• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.47 no.5
• /
• pp.615-631
• /
• 2023

Steel corrosion induces structural deterioration of concrete-filled steel tubes (CFSTs), and any potential extreme action on a corroded CFST would pose a severe threat. This paper presents a comprehensive investigation on the lateral impact behaviour of CFSTs suffering from localised pitting corrosion damage. A refined finite element analysis model is developed for the simulation of locally corroded CFSTs subjected to lateral impact loads, which takes into account the strain rate effects on concrete and steel materials as well as the random nature of corrosion pits, i.e., the distribution patterns and the geometric characteristics. Full-range nonlinear analysis on the lateral impact behaviour in terms of loading and deforming time-history relations, nonlinear material stresses, composite actions, and energy dissipations are presented for CFSTs with no corrosion, uniform corrosion and pitting corrosion, respectively. Localised pitting corrosion is found to pose a more severe deterioration on the lateral impact behaviour of CFSTs due to the plastic deformation concentration, the weakened confinement and the reduction in energy absorption capacity of the steel tube. An extended parametric study is then carried out to identify the influence of the key parameters on the lateral impact behaviour of CFSTs with localised pitting corrosion. Finally, simplified design methods considering the features of pitting corrosion are proposed to predict the dynamic flexural capacity of locally pitted CFSTs subjected to lateral impact loads, and reasonable accuracy is obtained.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.235-251
• /
• 2019

Corrosion of reinforcement is the greatest threat to the safety of existing reinforced concrete (RC) structures. Most of the olden structures are gravity load designed (GLD) and are seismically deficient. In present study, investigations are carried out on corrosion damaged GLD beam-column sub-assemblages under reverse cyclic loading, in order to evaluate their seismic performance. Five GLD beam-column sub-assemblage specimens comprising of i) One uncorroded ii) Two corroded iii) One uncorroded strengthened with steel bracket and haunch iv) One corroded strengthened with steel bracket and haunch, are tested under reverse cyclic loading. The performances of these specimens are assessed in terms of hysteretic behaviour, energy dissipation and strength degradation. It is noted that the nature of corrosion i.e. uniform or pitting corrosion and its location have significant influence on the behaviour of corrosion damaged GLD beam-column sub-assemblages. The corroded specimens with localised corrosion pits showed in-cyclic strength degradation. The study also reveals that external strengthening which provides an alternate force path but depends on the strength of the existing reinforcement bars, is able to mitigate the seismic risk of corroded GLD beam-column sub-assemblages to the level of control uncorroded GLD specimen.