Rehabilitation of substandard beam-column joint using geopolymer

•Rehabilitation of substandard beam-column joints was carried out adopting the procedure of removal and replacement technique.•Two types of repair materials were used– geopolymer mortar (GM) and steel fiber based geopolymer mortar (SFRGM).•Results indicated that performance of specimens rehabilitated with GM was at par with control specimens. On the other hand, specimens rehabilitated by SFRGM exhibited much better performance.•GM was not able to alter the failure mode of rehabilitated specimens whereas SFRGM repaired specimens exhibited beam hinge failure. Geopolymer has been a subject of interest for researchers in recent years. Few studies were conducted to examine feasibility of geopolymer mortar as an alternative repair material. All such studies were limited to structures under monotonic loading. Till date, no study was carried out to investigate suitability of geopolymer based material on rehabilitation of structures subjected to cyclic loading. Therefore, in the present study an attempt has been made to rehabilitate substandard beam-column joint following removal and replacement technique using geopolymer. Two types of repair materials viz. geopolymer mortar (GM) and steel fiber reinforced geopolymer mortar (SFRGM) were used. Test results indicated that both repair materials were successful in restoring the cyclic performance of damaged beam-column joint in terms of maximum load, stiffness degradation, ductility and energy dissipation up to the level of control specimens. However, specimens rehabilitated by GM exhibited undesirable brittle joint failure, similar to that of substandard control specimens. On the other hand, SFRGM was able to alter the failure mode of damaged beam-column joint to ductile beam failure.