The College of Engineering at the University of Baghdad witnessed the public discussion of the Master’s student, Wed Hussein Habeeb, from the Department of Civil Engineering, on her thesis entitled “Performance of Concrete Composite Columns Reinforced with Steel and GFRP Bars and Shapes Under Concentric Loading“, on Sunday 31/8/2025, in the hall of Professor Dr. Mahmood Omer in the Department of Chemical Engineering, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ali Hussein Ali Al-Ahmed.
This study experimentally investigates the structural performance of reinforced concrete columns containing steel or GFRP bars and/or GFRP or steel I-sections under concentric loads. Ten square columns (170 mm × 170 mm cross-section and 1500 mm height) were tested with compressive strength of 30.25 MPa. Three reinforcement schemes were used: hybrid (GFRP I-sections with steel bars and vice versa), Non-hybrid columns (GFRP or steel I-sections with bars similar to the material type), and reference (bars only). A new reinforcement technique used Four longitudinal I-sections with reinforcing bars. The results indicate that the columns with I-sections outperformed the reference columns, with the steel I-sections exhibiting the highest capacity. The steel reference column exhibited 10.18% higher strength than its GFRP counterpart; the large steel I-section columns outperformed the GFRP columns by 57%, and the small steel I-section columns by 38%.
ABAQUS software was used to model and analyze the columns. Failure modes and load-deflection curves were presented. The average percentage difference between the maximum load results did not exceed 18%, while the deflection did not exceed 11%. The numerical analysis results were in good agreement with the experimental results.
After a scientific discussion by the honorable members of the discussion committee, listening to the researcher’s defense, and evaluating the thesis, the researcher obtained a master’s degree with distinction in civil engineering/structural engineering .
