Mechanical Strength of Galvanized Steel Wire Mesh (GSWM) as a Strengthening Material of Short RC Column

Columns of varying shapes have been adopted in construction of various Reinforced Concrete (RC) building. The revision of the design codes or change in usage, strengthening is required to enhance the performance of the column whilst extending its design life. In this paper, three grades of concrete, i.e. M15, M20 and M25 are adopted for casting five different column shapes ranging from circular, square, rectangular, L-Shape and polygon and tested under axial compression. All the columns were wrapped with two layers of locally available Galvanized Steel Wire Mesh (GSWM) jacketed with cement mortar. A total of 30 RC columns were casted in which half of them were treated as control specimens. The columns were design as per IS 456: 2000. The test results of the experimental investigation shows that the load carrying capacity of the columns can be increase to a considerable extent by using GSWM. The load carrying capacity decreases as the column shape change from circular to polygon. This shows that the column shapes plays an important role in determining its structural behaviour. In addition to this, the confined column shows a higher deformation, displacement ductility, stiffness degradation and energy dissipation as compared to the control columns. This improvement in the column behaviour may be attributed to the effectiveness of the GSWM jacket as a strengthening material and significant for low grade concrete as compared to higher grade.