Experimental and numerical investigations have been performed on twenty short square and rectangular
hollow sections (SHS and RHS) steel columns. The confinement action provided by the CFRP wrapping
effectively delays the local buckling of fully strengthened specimens. However, in case of partially
strengthened specimens, failure occurs at the non-strengthened zones between CFRP strips. The enhancement
in ultimate capacity ranges between 19.1% and 34.5% for SHS, and between 18% and 41.3% for RHS
specimens. It has been noticed that, the improvement in the behavior for specimens strengthened with
two layer strips is limited compared to specimens strengthened with one layer strips. The finite element
results are found to be in good agreement with their experimental counterparts. The reliability index
between the finite element and the experimental ultimate capacities ranges between 0.01 and 0.1. An
analytical model has been developed to predict the failure load of the control specimens.