Effect of low strain rate on the axial behavior of concrete in CFRP-confined circular cylinders

•Strain rate has significant effect on the damage zone of FRP confined concrete.•Stress–strain behavior of FRP-confined concrete is related to strain rate.•Analytical models considering strain rate are developed for FRP confined concrete.•The analytical models can well predict the stress–strain behavior. Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP)-reinforced/repaired concrete columns are widely used in civil engineering. Numerous experimental studies and theoretical analyses have been conducted for FRP-confined concrete over the past two decades. This paper investigates the mechanical behavior of FRP-confined concrete cylinders under uniaxial compression with different strain rates. Test results showed that the failure modes, stress–strain curves and compressive strength are related to the strain rate. A stress–strain model, a compressive strength model and an ultimate strain model are proposed based on the test results from this work. The model predictions are compared with the test data collected from the literature and existing models. The evaluation results show that the proposed model has good performance and may be used to predict the stress–strain behavior of FRP-confined circular concrete cylinders under strain rates from 3.3 × 10–6 to 3.3 × 10–3 strain/s.