• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.115-130
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• 2017

A new type of moment-resisting bolted connection was developed for use in composite steel- concrete construction to connect composite open section steel beams to concrete filled steel square tubular columns. The connection was made possible using anchored blind bolts along with two through bolts. It was designed to act compositely with the in-situ reinforced concrete slab to achieve an enhanced stiffness and strength. The developed connection was incorporated in the design of a medium rise (five storey) commercial building which was located in low to medium seismicity regions. The lateral load resisting system for the design building consisted of moment resisting frames in two directions. A major full scale test on a sub-assembly of a perimeter moment-resisting frame of the model building was conducted to study the system behaviour incorporating the proposed connection. The behaviour of the proposed connection and its interaction with the floor slab under cyclic loading representing the earthquake events with return periods of 500 years and 2500 years was investigated. The proposed connection was categorized as semi rigid for unbraced frames based on the classification method presented in Eurocode 3. Furthermore, the proposed connection, composite with the floor slab, successfully provided adequate lateral load resistance for the model building.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2020

This paper presents experimental and numerical studies on effects of local damages on the in-plane elastic-plastic buckling and strength of a fixed parabolic steel tubular arch under a vertical load distributed uniformly over its span, which have not been reported in the literature hitherto. The in-plane structural behaviour and strength of ten specimens with different local damages are investigated experimentally. A finite element (FE) model for damaged steel tubular arches is established and is validated by the test results. The FE model is then used to conduct parametric studies on effects of the damage location, depth and length on the strength of steel arches. The experimental results and FE parametric studies show that effects of damages at the arch end on the strength of the arch are more significant than those of damages at other locations of the arch, and that effects of the damage depth on the strength of arches are most significant among those of the damage length. It is also found that the failure modes of a damaged steel tubular arch are much related to its initial geometric imperfections. The experimental results and extensive FE results show that when the effective cross-section considering local damages is used in calculating the modified slenderness of arches, the column bucking curve b in GB50017 or Eurocode3 can be used for assessing the remaining in-plane strength of locally damaged parabolic steel tubular arches under uniform compression. Furthermore, a useful interaction equation for assessing the remaining in-plane strength of damaged steel tubular arches that are subjected to the combined bending and axial compression is also proposed based on the validated FE models. It is shown that the proposed interaction equation can provide lower bound assessments for the remaining strength of damaged arches under in-plane general loading.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.533-551
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• 2020

A finite element analysis (FEA) model is established to investigate the concrete-encased concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) column to reinforced concrete (RC) beam joints under cyclic loading. The feasibility of the FEA model is verified by a set of test results, consisting of the failure modes, the exposed view of connections, the crack distributions and development, and the hysteretic relationships. The full-range analysis is conducted to investigate the stress and strain development process in the composite joint by using this FEA model. The internal force distributions of different components, as well as the deformation distributions, are analyzed under different failure modes. The proposed connections are investigated under dimensional and material parameters, and the proper constructional details of the connections are recommended. Parameters of the beam-column joints, including material strength, confinement factor, reinforcement ratio, diameter of steel tube to sectional width ratio, beam to column linear bending stiffness ratio and beam shear span ratio are evaluated. Furthermore, the key parameters affecting the failure modes and the corresponding parameters ranges are proposed in this paper.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.303-317
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• 2006

The connection with combined cross diaphragm is developed for the connection of square CFT column and steel beam and proposed to be used for the frame with asymmetric span length. The structural characteristics of this connection lie in the penetration of the beam flange in the direction of major axis through the column for the smooth flow of stress. The purpose of this study is to analyze the dynamic behavior and stress flow of suggested connection and to evaluate the resistance to shock of connection. Four T-type CFT column-to-beam specimens; two with combined cross diaphragm and the others with interior and through diaphragms, the existing connection types, were made for cyclic load test guided by the load program of ANSI/AISC SSPEC 2002. The results show that the proposed connection is more efficient than existing ones in terms of strength, stress flow and energy absorption and satisfies the seismic performance required in the region of weak/moderate earthquakes.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.77-90
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• 2018

This paper presents a combined numerical, experimental, and theoretical study on the behavior of the concrete-filled double circular steel tubular (CFDT) stub columns under axial compressive loading. Four groups of stub column specimens were tested in this study to find out the effects of the concrete strength, steel ratio and diameter ratio on the mechanical behavior of CFDT stub columns. Nonlinear finite element (FE) models were also established to study the stresses of different components in the CFDT stub columns. The change of axial and transverse stresses in the internal and external steel tubes, as well as the change of axial stress in the concrete sandwich and concrete core, respectively, was thoroughly investigated for different CFDT stub columns with the same steel ratio. The influence of inner-to-outer diameter ratio and steel ratio on the ultimate bearing capacity of CFDT stub columns was identified, and a reasonable section configuration with proper inner-to-outer diameter ratio and steel ratio was proposed. Furthermore, a practical formula for predicting the ultimate bearing capacity was proposed based on the ultimate equilibrium principle. The predicted results showed satisfactory agreement with both experimental and numerical results, indicating that the proposed formula is applicable for design purposes.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.533-549
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• 2020

Recently, Concrete-filled double skin steel tubular (CFDST) columns have proven an exceptional structural resistance in terms of strength, stiffness, and ductility. However, the resistance of these column members can be severely affected by the type of loading in which bending stresses increase in direct proportion with axial load and eccentricity value. This paper presents a non-linear finite element based modeling approach that studies the behavior of slender CFDST columns under biaxial loading. Finite element models were calibrated based on the outcomes of experimental work done by other researchers. Results from simulations of slender CFDST columns under axial loading eccentric in one direction showed good agreement with the experimental response. The calibrated models are expanded to a total of thirty models that studies the behavior of slender CFDST columns under combined compression and biaxial bending. The influences of parameters that are usually found in practice are taken into consideration in this paper, namely, eccentricity-to-diameter (e/D) ratios, slenderness ratios, diameter-to-thickness (D/t) ratios, and steel contribution ratios. Finally, an analytical study based on current code provisions is conducted. It is concluded that South African national standards (2011) provided the most accurate results contrasted with the Eurocode 4 (2004) and American Institute of Steel Construction (2016) that are found to be conservative. Accordingly, correction factors are proposed to the current design guidelines to provide more satisfactory results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.85 no.5
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• pp.693-707
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• 2023

In order to deeply reveal the working mechanism of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) filled steel tubular columns (UHPCFSTs) under cyclic loading, a three-dimension (3D) macro-mesoscale finite element (FE) model was established considering the randomness of steel fibers and the damage of UHPC. Model correctness and reliability were verified based on the experimental results. Next, the whole failure process of UHPC reinforced with steel fibers, passive confinement effect and internal force distribution laws were comprehensively analyzed and discussed. Finally, a simplified and practical method was proposed for predicting the ultimate bending strengths of UHPCFSTs. It was found that the non-uniform confinement effect of steel tube occurred when the drift ratio exceeded 0.5%, while the confining stress increased then decreased afterwards. There was preferable synergy between the steel tube and UHPC until failure. Compared with experimental results, the ultimate bending strengths of UHPCFSTs were undervalued by the current code provisions such as AISC360-10, EC4 and GB50936 with computed mean values (MVs) of 0.855, 0.880 and 0.836, respectively. The proposed practical method was highly accurate, as evidenced by a mean value of 1.058.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.6
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• pp.661-678
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• 2024

The utilization of geopolymer recycled aggregate concrete (GRAC) as the infilled core of the concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns provides superior economic and environmental benefits. However, limited research exists within the field of geopolymer recycled aggregate concrete considered a green and sustainable material, in addition to the limitation of the design guidelines to predict the behavior of such an innovative new material combination. Moreover, the behavior of high-strength concrete is different from the normal-strength one, especially when there is another material of high-strength properties, such as the steel tube. This paper aims to investigate the behavior of the axially loaded square high-strength GRACFST columns through the nonlinear finite element analysis (NLFEA). A total of thirty-two specimens were simulated using ABAQUS/Standard software with three main variables: recycled aggregate replacement ratio (0, 30, and 50) %, width-to-thickness ratios (52.0, 32.0, 23.4, and 18.7), and length-to-width ratio (3, 5, 9, and 12). During the analysis, the response in terms of the axial load versus the longitudinal strain was recorded and plotted. In addition, various mechanical properties were calculated and analyzed. In view of the results, it has been demonstrated that the mechanical properties of high-strength GRACFST columns such as ultimate load-bearing capacity, compressive stiffness, energy absorption capacity, and ductility increase with the increase of the steel tube thickness owing to the improvement of the confinement effect of the steel tube. In contrast, the incorporation of the recycled aggregate adversely affected the mentioned properties except the ductility, while the increase of the recycled aggregate replacement ratio improved the column's ductility. Moreover, it has been found that the increase in the length-to-width ratio significantly reduced both the failure strain and the energy absorption capacity. Finally, the obtained NLFEA results of the ultimate load-bearing capacity were compared with the corresponding predicted capacities by numerous codes. It has been concluded that AISC, ACI, and EC give conservative predictions for the ultimate load-bearing capacity since the confinement effect was not considered by these codes.