• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.423-436
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• 2022

This paper proposes an innovative thin-walled square concrete filled steel tubular (CFST) column with an octagonal/circular lining steel tube, in which the outer steel tube and the inner liner are fabricated independently of each other and connected by slot-weld or self-tapping screw connections. Twelve thin-walled square CFST columns were tested under quasi-static loading, considering the parameters of liner type, connection type between the square tube and liner, yield strength of steel tube, and the axial load ratio. The seismic performance of the thin-walled square CFST columns is effectively improved by the octagonal and circular liners, and all the liner-stiffened specimens showed an excellent ductile behavior with the ultimate draft ratios being much larger than 1/50 and the ductility coefficients being generally higher than 4.0. The energy dissipation abilities of the specimens with circular liners and self-tapping screw connections were superior to those with octagonal liner and slot-weld connections. Based on the test results, both the finite element (FE) and simplified theoretical models were established, considering the post-buckling strength of the thin-walled square steel tube and the confinement effect of the liners, and the proposed models well predicted the hysteretic behavior of the liner-stiffened specimens.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.461-474
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• 2023

Concrete-filled steel tubes are among the most efficient compressive structural members because the strength of the concrete is enhanced given that the surrounding steel tube confines the concrete laterally and the steel tube is restrained with regard to inward deformation due to the concrete existing inside. Accurate estimations of the ultimate compressive strength of CFT are important for efficient designs of CFT members. In this study, an analytical procedure that directly formulates the interaction between the concrete and steel tube by considering the nonlinear Poisson effect and stress-strain curve of the concrete including the confinement effect is proposed. The failure stress of concrete and von-Mises failure yield criterion of steel were used to consider multi-dimensional stresses. To verify the prediction capabilities of the proposed analytical procedure, 99 circular CFT experimental data instances from other studies were used for a comparison with AISC, Eurocode 4, and other researchers' predictions. From the comparison, it was revealed that the proposed procedure more accurately predicted the ultimate compressive strength of a circular CFT regardless of the range of the design variables, in this case the concrete compressive strength, yield strength of the steel tube and diameter relative to the thickness ratio of the tube.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.517-527
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• 2017

In this paper, the effect of active confinement on the compressive behaviour of circular steel tube-confined concrete (STCC) and concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) columns is investigated. In STCC columns the axial load is only applied to the concrete core, while in CFST columns the load is carried by the whole composite section. A new method is introduced to apply confining pressure on fresh concrete by laterally prestressing steel tubes. In order to achieve different prestressing levels, short-term and long-term pressures are applied to the fresh concrete. Three groups of STCC and CFST specimens (passive, S-active and L-active groups) are tested under axial loads. The results including stress-strain relationships of composite column components, secant modulus of elasticity, and volumetric strain are presented and discussed. Based on the elastic-plastic theory, the behaviour of the steel tube is also analyzed during elastic, yielding, and strain hardening stages. The results show that using the proposed prestressing method can considerably improve the compressive behaviour of both STCC and CFST specimens, while increasing the prestressing level has insignificant effects. By applying prestressing, the linear range in the stress-strain curve of STCC specimens increases by almost twice as much, while the improvement is negligible in CFST specimens.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.501-511
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• 2018

Concrete-filled steel tubular (CFT) columns are commonly used in engineering structures and always subjected to torsion in practice. This paper is thus devoted to investigate the mechanical behavior of circular CFT columns under pure torsion.3D finite element models based on reasonable material constitutive relation were established for analyzing the load-strain ($T-{\gamma}$) curves of circular CFT columns under pure torsion. The numerical simulation indicated that local bulking of the steel tube in CFT columns was prevented and the shear strength and ductility of the core concrete were significantly improved due to the confinement effect between the steel tube and the core concrete. Based on the results, formulas to predict the torsional ultimate bearing capacity of circular CFT columns were proposed with satisfactory correspondence with experimental results. Besides, formulas of composite shear stiffness and the overall process of the $T-{\gamma}$ relation of circular CFT columns under pure torsion were proposed.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.263-273
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• 2017

In this paper, a finite element model (FEM) in ATENA-3D software was constructed to investigate the behavior of circular ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) filled steel tube stub columns (UHPC-FSTCs) under concentric loading on concrete core. The "CC3DNonLinCementitious2User" material type for concrete in ATENA-3D software with some modifications of material laws, was adopted to model for UHPC core with consideration the confinement effect. The experimental results obtained from Schneider (2006) were then employed to verify the accuracy of FEM. Extensive parametric analysis was also conducted to examine the influence of concrete compressive strength, steel tube thickness and steel yield strength on the compressive behavior of short circular UHPC-FSTCs. It can be observed that the columns with thicker steel tube show better strength and ductility, the sudden drop of load after initial peak load can be prevented. Based on the regression analysis of the results from parametric study, simplified formulae for predicting ultimate loads and strains were proposed and verified by comparing with previous analytical models, design codes and experimental results.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.59-66
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• 2019

Hollow steel-reinforced concrete-filled GFRP tubular member is a new kind of composite members. Firstly set the mold in the GFRP tube (non-bearing component), then set the longitudinal reinforcements with stirrups (steel reinforcement cage) between the GFRP tube and the mold, and filled the concrete between them. Through the axial compression test of the hollow steel-reinforced concrete-filled GFRP tubular member, the working mechanism and failure modes of composite members were obtained. Based on the experiment, when the load reached the ranges of $55-70%P_u$ ($P_u-ultimate$ load), white cracks appeared on the surface of the GFRP tubes of specimens. At that time, the confinement effects of the GFRP tubes on core concrete were obvious. Keep loading, the ranges of white cracks were expanding, and the confinement effects increased proportionally. In addition, the damages of specimens, which were accompanied with great noise, were marked by fiber breaking and resin cracking on the surface of GFRP tubes, also accompanied with concrete crushing. The bearing capacity of the axially compressed components increased with the increase of reinforcement ratio, and decreased with the increase of hollow ratio. When the reinforcement ratio was increased from 0 to 4.30%, the bearing capacity was increased by about 23%. When the diameter of hollow part was decreased from 55mm to 0, the bearing capacity was increased by about 32%.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.193-206
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• 2021

Extensive research has been conducted on the basic mechanical property and structural applications of engineered cementitious composites (ECC). Despite the high tensile ductility and high toughness of ECC, transverse steel reinforcement is still necessary to confine ECC for high performance. However, limited research has examined performance of ECC confined with practical amount of transverse reinforcement. This paper presents the results of axial compression tests on 14 square ECC columns and 4 conventional concrete columns (used as control specimens) with transverse reinforcement. The test variables were spacing, configuration (square ties or square and diamond shape ties), and yield strength of stirrups. The test showed that ECC columns confined with steel stirrup had good compressive ductility, and the stirrup spacing had the greatest effect on the compressive performance. The self-confinement effect of ECC results in a more uniform but slower expansion of the whole column compared with CC ones. The test results are then compared against the predictions from a number of existing models for conventional confined concrete. It is indicated that these models fail to predict the axial strains at peak axial stress and the trend of the stress-strain curve of steel stirrups-confined ECC with sufficient accuracy. Several new equations are then proposed for the compressive properties of steel-confined ECC based on test results and potential approaches for future studies are proposed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.419-429
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• 2022

In response to the sustainability requirements set in the EU Commission's "Green Deal" towards reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions, it is estimated that the structural design for deconstruction is going to contribute considerably to the sustainable development of the built environment. The demountability of multi-material structural systems basically depends on the shear connectors used in the structural system. This paper focuses on a type of demountable injected shear connector with an injected steel-reinforced resin (iSRR) which consists of spherical steel particles embedded in a resin. Its application to steel-to-concrete and steel-to-Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) decks is presented along with its benefits. In parallel, an overview of the experimental and numerical research on the evaluation of the mechanical properties of the demountable bolted connectors with iSRR is discussed. Last, detailed finite element (FE) models and a parametric study are performed to quantify the confinement level of the SRR material influenced by the oversized hole diameter.

• 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.18 no.4
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• pp.1023-1044
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• 2015

Concrete-filled tubes (CFT), formed by an outer steel tube filled with plain or reinforced concrete inside, have been increasingly used these recent decades as columns or beam-columns, especially for tall buildings in seismic areas due to their excellent structural response. This improved behavior is derived from the effect of confinement provided by the tube, since the compressive strength of concrete increases when being subjected to hydrostatic pressure. In circular CFTs under compression, the whole tube is uniformly tensioned due to the radial expansion of concrete. Contrarily, in rectangular and square-shaped CFTs, the lateral flanges become subjected to in-plane bending derived from this volumetric expansion, and this fact implies a reduction of the confinement effect of the core. This study presents a numerical analysis of different configurations of CFT stub columns with inner stiffening plates, limited to the study of the influence of these plates on the compressive behavior without eccentricity. The final purpose is to evaluate the efficiency in terms of strength and ductility of introducing stiffeners into circular and square CFT sections under large deformation axial loading.