• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.63-71
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• 2018

This paper reports an experimental study that was accomplished to assess the seismic behavior of steel tube reinforced concrete bridge columns (SBCs). The motivation of this study was to verify a supposition that the core steel tube may be terminated at a rational position in the column to minimize the material cost while maintaining the seismic behavior of this composite column. Four SBC specimens were tested under combined constant axial load and cyclic reversed lateral loads. The unique variable in the test matrix was the core steel tube embedment length, which ranged from 1/3 to 3/3 of the column effective height. It is observed that SBCs showed two distinctly different failure patterns, namely brittle shear failure and ductile flexural failure. Tests results indicate that the hysteretic responses of SBCs were susceptible to the core steel tube embedment length. With the increase of this structural parameter, the lateral strength of SBC was progressively improved; the deformability and ductility, however, exhibited a tendency of first increase and then decrease. It is also found that in addition to maintained the rate of stiffness degradation and cumulative energy dissipation basically unchanged, both the ductility and deformability of SBC were significantly improved when the core steel tube was terminated at the mid-height of the column, and these were the most unexpected benefits accompanied with material cost reduction.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.75 no.6
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• pp.643-657
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• 2020

This study presents experimental and numerical investigations on circular steel tube confined ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) columns under axial compression. The plain UHPC without fibers was designed to achieve a compressive strength ranged between 150 MPa and 200 MPa. Test results revealed that loading on only the UHPC core can generate a significant confinement effect for the UHPC core, thus leading to an increase in both strength and ductility of columns, and restricting the inherent brittleness of unconfined UHPC. All tested columns failed by shear plane failure of the UHPC core, this causes a softening stage in the axial load versus axial strain curves. In addition, an increase in the steel tube thickness or the confinement index was found to increase the strength and ductility enhancement and to reduce the magnitude of the loss of load capacity. Besides, steel tube with higher yield strength can improve the post-peak behavior. Based on the test results, the load contribution of the steel tube and the concrete core to the total load was examined. It was found that no significant confinement effect can be developed before the peak load, while the ductility of post-peak stage is mainly affected by the degree of the confinement effect. A finite element model (FEM) was also constructed in ABAQUS software to validate the test results. The effect of bond strength between the steel tube and the UHPC core was also investigated through the change of friction coefficient in FEM. Furthermore, the mechanism of circular steel tube confined UHPC columns was examined using the established FEM. Based on the results of FEM, the confining pressures along the height of each modeled column were shown. Furthermore, the interaction between the steel tube and the UHPC core was displayed through the slip length and shear stresses between two surfaces of two materials.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.2 no.2 s.4
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• pp.51-58
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• 2002

This paper is presented an experimental studies on bond stress between steel and concrete in concrete filled steel tubes. In the actual building frames, vertical dead and live loads on beams are usually transferred to columns by beam-to-column connections. In case when concrete filled steel tubes are used as columns of an actual building frame which has a simple connection, shear forces in the beam ends are not directly transferred to the concrete core but directly to the steel tube. Provided that the bond effect between steel tube and concrete core should not be expected, none of the end shear in the beams would be transferred to the concrete core but only to the steel tube. Therefore, it is important to investigate the bond strength between steel tube and concrete core in the absence of shear connectors.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.3 no.3 s.9
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• pp.105-110
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• 2003

This paper is presented an experimental studies on bond stress between steel and concrete in concrete filled Rectangular steel tubes. In the actual building frames, vertical dead and live loads on beams are usually transferred to columns by beam-to-column connections. In case when concrete filled steel tubes are used as columns of an actual building frame which has a simple connection, shear forces in the beam ends are not directly transferred to the concrete core but directly to the steel tube. Provided that the bond effect between steel tube and concrete core should not be expected, none of the end shear in the beams would be transferred to the concrete core but only to the steel tube. Therefore, it is important to investigate the bond strength between steel tube and concrete core in the absence of shear connectors.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.1541-1559
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• 2018

This paper addresses the dynamic loading characteristics of the shock tube onto sandwich steel beams as an efficient and accurate alternative to time consuming and complicated fluid structure interaction using finite element modeling. The corrugated sandwich steel beam consists of top and bottom flat substrates of steel 1018 and corrugated cores of steel 1008. The corrugated core layers are arranged with non-uniform thicknesses thus making sandwich beam graded. This sandwich beam is analogous to a steel beam with web and flanges. Substrates correspond to flanges and cores to web. The stress-strain relations of steel 1018 at high strain rates are measured using the split-Hopkinson pressure. Both carbon steels are assumed to follow bilinear strain hardening and strain rate-dependence. The present finite element modeling procedure with an improved dynamic impulse loading assumption is validated with a set of shock tube experiments, and it provides excellent correlation based on Russell error estimation with the test results. Four corrugated graded steel core arrangements are taken into account for core design parameters in order to maximize mitigation of blast load effects onto the structure. In addition, numerical study of four corrugated steel core placed in a reverse order is done using the validated finite element model. The dynamic behavior of the reversed steel core arrangement is compared with the normal core arrangement for deflections, contact force between support and specimen and plastic energy absorption.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.451-471
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• 2012

Concrete filled steel tube (CFST) structures have been used widely in high-rise buildings and bridges due to the efficiency of structurally favourable interaction between the steel tube and the concrete core. In the current design codes only one loading condition in the column members is considered, i.e., the load is applied on the steel tube and concrete core at the same time. However, in engineering practice the tube structures may be subjected to various loading conditions such as loading on the concrete core only, preloading on the steel tube skeleton before filling of concrete core, and so on. In this research, a series of comparative experiments were carried out to study the structural performance of concrete filled circular steel tube columns subject to four concentric loading schemes. Then, a generalized prediction method is developed to evaluate the ultimate load capacity of CFST columns subject to various loading conditions. It is shown that the predictions by the proposed method agree well with test results.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.423-436
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• 2012

In this study total of six buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) were manufactured using a square steel rod as a load-resisting core member and a hollow steel tube as restrainer to prevent global buckling of the core. The gap between the core and the tube was filled with steel rods as filler material. The performances of the proposed BRB from uniaxial and subassemblage tests were compared with those of the specimens filled with mortar. The test results showed that the performance of the BRB with discontinuous steel rods as filler material was not satisfactory, whereas the BRBs with continuous steel rods as filler material showed good performance when the external tubes were strong enough against buckling. It was observed that the buckling strength of the external tube of the BRBs filled with steel rods needs to be at least twice as high as that of the BRBs filled with mortar to ensure high cumulative plastic deformation of the BRB.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.241-256
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• 2010

The interaction between steel tube and concrete core is the key issue for understanding the behavior of concrete-filled steel tube columns (CFTs). This study investigates the force transfer by natural bond or by mechanical shear connectors and the interaction between the steel tube and the concrete core under three types of loading. Two and three-dimensional nonlinear finite element models are developed to study the force transfer between steel tube and concrete core. The nonlinear finite element program ABAQUS is used. Material and geometric nonlinearities of concrete and steel are considered in the analysis. The damage plasticity model provided by ABAQUS is used to simulate the concrete material behavior. Comparisons between the finite element analyses and own experimental results are made to verify the finite element models. A good agreement is observed between the numerical and experimental results. Parametric studies using the numerical models are performed to investigate the effects of diameterto-thickness ratio, uniaxial compressive strength of concrete, length of shear connectors, and the tensile strength of shear connectors.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.2 no.5
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• pp.379-396
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• 2002

The paper describes the mechanical behavior of short concrete-filled steel tube (CFT) columns with circular section. The efficiency of the steel tube in confining the concrete core depending on concrete strength and the steel tube thickness was examined. Fifteen columns were tested to failure under concentric axial loading. Furthermore, a mechanical model based on the interaction between the concrete core and the steel tube was developed. The model employs a volumetric strain history for the concrete, characterized by the level of applied confining stress. The situation of passive confinement is accounted for by an incremental procedure, which continuously updates the confining stress. The post-yield behavior of the columns is greatly influenced by the confinement level and is related to the efficiency of the steel tube in confining the concrete core. It is possible to classify the post-yield behavior into three categories: strain softening, perfectly plastic and strain hardening behavior. The softening behavior, which is due to a shear plane failure in the concrete core, was found for some of the CFT columns with high-strength concrete. Nevertheless, with a CFT column, it is possible to use high-strength concrete to obtain higher load resistance and still achieve a good ductile behavior.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.277-293
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• 2012

The interaction between steel tube and concrete core is the key design considerations for concrete-filled steel tube columns. In a concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) column, the steel tube provides confinement to the concrete core which permits the composite action among the steel tube and the concrete. Due to construction faults and plastic shrinkage of concrete, the debonding separation at the steel-concrete interface weakens the confinement effect, and hence affects the behaviour and bearing capacity of the composite member. This study investigates the axial loading behavior of the concrete filled circular steel tube columns with debonding separation. A three-dimensional nonlinear finite element model of CFST composite columns with introduced debonding gap was developed. The results from the finite element analysis captured successfully the experimental behaviours. The calibrated finite element models were then utilized to assess the influence of concrete strength, steel yield stress and the steel-concrete ratio on the debonding behaviour. The findings indicate a likely significant drop in the load carrying capacity with the increase of the size of the debonding gap. A design formula is proposed to reduce the load carrying capacity with the presence of debonding separation.