oriented stressstrain
model for concrete under uniform connement such as that of
Jiang and Teng [3] was calibrated from experimental results of
FRP-conned circular concrete cylinders. The effect of end
restraints was generally not eliminated in the reported experimental results. Therefore, such a stressstrain model has already
included the effect of end restraints implicitly. When this stress
strain model is used to generate material parameters for Yu
et al.s model [18] in an FE slice model, the effect of end restraints
is also implicitly considered by the slice model. Due to this implicit
consideration, it is improper to use Jiang and Tengs model [3] to
generate material parameters for Yu et al.s model [18] when end
restraints have already been explicitly included in the FE model.
Instead, a local analysis-oriented stressstrain model needs to
be found in which the effect of end restraints has been eliminated.
This issue is addressed in detail in Section 3.

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J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

2.2. FRP and steel

The present study is focused on the performance of a concrete
constitutive model in the FE analysis of FRP-conned RC columns.
FRP and steel are the other two materials which need to be considered in the FE analysis. Therefore, constitutive models for these
two materials are also briey described here. In addition, a perfect
bond is assumed between concrete and steel or FRP.
2.2.1. FRP jackets
In the FE models presented later, the FRP jacket is represented
using membrane elements and treated as a linear elastic brittle
material. As the bers in the FRP jackets considered in the present
study were all oriented in the hoop direction, the Poissons ratio of
the FRP jacket was set to zero. In addition, the no compression
option available in ABAQUS was adopted to avoid the development
of compressive stresses in the axial direction (i.e. the loading direction). These modeling choices mean that the FRP jacket supplies
only stiffness and strength in the hoop direction as a conning
device in the FE model; the FRP jacket fails brittlely when its hoop
tensile rupture strain is reached. Perfect bonding between the FRP
jacket and the concrete was assumed, and this was achieved by
tying each of the 2-node axisymmetric membrane elements
representing the FRP jacket to the adjacent 4-node solid element
for concrete by means of the tie option in ABAQUS [20].

over the height. A slice model as that used by Yu et al. [18] can
represent the average behavior of the mid-height region of such
a column, but cannot represent the deformation non-uniformity
over height. Exactly because of this non-uniformity, in laboratory
tests on circular concrete cylinders, it is commonly recommended
that the axial compressive strain of concrete be based on the average shortening in the mid-height region within a gauge length no
more than two thirds the height of the specimen [24]. This is also
the normal practice for axial compression tests on FRP-conned
circular concrete cylinders.
As mentioned earlier, Yu et al.s model [18] relies on an analysis-oriented stressstrain model for uniformly-conned concrete
to generate the needed input data (e.g. [3]). When such a stress
strain model is used to derive the input parameters for a 3D FE
model, it is implicitly assumed that this stressstrain model represents the local behavior of a material point of concrete and does
not reect the effect of end restraints. However, if this stressstrain
model has been based on results of conventional tests on FRPconned circular concrete cylinders with the presence of end
restraints, this assumption is violated (i.e. Jiang and Tengs model
[3] is not a truly local stressstrain model). Therefore, when such
a stressstrain model is used to derive values for the input parameters, the end restraint effect is included twice: once through the 3D
modeling and once through the use of a non-local stressstrain
model. Obviously, to achieve an accurate 3D FE model for FRPconned circular concrete cylinders, a truly local stressstrain
model for material points in the 3D FE model is needed to general
values for the input parameters as explained later in this section.

2.2.2. Steel reinforcement

The steel reinforcement in the FE model is represented using
either truss or membrane elements and is treated as an elastic-perfectly plastic material; buckling of longitudinal steel bars under
axial compression is not considered. When modeled as an equivalent membrane, the membrane elements are subjected to biaxial
straining. To suppress the development of axial compressive stresses in the membrane elements, an orthotropic elastic model was
used to describe the elastic behavior of the equivalent membrane.
The hoop direction was adopted as the principal material axis; the
modulus of elasticity in the hoop direction was taken to be
200 GPa which was assumed by the authors in their own analytical
work while the modulus of elasticity in the axial direction and shear
modulus were assumed to have a very small value (e.g. 0.001 GPa);
the Poissons ratio was set to zero. In addition, the von Mises yield
criterion with the associated ow rule was used to describe the plastic behavior of the membrane elements. These modeling choices
mean that the transverse steel bars also supply only stiffness and
strength in the hoop direction as a conning device in the FE model.
To achieve the assumed perfect bonding between the transverse
steel bars and the concrete, the elements representing the transverse steel bars were embedded in the elements representing the
concrete by means of the embedded option available in ABAQUS
[20]. The function of the embedded option is similar to that of
the tie option: the former allows the embedding of lower-dimensional elements inside higher-dimensional elements (e.g. 3D elements) while the latter is used between elements of the same order.

3D FE models were built to simulate the behavior of FRPconned circular concrete cylinders using ABAQUS. Circular
concrete cylinders, each with a diameter (D) of 150 mm and a
length (L) of 300 mm, were considered. Yu et al.s model [18]
described in the preceding section was adopted as the constitutive
model for concrete. Based on the symmetry conditions of FRPconned circular concrete cylinders, an axisymmetric model was
used and only half of the column height was included in the FE
model. A 4-node axisymmetric solid element and a 2-node axisymmetric membrane element were employed to model the concrete
and the FRP jacket respectively. Both the concrete and the FRP
jacket had element sizes of about 6.25 mm, which was chosen on
the basis of a mesh convergence study. In all the FE models, axial
displacements were uniformly imposed on the top surface of the
concrete cylinder until the maximum hoop strain in the FRP jacket
reached its hoop tensile rupture value (i.e. 0.9%).
It was assumed for these numerical examples that the concrete
0
has an unconned cylinder compressive strength, f co , of 40 MPa
and an axial strain at peak stress, eco, of 0.0025; for the FRP jacket,
its thickness, tfrp, modulus of elasticity, Efrp, and average tensile
hoop rupture strain, eh,rup, are 0.34 mm, 240 GPa and 0.009,
respectively.

3. FRP-conned circular plain concrete columns

3.3. Effect of end restraints

3.1. Local versus non-local stressstrain curves for concrete under

uniform connement

Fig. 1 shows that without the inclusion end restraints in the 3D

FE model, the distributions of both axial displacements and stresses are uniform; however, when end restraints are included in
the 3D FE model, the distributions of both axial displacements
and axial stresses become highly non-uniform in both the axial
and the radial directions. Fig. 2 shows that the 3D FE model without end restraints reproduced the stressstrain curves predicted by
Jiang and Tengs model [3]. However, when end restraints were
added, the FE analysis predicted a lower axial stress than Jiang

A signicant issue that needs to be addressed for a 3D FE model

of a conned concrete column test specimen is the effect of end
restraints. Due to the restraints provided by the loading platens
to the column ends, the column ends are not free to expand and
may be assumed to be fully prevented from lateral expansion. As
a result, the behavior of such a concrete column is non-uniform

3.2. 3D FE modeling of FRP-conned circular concrete cylinders

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J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

L/2

f'co=40MPa
co=0.0025
Efrp=240GPa
tfrp=0.34mm
D=150mm
L=300mm

D/2

D/2

w/o end restraints

w/ end restraints

(a)

L/2

f'co=40MPa
co=0.0025
Efrp=240GPa
tfrp=0.34mm
D=150mm
L=300mm

D/2

D/2

w/o end restraints

w/ end restraints

(b)
Fig. 1. Distributions of axial displacements and axial stresses in axially-compressed FRP-conned circular concrete cylinders with and without end restraints. (a) Distribution
of axial displacements, (b) distribution of axial stresses.

and Tengs model [3] at the same hoop strain. In these gures, the
axial stress is the average value over the cylinder cross-section, the
lateral strain is that obtained on the outer surface of the concrete
cylinder at mid-height (i.e. at the plane of symmetry), and the axial
strain is the axial displacement on the outer surface of the concrete
cylinder at a height of 60 mm divided by half of the gauge length
which is equal to 60 mm in this case.
Figs. 1 and 2 show that end restraints have a negative effect on
the response of FRP-conned plain concrete cylinders in terms of
the compressive strength and the strain capacity. This negative
effect arises because end restraints result in non-uniform connement, which was found to have an insignicant effect in increasing
the axial stress of FRP-conned concrete. By contrast, end
restraints prevent the FRP-conned concrete cylinder from lateral
expansion at the ends and lead to non-uniform straining of the
FRP jacket over the height. When the FRP jacket reaches its tensile
hoop rupture strain at the mid-height, its hoop strain is still much
smaller away from the mid-height and can be taken to be zero at
the ends. As a result of this non-uniform straining of the jacket,
the FRP-conned concrete cylinder reaches its ultimate axial stress
earlier at a smaller value of axial strain. This explains why the FE
model can reproduce the responses predicted by Jiang and Tengs
(2007) model [3] when end restraints are not added, but does
not do so when they are (see Fig. 2). In a 3D FE analysis, the effect
of end restraints should be eliminated in the constitutive model for

conned concrete. To achieve this goal, a recalibration process is

proposed in the next sub-section.
3.4. Recalibration of stressstrain model
To address the problem identied above, a local analysis-oriented stressstrain model for concrete under uniform connement
is needed for determining the values of the input parameters. The
key components in the stressstrain model of Teng et al. [22] or
Jiang and Teng [3] are the axial strain-lateral strain relationship
of concrete (i.e. the lateral strain equation) under various lateral
conning pressures and the expressions dening the compressive
strength and the corresponding axial strain of actively-conned
concrete. In order to remove the effect of end restraints from the
stressstrain model, these expressions were adjusted by a trialand-error process. This process continued until the 3D FE model
including end restraints could reproduce the predictions of the
original stressstrain model (i.e. Jiang and Tengs [3] model in
the present study).
As a result of the recalibration, the lateral strain equation
becomes

ec
1:05
eco

(

!
 0:7
  )
el
el
rl
 18 0
1 0:75
 exp 7
eco
eco
f co

20

J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

Axial stress (MPa)

80

60
65

f'co = 40 MPa
co = 0.0025
Efrp = 240 GPa
tfrp = 0.34 mm
D = 150 mm
L = 300 mm

-0.015

-0.010

40

60
h10-3

55

7.5 8.0 8.5 9.0 9.5 10.0

20

-0.005

Jiang and Teng (2007)

FE w/o end restraints
FE w/ end restraints

0
0.000

0.005

0.010

0.015

0.020

Strain

(a)
0.000
0

0.005

0.01

0.015

0.02

Lateral strain

-0.002
Jiang and Teng (2007)
FE w/o end restraints
FE w/ end restraints

-0.004
-0.006
-0.008

caused by end restraints. This underestimation is excluded from

the local analysis-oriented stressstrain model, which leads to an
active-connement model capable of providing close predictions
for actively-conned concrete. In addition, it is worth noting that
Eq. (5) results in a K value equal to 0.699 instead of the original
value of 0.725 as suggested by Yu et al. [18].
Eqs. (4)(6), together with the stressstrain model of Popovics
[27], form a new analysis-oriented stressstrain model which can
be considered as a local stressstrain model for concrete under
uniform connement. Figs. 3 and 4 show the performance of the
3D FE model with the input parameters produced by this new local
stressstrain model. It is clear that by including the end restraints
in 3D modeling, the FE-model can very closely reproduce the predictions of Jiang and Tengs model [3] (Fig. 3). In Fig. 4ad, the circular plain concrete cylinders were wrapped with CFRP [28], GFRP
[22], and Aramid FRP (AFRP) [29], respectively. Details of the specimens are provided in the gures. It is also evident that the 3D FE
model including end restraints predicts the test results reasonably
closely.
4. FRP-conned circular RC columns
4.1. Test columns

f'co = 40 MPa
co = 0.0025
Efrp = 240 GPa
tfrp = 0.34 mm
D = 150 mm
L = 300 mm

To further verify the capacity of the newly developed constitutive model, experimental results from [30] were chosen for
comparison with numerical results. In [30], a total of 21 large-scale
circular RC columns (303 mm  1200 mm) were tested and for ten
of them, stressstrain curves for the conned concrete were

-0.010

Axial strain

(b)
80

Fig. 2. Comparison between Jiang and Tengs analysis-oriented stressstrain model

and FE simulation with the input parameters derived from the same stressstrain
model. (a) Axial stressaxial strain curves, (b) axial strainlateral strain curves.

0

f cc f co 4rl

Axial stress (MPa)

where ec and e1 are the axial strain and the lateral strain of concrete,
and eco is the axial strain at the compressive strength of unconned
concrete. In addition, the expression for the compressive strength of
actively-conned concrete becomes

Jiang and Teng

70

tfrp=0.34mm

FE model

tfrp=0.17mm

50
40
30
20
10

This change in the connement effectiveness coefcient also

leads to the following equation for the axial strain of concrete at
ecc :

0
0.000

f'co=40MPa
co=0.0025
Efrp=240GPa
D=150mm
L=300mm

0.005

0.010

0.015

0.020

0.015

0.020

Axial strain

(a)

where ecc is the axial strain at the peak axial stress of concrete
under a lateral conning pressure, rl.
The only difference between the original lateral strain equation
proposed by Teng et al. [22] (and employed by Jiang and Teng [3])
and Eq. (4) is that a coefcient of 0.85 in the former has been changed to 1.05 in the latter. Similarly, Eq. (5) is slightly different from
the original equation proposed by Teng et al. [22] and employed by
Jiang and Teng [3], and it is closer to the equation of Richart et al.
[1] with a connement effectiveness coefcient of 4.1. The change
of Eq. (6) from the equations used in [22] and [3] is a result of the
change in the connement effectiveness coefcient, following the
approach of Richart et al. [25] who used a factor of ve times the
connement effectiveness coefcient in the equation for the axial
strain at peak stress. As the effect of end restraints is included in
Jiang and Tengs model [3], an active-connement model which
slightly underestimates the peak axial stress [26] and the
corresponding axial strain is used to remedy the underestimation

0.000
0.000
-0.001

0.005

0.010

f'co=40MPa
co=0.0025
Efrp=240GPa
D=150mm
L=300mm

-0.002

Lateral strain

ecc
rl
1 20 0
eco
f co

60

-0.003
-0.004
-0.005
-0.006
-0.007

Jiang and Teng

-0.008
-0.009

FE model

-0.010

Axial strain
(b)
Fig. 3. Recalibration of the analysis-oriented stressstrain model. (a) Axial stress
axial strain curves, (b) axial strainlateral strain curves.

21

90

80

80

70

70

60

60

Axial stress (MPa)

Axial stress (MPa)

J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

tfrp = 00.33mm
33

50

f'co = 38.9 MPa

0.0025
0025
co = 0
Efrffrp
rp = 250 GPa
D = 150 mm
L = 300 mm

40
30

T t
Test

20

50
tfrp = 0.34 mm
40
f'co = 39.6 MPa
co = 0.00263
Efrffrp
rp = 80.1 GPa
D = 150 mm
L = 300 mm

FE model

10

30
Test
20

-0.01

FE model

10
0

0
-0.02

tfrp = 0.51mm

0.01

0.02

0.03

-0.03

-0.02

-0.01

0.01

Strain

Strain

(a)

(c)

0.02

0.03

100

70

t=0.338mm
60

80

Axial stress (MPa)

Axial stress (MPa)

tfrp = 0.165mm
50
40

f'co = 41.1 MPa

0.00256
00256
co = 0
Efrp = 250 GPa
D = 150 mm
L = 300 mm

30
Test
FE model

20
10

60

f'co = 39.2 MPa

co = 0.0028
Efrffrp
rp = 115 GPa
D = 150 mm
L = 300 mm

0
-0.015

-0.01

-0.005

0.005

0.01

0.015

-0.040

-0.020

t=0.169mm
0 169

40
Test
20
FE model
0
0.000

0.020

Strain

Strain

(b)

(d)

0.040

0.060

Fig. 4. FE predictions versus test results for FRP-conned circular plain concrete cylinders. (a) CFRP-conned concrete specimens from [28] with tfrp = 0.33 mm, (b) CFRPconned concrete specimens from [28] with tfrp = 0.165 mm, (c) GFRP-conned concrete specimens from [22], (d) AFRP-conned concrete specimens from [29].

reported. These large-scaled RC columns were designed to examine

the connement provided by the transverse steel reinforcement,
the FRP jacket, or both in combination. Moreover, two types of
transverse steel reinforcement, hoops and spirals, were used to
examine their corresponding connement effects. Each end of
these specimens was locally strengthened using two curved steel
plates covering a length of 300 mm to ensure that the failure of
these specimens would occur at their mid-height. These steel jackets were not directly modeled in FE analysis; instead, their effect
was indirectly considered by the imposition of end restraints in
FE analysis. Most of these specimens (18 out of 21) were tested
with load control, but three specimens (C2MP0C, C2MP2C and
C2MP4C) were tested with displacement control. The diameters
of all the longitudinal bars were 16 mm; other details of the specimens used for comparison can be found in Table. 1.
To obtain the stressstrain curves just for the conned concrete,
the axial load carried by the longitudinal steel bars was removed by
the authors [30] from the total load carried by the whole column.
For the 10 specimens whose stressstrain curves were reported,
the axial load carried by the longitudinal steel bars was calculated
based on the steel stressstrain curves obtained from their
corresponding tension tests. As the results of these tension tests
were not reported by these authors, the following two steps were
used in the comparison process. First, a specimen labeled A5NP2C
was simulated using a 3D FE model, in which the concrete was
modeled using 3D solid elements, both longitudinal and transverse
steel bars were model using truss elements, and the FRP jacket was
modeled using membrane elements. As the stressstrain curves of
the longitudinal bars of this specimen were unknown, an elastic-

perfectly-plastic model was utilized in the FE analysis to consider

their contribution. The effect of the end restraints for such a
large-scale specimen was also examined during this step. Then,
based on the conclusions obtained from this step, axisymmetric
FE models with a height equal to half the steel hoop/spiral spacing
were adopted for the specimens to reduce the size of the FE models,
and the predicted stressstrain results for conned concrete were
compared with experimental results except for specimen C4NP0C.
The results of this specimen were not used for comparison due to
the following two reasons. First, the axial stress of specimen
C4NP0C without FRP connement is even higher than that of specimen C4NP4C which was conned with a 4-layer FRP jacket. This
abnormally high axial stress casts doubt on the reliability of the test
results of this column. Secondly, as this specimen was tested with
load control, the descending branch of its stressstrain curve was
not well captured and may not be suitable for comparison with
the numerical results. The details of the FE model used for comparison are given in the following sub-sections.
0
For concrete, the material constants f co and eco are given in
Table. 1. The yield stress of the longitudinal bars, fylh, the yield
stress of the transverse steel bars, fyh, and the elastic modulus of
the FRP jacket, Efrp, are also summarized in Table. 1.

4.2. FE models
4.2.1. Three-dimensional FE analysis of specimen A5NP2C
In the FE model, due to geometric and loading symmetry, only
1/24 of this specimen (1/12 of the top half) was included. The

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J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

Table 1
Geometry and material properties of FRP-conned RC columns.
Specimen no.

D (mm)

c (mm)

f0 co (MPa)

eco

C4NP4C
C2NP2C
C4NP2C
C2N1P2N
A3NP2C
C2MP4C
C2MP2C
B4NP2C
A5NP2C
C2MP0C

303
303
303
253
303
303
303
303
303
303

25
25
25
0
25
25
25
25
25
25

31.7
31.7
31.7
36
31.7
50.8
50.8
31.7
29.4
50.8

0.002
0.002
0.002
0.002
0.002
0.0024
0.0024
0.002
0.002
0.0024

FRP composite

Transverse steel

t (mm)

Efrp (MPa)

eh,rup

Type

fyh (MPa)

S (mm)

(mm)

1.524
0.762
0.762
0.762
0.762
1.524
0.762
0.762
0.762
0.0

78,000
78,000
78,000
78,000
78,000
78,000
78,000
78,000
78,000

0.0119
0.0059
0.0062
0.0084
0.0090
0.0107
0.0086
0.0104
0.0044

S
S
S
S
H
S
S
H
H
S

456
456
456
456
602
456
456
456
456
456

100
65
100
65
70
65
65
100
150
65

11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
9.5
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3

Note: c = concrete cover; D = diameter of specimens; fyh = yield strength of steel bars; = diameter of steel bars; S = spirals; H = hoops.

4.2.2. Axisymmetric FE analysis of FRP-conned RC columns

The presence of the longitudinal steel bars is not expected to
have any signicant effect on the behavior of the conned concrete. If these longitudinal steel bars are ignored in the FE model,

4000
3500
3000

Axial load (kN)

element sizes were determined based on a mesh converge study.

The positions of the steel bars, the FRP jacket and the concrete
are indicated in Fig. 5.
The periodic symmetry condition was imposed at the two
boundary planes perpendicular to the circumferential direction.
This boundary condition was achieved by preventing the displacements in the circumferential direction of these two planes. In addition, the mid-height horizontal plane, being a plane of symmetry,
was restrained against vertical displacements. Furthermore, the
top plane was imposed with appropriate displacements to load
the column in compression. Similar to the case of FRP-conned circular concrete cylinders, the effect of end restraints on the overall
axial forcestrain behavior of specimen A5NP2C was investigated.
The axial forcestrain curves obtained from FE analysis with or
without end restraints are given in Fig. 6, and these numerical
results are compared with the corresponding experimental results
in the same gure. In this gure, the axial strain is for a mid-height
gauge length of 300 mm and the hoop strain is for the mid-height
of the column, which are the same as the experimental conditions.
The curves obtained from FE analysis using different end restraint
conditions are almost identical. The agreement between these two
cases suggests that for such a relatively long column, the effect of
end restraints on their axial forcestrain behavior is negligible.
Fig. 6 further indicates that although the FE model slightly underestimates the axial force, the FE axial forcestrain curves correlate
closely with the experimental results. In addition, as end restraints
have negligible effects on the predicted behavior, periodic conditions of symmetry in the axial direction can also be applied and
only a column segment covering half the steel hoop spacing needs
to be modeled in FE analysis.

2500
2000
Test
1500
FE w/ end restraints
1000

FE w/o end restraints

500
0
-0.006

-0.004

-0.002

0.002

0.004

0.006

0.008

Strain
Fig. 6. FE predictions and test results for specimen A5NP2C.

then an FE axisymmetric model can be used to reduce the computational effort. The ten specimens tested by Eid et al. [30] were
used to verify the capability of the FE model by comparing the
experimental stressstrain curves with those obtained from FE
analysis. Among these ten specimens, seven of them were reinforced with steel spirals. The actual geometry of steel spirals in
FE analysis leads to complicated models, which may weaken the
reliability of the FE result. Therefore, previous researchers (e.g.
[11,13]) have opted to use steel hoops to represent connement
from steel spirals so that an axisymmetric FE model can be used
to reduce the computational effort; the steel spirals were replaced
by equivalent steel hoops with the same steel spacing in such a
model. Mander et al. [4] suggested an equation to calculate the
cross-sectional area, Aeq, for the equivalent steel hoops. The equation is as follows:

Aeq K sh As

where As is the cross-sectional area of the original steel spirals, and

Ksh is the conversion factor given by:

K sh

Posion of
steel bars

Mesh
for the
concrete

Fig. 5. FE mesh of specimen A5NP2C and positions of steel bars.

1
0
1  2ds s

where s0 is the clear spacing between two spiral bars and ds is the
diameter of the spiral circle from bar center to bar center. The definitions of the two parameters are also illustrated in Fig. 7.
Eq. (8) indicates that when the center-to-center diameter and
the spacing between steel bars are the same, steel spirals provide
more effective connement than steel hoops. Fig. 8 shows the
experimental stressstrain curves of the conned concrete for both
specimens C4NP2C and B4NP2C. The only difference between
these two specimens is the type of transverse steel reinforcement

23

J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

60
50

Axial stress (MPa)

used. These experimental results show the same phenomenon as

suggested by Eq. (8). That is, the concrete conned by steel spirals
has a larger axial stress at a given axial or lateral strain than the
concrete conned by steel hoops.
Taking into account the symmetry features of the FE model as
discussed above, an axisymmetric model of a column segment covering half the steel hoop spacing was built with ABAQUS. The concrete was modeled using 4-node solid elements; the transverse
steel bars and the FRP jacket were both modeled using 2-node
axisymmetric membrane elements. A typical example of the FE
mesh for the concrete is shown in Fig. 9 for specimen B4NP2C.
What should also be noted is that there is no axisymmetric
truss element (a ring element that carries only an axial force) in
ABAQUS, and thus the transverse steel bars were modeled using
the axisymmetric membrane element. Each steel hoop was represented by a steel membrane element with the same cross-sectional
area: its height is equal to the radius of the steel bar Rts due to the
symmetry condition at the mid-height and its thickness, tts,eq, can
be deduced from the following equation:

40
30
B4NP2C, steel hoops
20

C4NP2C, steel spirals

10
0
-0.015

-0.01

-0.005

t ts;eq

0.015

FRP jacket

Cover concrete

Ineffectively
confined part
of concrete
ds-s/2

ds

Fig. 7. Spacing between steel hoops and arch action.

S/2=50mm

where Ats is half of the cross-sectional area of the steel transverse

bar, Aeq.
For these axisymmetric FE models, the bottom horizontal
boundary was restrained in the vertical direction to reect the
symmetry condition there and axial displacements were imposed
on the top boundary to exert axial loading. For FRP-conned RC
columns, axial displacements were uniformly imposed on the top
surface until the maximum hoop strain within the FRP jacket
reached its hoop tensile rupture strain.
In Fig. 10, the FE stressstrain curves of the conned concrete
obtained with the recalibrated plastic-damage model are compared
with the test results [30]. Both axial stressaxial strain curves and
axial stresslateral strain curves are considered in the comparison.
For the numerical results, the axial stress was obtained by dividing
the load carried by the concrete by the total cross-sectional area;
the axial strain was calculated as the average value over the whole
height of the FE model; and the hoop strain was obtained from the
outer edge of the column where the lateral displacement is the largest (i.e. at the middle point between the two steel hoops/spirals).
Fig. 10ah show that the predicted stressstrain responses are generally in reasonably close agreement with the test results. These gures indicate the FE approach developed in this study can provide
close predictions for FRP-conned RC columns. Moreover, the FE

core

0.01

Fig. 8. Effect of the type of transverse steel bars on connement.

Axis of symmetry

Ats

Rts

0.005

Strain

Steel bar
D/2=151.5mm
Fig. 9. Axisymmetric FE model for column B4NP2C.

stressstrain curves for concrete conned only with the FRP jacket
(curves labeled as FE w/o steel in Fig. 10) are also shown in these
gures to illustrate the contribution of transverse steel bars to connement. It is clear that the transverse steel bars have a signicant
effect on both the strength and the ductility of FRP-conned RC columns. The above comparisons verify the capability of the FE
approach in predicting the behavior of FRP-conned RC columns
although the improved concrete model itself was only recalibrated
using test results of FRP-conned circular plain concrete cylinders.
In Fig. 10ch, the stressstrain responses have an approximately trilinear shape; this feature is different from that of the
smooth experimental stressstrain curves. In addition, the experimental axial stress in the transition region between the rst
branch and the second branch of the axial stressaxial strain curve
is slightly underestimated by the FE model. It should be noted that
the contribution of transverse steel reinforcement to connement
in these specimens is generally substantial. This difference
between experiments and FE analysis can be attributed to the
expression adopted for the compressive strength of actively-conned concrete (i.e. Eq. (4)) in the analysis-oriented stressstrain
model [3] used to determine the material properties for the constitutive model for concrete. This linear equation was proposed
for simplicity at the expense of underestimating the compressive
strength of actively-conned concrete at low connement levels
[3]; as a result, the axial stress of steel-conned concrete during
the early stage of loading, when the level of connement is low,
is also underestimated. The use of a more complex expression for
the compressive strength of actively-conned concrete is expected
to increase the accuracy of prediction of the FE model, but this will
also increase the complexity of the constitutive model for concrete.
Fig. 10e shows the stressstrain response of specimen C2MP2C.
The axial stressstrain curve features a curvature change at an
axial strain of around 0.3%. This curvature change is also due to
the analysis-oriented stressstrain model [3] used to determine

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J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

80

80

Axial stress (MPa)

Axial stress (MPa)

60
Test
40
FE model
FE model w/o steel

20

60

40
Test

FE model w/o steel

0

-0.02

FE model

20

-0.01

0.01

0.02

0.03

-0.01

-0.005

0.005

Strain

Strain

(a)

(e)

0.01

0.015

50
45

60

Axial stress (MPa)

40
50

30

Test

25

FE model

20

FE model w/o steel

Axial stress (MPa)

35

15
10

40
30

FE model
FE model w/o steel

10

0
-0.01

Test

20

-0.005

0.005

0.01

0.015

-0.01

-0.005

Strain
(b)
80

Axial stress (MPa)

Axial stress (MPa)

40
Test
FE model

20

FE model w/o steel

-0.005

40

FE model

20

FE model w/o steel

10
0

0
0.005
Strain

0.01

0.015

0.02

-0.015

-0.01

-0.005

0
0.005
Strain

80

50

Axial stress (MPa)

60

Axial stress (MPa)

100

Test
40

FE model
FE model w/o steel

20

0.015

0.02

40
30
Test
20

FE model
FE model w/o steel

10
0

0
-0.005

0.01

(g)

60

-0.01

Test

30

(c)

-0.015

0.015

50

60

-0.01

0.01

60

-0.015

0.005

Strain
(f)

0.005

0.01

0.015

0.02

0.025

-0.015

-0.01

-0.005

Strain

Strain

(d)

(h)

0.005

0.01

0.015

Fig. 10. Comparison of stressstrain behavior for FRP-conned RC column. (a) Specimen C4NP4C, (b) specimen C4NP2C, (c) specimen C2N1P2N, (d) specimen C2MP4C, (d)
specimen C2MP2C, (f) specimen C2NP2C, (g) specimen A3NP2C, (h) specimen B4NP2C.

25

J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

5. Connement mechanism in RC columns

In specimen C2MP0C, the cover concrete does not receive any
connement and the concrete core (the concrete contained by
the circular cylindrical surface on which the centerlines of steel
hoops lie) receives connement only from the steel hoops. Due
to the discrete locations of steel hoops, the connement provided
by steel hoops to the concrete in an RC column is highly non-uniform over the height; this differs from the connement to concrete
provided by an FRP jacket. To model this non-uniform connement, two different approaches have previously been explored
[2,4,33]. Besides the FE approach, the effective connement
method (e.g. [4]) has also been used to estimate the amount of lateral connement acting on the concrete. The reduced connement
effect between the upper steel hoop and the lower steel hoop is
considered through the arching action assumption: a parabola
with an initial slope of 45 covering a clear vertical spacing, s0 ,
between steel hoops or spirals (see Fig. 7) is dened to separate
the effectively conned part from the ineffectively conned part
of the concrete core [2]. The smallest cross-sectional area of the
effectively conned part, Ae, is thus located at the mid-height of
the gap between two adjacent steel hoops [4]. In the studies of
Mander et al. [4] and Saadatmanesh et al. [31], it was assumed that
the ineffectively conned concrete annulus has a radial thickness
of a quarter of the clear vertical spacing between the two adjacent
0
steel hoops (i.e. s /4) and receives no connement, while the effectively conned part within the area Ae is uniformly conned (also
shown Fig. 7). The area Ae is given by

Ae


2
s0
ds 
4
2

10

In Fig. 11, the axial stressstrain curves of specimen C2MP0C

obtained from the above empirical model, the present FE model
and the test results [30] are compared. It should be noted that,
for a steel-conned RC column without FRP connement, only
the stressstrain behavior of the concrete core is of interest.
Therefore, only the concrete core was considered in the FE analysis.

Fig. 11 shows that the FE model led to smaller axial stresses

than both the test results and the empirical analytical results. In
the Yu et al.s model [18], K and a are the two parameters that control the connement effectiveness for concrete under non-uniform
connement. As mentioned earlier, the value of K is derived from
the strength ratio between equal biaxial compression and tri-axial
compression. Therefore, when Eq. (5) is already given, changing the
f0

value of K leads to changes in the value of the f 0b ratio, but this ratio
co

has been assigned a xed value of 1.16 [32] in the yield function of
the CDPM model as adopted in the present study. According to test
results, this ratio varies from 1.16 to 1.2. Changing the ratio within
this small range has little effect on the FE predictions. Therefore, it
is better to treat K as a constant rather than a variable. If K is kept
constant, only a may be recalibrated to provide closer predictions
of the test results. The stressstrain curves obtained with a recalibrated value for a are shown in the same gure (labeled as FE
model-II). In this recalibrated FE model, the value of a was given
a value of 0.1 to achieve closer predictions of the test results. In
general, Yu et al.s model may be used in one of two ways in the
FE analysis of steel-conned RC columns: (1) if the model is used
to make predictions, a should be taken as a constant and the
default value of 0.039 suggested by Yu et al. [18] should be used;
(2) if the model is used to explain experimental results, a can be
recalibrated to closely reproduce the experimental results.
Although there are differences between the numerical predictions (including both FE model and FE model-II) and the
empirical analytical predictions, the test results fall between the
FE and the analytical results, and are in good agreement with these
two types of predictions. Similar to the FE models, the empirical
analytical model provides close predictions of stressstrain curves.
However, the empirical analytical model does not account explicitly for variations in the axial stress and the connement pressure
over the cross-section and the height of the column. To investigate
the connement mechanism of transverse steel bars, the actual
stress distributions obtained from FE analysis are illustrated in
Figs. 1214. Fig. 12 shows the distribution of axial stress within
the concrete core when the peak axial stress is reached. This gure
indicates that within a section close to the level of a steel hoop, the
concrete stress achieves its largest enhancement near the outer
edge, and the effect of this enhancement decreases in the height
direction away from the steel bar. This variation of axial stress is
similar to the assumption of the arching action.
The FE predictions for the axial stress, however, differ from the
arching action assumption. With the arching action assumption,
the cross-section at the height of the steel hoop centerline is
assumed to be uniformly stressed and is considered to be

80

60

Axial stress (MPa)

the material parameters of the plastic-damage model for concrete.

Such analysis-oriented stressstrain models typically predict axial
stressstrain curves with a curvature change when the normalized
connement stiffness of the FRP jacket is small [3]. When these
models are used to determine the material parameters for the plastic-damage model, the predicted axial stressstrain curve has the
same feature. Indeed, this curvature change can also been noted
in the axial stressaxial strain curve for FRP-conned concrete
shown in the same gure (i.e. the curve labeled as FE model w/
o steel), although here it is not so obvious.
Fig. 10h shows the stressstrain response of specimen B4NP2C.
For the early stage of the stressstrain response, the axial stress
obtained from the FE model without considering the effect of
transverse steel bars is larger than that obtained from the FE model
considering this effect, which implies a negative effect of the steel
connement and is counterintuitive. Indeed, end restraints were
also found to have such a negative effect as discussed in the previous section. In both cases, the end restraints or the transverse
steel bars not only provide additional connement to the column,
but also lead to non-uniform distributions of stresses and deformation in the column. As a result, the connement provided by the
FRP jacket becomes non-uniform, which weakens the overall benet of FRP connement for the column. When the additional connement is sufciently small, the detrimental effect of
connement non-uniformity exceeds the benecial effect of additional connement from end restraints/transfer steel bars, and
the net overall effect is negative.

-0.015

Test
FE model
Empirical model
FE model-II

40

20

-0.010

-0.005

0
0.000

0.005

0.010

0.015

0.020

Strain
Fig. 11. Comparison of stressstrain behavior for steel-conned RC columns
(specimen C2MP0C).

26

J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

effectively conned, while the FE analysis predicts a large stress

near the steel hoop, a much smaller stress at a small distance away
from the steel hoop, and nally a moderate stress near the axis of
axisymmetry. The FE distribution is obviously more reasonable as
the FE analysis takes into account the balance of axial stresses in
the height direction, which is neglected by the arch action assumption. In addition, the FE results indicate that a non-uniform zone of
stress exists near the outer edge of the concrete core but within a
certain radius, there is a zone of uniformly distributed axial stress;
this distribution is similar in nature to the result from elastic
analysis conducted by Eid and Dancygier [33]. Zones of uniformly
distributed stress can also be observed in the distribution of conning pressure (Figs. 13 and 14). Fig. 13 shows that the largest
value of conning pressure (radial stress) occurs adjacent to the
steel bar on the outer edge of the concrete core and the smallest
value occurs at the mid-height plane on the outer edge of the concrete core. Unlike the conning pressure, the largest stress in the

hoop direction appears at a plane between the steel hoop and

the mid-height plane. The different distributions of radial and hoop
stresses result in a complicated axial stress distribution near the
outer edge of the concrete core. Figs. 13 and 14 indicate that, a
zone of uniformly distributed radial stresses exists within a certain
radius. This zone results in uniformly distributed axial stresses. The
existence of a uniformly-stressed concrete zone is an important
reason why the empirical analytical approach based on the arching
action assumption shows good accuracy in predicting the response
of steel-conned concrete columns although it overlooks the balance of axial stresses. As long as the radius of the effectively-conned concrete zone predicted by the empirical analytical approach
is not too far from the actual radius of uniformly conned concrete,
the results predicted by the empirical approach can be quite
accurate.
To further illustrate the stress distributions, Figs. 1517 show
respectively the predicted distributions of axial, radial and hoop

Section-III

Section-II

Section-I
Fig. 12. Distribution of axial stress in a steel-conned concrete column.

Fig. 13. Distribution of stress in the radial direction for transverse steel bar conned concrete columns.

Fig. 14. Distribution of hoop stress in a steel-conned concrete column.

J.G. Teng et al. / Engineering Structures 97 (2015) 1528

6. Conclusions

90
Section-I

Axial stress (MPa)

85

Section-II

80

Section-III

75
70
65
60
55
50
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Distance from the center (mm)

Fig. 15. Radial distributions of axial stress in a steel-conned concrete column.

40
35

Radial stress (MPa)

27

30

Section-I

25

Section-II

20

Section-III

15
10
5
0
-5

50

100

150

Distance from the center (mm)

Fig. 16. Radial distributions of radial stress in a steel-conned concrete column.

A three-dimensional FE approach for modeling the behavior of

FRP-conned circular plain concrete cylinders and RC columns
based on Yu et al.s plastic-damage model [18] has been presented
in this paper. In implementing Yu et al.s plastic-damage model
[18] for concrete, a stressstrain model for concrete under uniform
connement is needed to determine values for some of the input
parameters. The FE approach is capable of modeling non-uniform
deformation in the axial direction due to factors such as end
restraints and discrete transverse steel reinforcement. Numerical
results obtained with the FE approach have revealed that end
restraints lead to a smaller axial strain at a given lateral strain.
This effect necessitates the use of a local stressstrain model in
generating input parameters for the concrete constitutive model
to achieve precise predictions for FRP-conned short circular concrete cylinders, but this issue becomes less important for longer
specimens and RC columns. With the use of a local stressstrain
model, the proposed FE approach has been shown to provide accurate predictions for both FRP-conned RC columns and steel-conned RC columns although the concrete model was only
calibrated using results of FRP-conned circular concrete cylinders.
The veried FE approach was used to examine the rationale
behind the method of effective connement widely used in the
analytical modeling of steel-conned concrete columns. The stress
distributions in the concrete core conned by transverse steel
hoops obtained using the FE approach shed considerable light on
the connement mechanism and are in general in support of the
arching action assumption adopted by the widely used empirical
analytical model. The detailed FE results presented for steel-conned concrete columns have also demonstrated that the present
FE approach offers a useful tool for the exploration of complex connement mechanisms in various conned concrete columns in the
development of simple stressstrain models for design purposes.
For example, the 3D nite element approach can be applied to study
connement mechanisms in FRP-conne rectangular RC columns.
Acknowledgements

30

The authors acknowledge the nancial support received from

the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region (Project No: PolyU 5285/10E) and the
National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (Project
No. 2012CB026201).

Hoop stress (MPa)

25
Section-I
20

Section-II
Section-III

15
10

References

5
0
0

50

100

150

-5

Distance from the center (mm)

Fig. 17. Radial distributions of hoop stress in a steel-conned concrete column.

stresses in the radial direction at three selected heights. The three

selected heights are indicated in Fig. 12. It is again obvious that a
large zone of uniform stresses exists near the column center. The
width of this uniform stress zone is about 2/3 of the column radius,
which is similar to the result of Eid and Dancygiers [33] elastic
analysis. Within this zone, all the three stress components show
insignicant variations. However, near the outer edge, the stresses
vary much more rapidly due to the inuence of arching action. The
capability of predicting stress variations over the whole column is
one of the advantages of this 3D FE model over a slice model as
employed by Yu et al. [18].

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