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The behavior of concrete members reinforced with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) bars has been the focus of many studies in recent years. Nowadays, several codes and design guidelines are available for the design of concrete structures reinforced with FRP bars under flexural and shear loads. Meanwhile, limited research work has been conducted to examine the axial behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) columns with FRP bars. Due to a lack of research investigating the axial behavior of FRP reinforced concrete columns, North American codes and design guidelines do not recommend using FRP bars as longitudinal reinforcement in columns to resist compressive stresses. This dissertation aims at evaluating the axial performance of RC compression members reinforced with glass FRP (GFRP) and carbon FRP (CFRP) bars and stirrups through experimental and analytical investigations. A total of twenty seven full scale circular RC specimens were fabricated and tested experimentally under concentric axial load. The 300 mm diameter columns were designed according to CAN/CSA S806-12 code requirements. The specimens were divided to three series; series I contains three reference columns; one plain concrete and 2 specimens reinforced with steel reinforcement. Series II contains 12 specimens internally reinforced with GFRP longitudinal bars and transverse GFRP stirrups, while series III includes specimens totally reinforced with CFRP reinforcement. The experimental tests were performed at the structural laboratory, Faculty of Engineering, University of Sherbrooke. The main objective of testing these specimens is to investigate the behavior of circular concrete columns reinforced with GFRP or CFRP longitudinal bars and transverse hoops or spirals reinforcement. Several parameters have been studied; type of reinforcement, longitudinal reinforcement ratio, the volumetric ratios, diameters, and spacing of spiral reinforcement, confinement configuration (spirals versus hoops), and lap length of hoops. The test results of the tested columns were presented and discussed in terms of axial load capacity, mode of failure, concrete, longitudinal, and transverse strains, ductility, load/stress-strain response, and concrete confinement strength through four journal papers presented in this dissertation. Based on the findings of experimental investigation, the GFRP and CFRP RC columns behaved similar to the columns reinforced with steel. It was found that, FRP bars were effective in resisting compression until after crushing of concrete, and contributed on average 8% and 13% of column capacity for GFRP and CFRP RC specimens, respectively. Also, the use of GFRP and CFRP spirals or hoops according to the provisions of CSA S806-12 yielded sufficient restraint against the buckling of the longitudinal FRP bars and provided good confinement of the concrete core in the post-peak stages. The axial deformability (ductility) and confinement efficiency can be better improved by using small FRP spirals with closer spacing rather than larger diameters with greater spacing. It was found that, ignoring the contribution of FRP longitudinal bars in the CAN/CSA S806-12 design equation underestimated the maximum capacity of the tested specimens. Based on this finding, the design equation is modified to accurately predict the ultimate load capacities of FRP RC columns. New factors ?[indice inférieur g] and ?[indice inférieur c] were introduced in the modified equation to account for the GFRP and CFRP bars compressive strength properties as a function in their ultimate tensile strength. On the other hand, proposed equations and confinement model were presented to predict the axial stress-strain behavior of FRP RC columns confined by FRP spirals or hoops. The model takes into account the effect of many parameters such as; type of reinforcement, longitudinal reinforcement ratio; transverse reinforcement configuration; and the volumetric ratio. The proposed model can be used to evaluate the confining pressure, confined concrete core stress, corresponding concrete strain, and stress-strain relationship. The results of analysis using the proposed confinement model were compared with experimental database of twenty four full-scale circular FRP RC columns. A good agreement has been obtained between the analytical and experimental results. Proposed equations to predict both strength and stress-strain behavior of confined columns by FRP reinforcements demonstrate good correlation with test data obtained from full-scale specimens.

Low phosphate fertilizer efficiency in high pH soils is primarily due to the retardation of P movement in the soil-P fertilizer reaction zone. The objective of this study was to obtain fundamental information on the influence of multi-ionic interactions on the solubility and diffusion of P in columns containing a model soil system and two soil types. The study also aimed to identify the salt combinations and factors that have the potential to enhance the solubility and movement of P in calcareous soil condition. The results showed that the interaction of NH4+ and SO42- was consistent at enhancing the water solubility and movement of P under a high soil pH condition. This effect was attributed to the combination of various mechanistic factors associated with (NH4)2SO4 compound including significant pH reduction, cation exchange reaction of NH4+ with the exchangeable Ca2+, and anionic competition of SO42- with P for precipitation with Ca2+.