Fibre-Reinforced Intumescent Fire Protection Coatings as a Fire-Safe Confining Material for Concrete Columns

This paper considers a novel, alternative application of fibre-reinforced epoxy-based intumescent coatings as potential materials for strengthening concrete columns. An experimental programme is presented examining the compressive behaviour of unreinforced concrete cylinders at ambient temperature that are confined with fibre-reinforced intumescent wraps. It is demonstrated that these advanced composite coatings can provide effective passive confinement to concrete, achieving ultimate axial strength and strain enhancements that are comparable to those of conventional FRP wraps. The enhancements are also shown to be reasonably predicted by existing confinement models for FRP-confined concrete. The results demonstrate the strong potential of these fire protection materials as alternative strengthening systems for reinforced concrete columns, potentially eliminating the need for additional passive fire protection that is common with conventional fire-rated FRP wrapping systems