Experimental Study on Seismic Retrofit Performance of Existing Reinforced Concrete Frames Using Concrete-Filled Steel Tubes(CFT)
Recent earthquakes (2016 Gyeongju and 2017 Pohang) revealed the seismic vulnerability of existing non-seismicallydetailed reinforced concrete (RC) school buildings in Korea. This study proposes and experimentally verifies an CFT-column seismic retrofit method, in which concrete-filled steel tube (CFT) columns are anchored to existing RC columns and connected by a steel beam at the column mid-height. To examine the effect of infilling the CFT columns, three full-detail specimens—non-retrofitted (NRF), mortar-filled retrofitted (IFRF), and unfilled retrofitted (IERF)—were fabricated based on 1980s non-seismic school-building details and tested under displacement-controlled cyclic loading. The hysteretic behavior, strength, stiffness, energy dissipation, and failure modes were compared, and the envelope curves were idealized using the equivalent energy elastic-plastic (EEEP) model. Relative to NRF, the retrofitted specimens showed about 3.3 times higher effective stiffness, 3.3–3.5 times higher strength, ductility increasing from 2.07 to 2.99–3.20, and 742–815% higher energy dissipation.