RETROFITTING OF RC COLUMN FOR EXISTING BUILDING UNDER SEISMIC LOADING

Major Advisor: Kabtamu Getachew (PhD) Co-Advisor: Teshale Bersisa (Msc) Earthquakes are a crucial problem worldwide since they lead to disastrous damage such as failure and collapse of buildings, loss of human lives, and loss of homes. RC columns were considered to be very fundamental structural members in buildings subjected to damage. They need to be strengthened or repaired using the most adequate and effective technique. The seismic rehabilitation process aims to improve seismic performance and correct the deficiencies by increasing the strength, stiffness, or deformation capacity of the RC column. A retrofitting technique by means of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) has been developed and tested in many countries in the last decade. This technique was performed by CFRP laminating the critical region of columns. In Ethiopia, the frame members were considerably deficient from the seismic detailing point of view, but the habit of using rehabilitation techniques was very poor. Therefore, in order to use the CFRP retrofitting technique effectively in Ethiopia, experimental as well as analytical evidence was needed. The present study has compared and investigated the performance of CFRP retrofitted and un-retrofitted RC columns in the Kuye Feche Housing Project building, which was located in Addis Ababa. Under this study, first, an existing experimental report on RC columns was validated by finite element analysis. Then a three-dimensional model of the Kuye Feche housing project column was prepared by ABAQUS 6.14-1, which is finite element software. Then the parametric effect on the behavior of the columns was investigated. A total of 9 fixed end columns were investigated for different parametric study. The study parameters were length of CFRP laminate and height of CFRP laminates. The FEM results concluded that the CFRP retrofitting method can be applied to seismically deficient columns, and the results show that increasing layer and height of CFRP laminate as a retrofitting technique improves the RC column of the Kuye Feche housing project by increasing ductility, strength, and shear capacity by up to 75% over the control column. Key words: Finite Element Method, Retrofitting, RC column, Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer