• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.323-334
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• 2014

In this paper, experimental program and associated numerical study were carried out to evaluate the fire resistance of unprotected concrete-filled rectangular steel tubular (CFT) columns subjected to the standard fire. The key testing parameters included the length effect, the load ratio, and the sectional dimensions of the CFT columns. Temperature distribution and axial deformation of the CFT column specimens were measured and analyzed. Rather early local buckling of steel tubes was observed in all the specimens. This caused subsequent load transfer from steel tube to concrete, and eventually triggered concrete crushing, or complete loss of the load bearing capacity of the column. This implies that the limit state of local buckling as well as overall flexural buckling should be incorporated in fire design procedure. As expected, the fire resistance time of specimen with higher load ratio consistently lessened. The prediction of fire resistance time of unprotected CFT columns based on the limiting steel temperature in current design codes or the formula proposed by previous studies is slightly conservative compared to the fire test results available. To establish the finite element analysis model that can be used to predict the thermal and structural behaviour of unprotected CFT columns in fire, the fully coupled thermal-stress analysis was also tried by using the commercial code ABAQUS. The numerical results showed a reasonable global correlation with the experimental results.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.313-325
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• 2018

Concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) members are commonly used as composite columns in modern construction. However, the current guidelines for members' fire design (EN1994-1-2) have been proved to be unsafe in case the relative slenderness is higher than 0.5. In addition, the simplified design methods of Eurocode 4 are limited to circular and square CFST columns, while in practice columns with rectangular and elliptical hollow sections are being increasingly used because of their architectural aesthetics. In the last years a large experimental research has been carried out at Coimbra University on the topic. They have been tested concrete filled circular, square, rectangular and elliptical hollow columns with restrained thermal elongation. Some parameters such as the slenderness, the type of cross-section geometry as well as the axial and rotational restraint of the surrounding structure to the column have been tested in order to evaluate their influence on the fire resistance of such columns. In this paper it is evaluated the influence of the boundary conditions (pin-ended and semi-rigid end-support conditions) on the behavior of the columns in case of fire. In these tests it could not be seen a marked effect of the tested boundary conditions but it is believed that the increasing of rotational stiffness increases the fire resistance of the columns.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.153-173
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• 2023

Rectangular concrete-filled steel tubular (RCFST) column, a type of concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST), is widely used in compression members of structures because of its advantages. This paper proposes a robust machine learning-based framework for predicting the ultimate compressive strength of RCFST columns under both concentric and eccentric loading. The gradient boosting neural network (GBNN), an efficient and up-to-date ML algorithm, is utilized for developing a predictive model in the proposed framework. A total of 890 experimental data of RCFST columns, which is categorized into two datasets of concentric and eccentric compression, is carefully collected to serve as training and testing purposes. The accuracy of the proposed model is demonstrated by comparing its performance with seven state-of-the-art machine learning methods including decision tree (DT), random forest (RF), support vector machines (SVM), deep learning (DL), adaptive boosting (AdaBoost), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), and categorical gradient boosting (CatBoost). Four available design codes, including the European (EC4), American concrete institute (ACI), American institute of steel construction (AISC), and Australian/New Zealand (AS/NZS) are refereed in another comparison. The results demonstrate that the proposed GBNN method is a robust and powerful approach to obtain the ultimate strength of RCFST columns.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.219-229
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• 2015

An experimental study was performed for thin-walled rectangular concrete-filled tubular (CFT) columns. The present study mainly focused on evaluation of the axial load-carrying capacity of concrete-filled tubular columns using high-strength steel and slender section. The test parameters were width-to-thickness ratio, concrete strength, steel yield strength, and the use of stiffeners. Five specimens were tested under monotonic axial loading. Although elastic local buckling occurred in the slender-section specimens with high-strength steel, the specimens exhibited considerable post-buckling reserve. The test results also satisfied the predictions of a current design code. The specimens strengthened with vertical stiffeners exhibited improved strength and ductility when compared with the un-stiffened specimens.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.291-301
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• 2019

Pure torsion loading conditions were not frequently occurred in practical engineering, but the torsional researches were important since it's the basis of mechanical property researches under complex loading. Then a 3D finite element model with precise material constitutive models was established, and the effectiveness was verified with test data. Parametric studies with varying factors as steel yield strength, concrete strength and sectional height-width ratio, were performed. Internal stress state and the interaction effect between encased steel tube and the core concrete were analyzed. Results indicated that due to the confinement effect between steel tube and core concrete, the torsional strength of CFT columns was greatly improved comparing to plain concrete columns. The steel ratio would greatly influence the torque share between the steel tube and the core concrete. Then the torsional strength calculation formulas for core concrete and the whole CFT column were proposed. The proposed formula could be simpler and easier to use with guaranteed accuracy. Related design codes were more conservative than the proposed formula, but the proposed formula presented more satisfactory agreement with experimental results.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.10-21
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• 2015

For the safe design of steel-concrete composite structure, usable yield strength of steels are limited in most of design standard. However, this limitation sometimes cause the uneconomical design for some kind of members such as slender columns which was affected by elastic buckling load. For the economical design for slender columns, parametric study of RCFT (Rectangular CFT) with high-strength steel is conducted, especially investigating the limitation of yield strength of high-strength steels. Using ABAQUS, finite element analysis program, the finite element model was constructed and calibrated with experimental study for RCFT with high strength steel which have yield strength up to 680MPa. Investigated design parameters are yield strength of steel, compressive strength of concrete, steel thickness and slenderness ratio. The effect of design parameters were compared with design standard, KBC-09. From the parametric study with 54 models and previous test specimens, RCFT can be safely design with higher yield strength of steels than currently limited by KBC for large range of slenderness ratio.