Unified theory for confinement of RC solid and hollow circular columns

Hollow bridge piers are incorporated in tall bridges to maximize the structural efficiency of the strength-mass and stiffness-mass ratios. Column jacketing with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials has been extensively studied in recent years but it is uncertain how FRP jackets may perform when retrofitting hollow concrete columns since the topic has been little researched. A confinement model for circular hollow sections is proposed which can be extended to the case of solid sections. The model is able to estimate confinement effectiveness and to plot stress–strain relationships, which are different in the case of solid and hollow sections.