• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.459-484
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• 2005

In recent years, the use of steel tube confined concrete (STCC) columns has been the interests of many structural engineers. The present study is an attempt to study the monotonic and cyclic behaviours of STCC columns. For the monotonic behaviours, a series of tests on STCC stub columns (twenty one), and beam-columns (twenty) were carried out. The main parameters varied in the tests are: (1) column section types, circular and square; (2) tube diameter (or width) to thickness ratio, from 40 to 162, and (3) load eccentricity ratio (e/r), from 0 to 0.5. For the cyclic behaviours, the test parameters included the sectional types and the axial load level (n). Twelve STCC column specimens, including 6 specimens with circular sections and 6 specimens with square sections were tested under constant axial load and cyclically increasing flexural loading. Comparisons are made with predicted column strengths and flexural stiffness using the existing codes. It was found that STCC columns exhibit very high levels of energy dissipation and ductility, particularly when subjected to high axial loads. Generally, the energy dissipation ability of the columns with circular sections was much higher than those of the specimens with square sections. Comparisons are made with predicted column strengths and flexural stiffness using the existing codes such as AIJ-1997, AISCLRFD- 1994, BS5400-1979 and EC4-1994.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.43-52
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• 2007

There is a growing range of applications for concrete-filled steel tube (CFT) member because of its superior performance. But a CFT member may be uneconomical or has weight problems because it is fully filled with concrete. In this study, a new type of member, called internally confined hollow (ICH) CFT member, was developed to solve the high cost and weight problems of the CFT member. To determine stress-strain model of the concrete in an ICH CFT column, possible failure modes of an ICH CFT column were suggested and confining pressure was derived from equilibriums for each failure mode. From the derived equations, a computer program was coded and parametric studies were performed for some examples. Analytical results showed that internally confined concrete has enhanced strength and ductility compared with those of unconfined or biaxially confined concrete.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.141-166
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• 2015

In the present study, a Finite Element Model has been developed and used to study the effect of diameter to wall thickness ratio (D/t) of steel tube filled with concrete under axial loading on its behavior and load carrying capacity. The model is verified by comparing its findings with available experimental results. Influence of thickness and area of steel tube on strength, ductility, confinement and failure mode shapes has been studied. Strength enhancement factors, load factor, confinement contribution, percentage of steel and ductility index are defined and introduced for the assessment. A parametric study by varying length and thickness of tube has been carried out. Diameter of tube kept constant and equals to 140 mm while thickness has been varied between 1 mm and 6 mm. Equations were developed to find out the ultimate load and confined concrete strength of concrete. Variation of lateral confining pressure along the length of concrete cylinder was obtained and found that it varies along the length. The increase in length of tubes has a minimal effect on strength of tube but it affects the failure mode shapes. The findings indicate that optimum use of materials can be achieved by deciding the thickness of steel tube. A better ductility index can be obtained with the use of higher thickness of tube.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.430-433
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• 2006

The reinforced concrete column confined by square steel tubes(RCST) is a reinforced column (RC) confined by thin steel tubes which cover over the full length of the column but terminates 15mm from the column's ends. The steel tube is in uniaxial tension stress state and won't buckle when the column sustains axial load. This will highly increase the bearing capacity and ductility of the columns. The hysteretic behavior of four square RCST columns and one square RC column were experimentally studied under constant axial load and lateral cyclic load. The wide-to-thickness (D/t) ratio of RCST columns employed in this research is 75. The main variables of the experiment were axial load ratio and compressive strength of the concrete. Based on the findings in this research, RCST columns exhibits high lateral strength, ductility, and energy dissipation ability.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.151-159
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• 2018

In order to reduce the deformation and delay the local buckling of concrete filled steel tube (CFST) columns, strengthening the structures with stiffeners is an effective method. In this paper, a new stiffening method with inclined stiffeners was used to investigate the behaviors of short CFST columns under axial compression. Besides, a three-dimensional nonlinear finite element (FE) model was applied to simulate the mechanical performances, including the total deformation, local buckling, and stress-strain relationship. Revised constitutive models of stiffened steel tube and confined concrete are proposed. A good agreement was achieved between the test and FE results. Furthermore, the calculated results of load capacity by using a simplified method also show a good correlation with experimental data.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.455-480
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• 2014

Sixteen concrete filled square CFRP-steel tubular (S-CFRP-CFST) stub columns under axial compression were experimentally investigated. The experimental results showed that the failure mode of the specimens is strength loss of the materials, and the confined concrete has good plasticity due to confinement of the CFRP-steel composite tube. The steel tube and CFRP can work concurrently. The load versus longitudinal strain curves of the specimens can be divided into 3 stages, i.e., elastic stage, elasto-plastic stage and softening stage. Analysis based on finite element method showed that the longitudinal stress of the steel tube keeps almost constant along axial direction, and the transverse stress at the corner of the concrete is the maximum. The confinement effect of the outer tube to the concrete is mainly focused on the corner. The confinements along the side of the cross-section and the height of the specimen are both non-uniform. The adhesive strength has little effect both on the load versus longitudinal strain curves and on the confinement force versus longitudinal strain curves. With the increasing of the initial stress in the steel tube, the load carrying capacity, the stiffness and the peak value of the average confinement force are all reduced. Equation for calculating the load carrying capacity of the composite stub columns is presented, and the estimated results agree well with the experimental results.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.4A
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• pp.565-575
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• 2006

When concrete is confined, its strength is enhanced by confining stress. Thus, increasing confining stress makes concrete strength higher. But a brittle failure may occur in hollow RC(Reinforced Concrete) column although its concrete is confined by transverse reinforcements. This brittle failure results from the absence of internal confinement and it decreases the strength and the ductility of a hollow RC column. To overcome this brittle failure problem, a hollow RC column which has a internal steel tube was developed. In this study, an experiment was performed to investigate the existence of to internal confinement by a settled steel tube. Thirty six specimens were tested and test results show the existence of internal confinement by the increase of concrete strength.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.589-604
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• 2016

Kenya has recently experienced worrying collapse of buildings during construction largely attributable to the poor quality of in-situ concrete and poor workmanship. The situation in the country is further compounded by rapid deterioration of infrastructure, hence necessitating the development of alternative structural systems such as concrete filled unplasticized poly vinyl chloride (UPVC) tubes as columns. The work herein adds on to the very limited and scanty work on use of UPVC tubes in construction. This study presents the findings of experimental and analytical work which investigated the structural response of composite concrete filled UPVC tubes under compressive load regime. UPVC pipes are cheaper than steel tubes and can be used as formwork during construction and thereafter as an integral part of column. Key variables in this study included the strength of infill concrete, the length to diameter ratio (L/D) of the plastic tube, as well as the diameter to thickness ratio (D/2t) of the plastic tube. Plastic tubes having varying diameters and heights were used to confine concrete of different strengths. Results obtained in the study clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of UPVC tubes as a confining medium for infill concrete, attributable to enhanced composite interaction between the UPVC tube and infill concrete medium. It was determined that compressive strength of the composite column specimens increased with increased concrete strength while the same decreased with increased column height, albeit by a small margin since all the columns considered were short columns. Most importantly, the experimental confined concrete strength increased significantly when compared to unconfined concrete strength; the strength increased between 1.18 to 3.65 times the unconfined strength. It was noted that lower strength infill concrete had the highest confined strength possibly due to enhanced composite interaction with the confining UPVC tube. The study further proposes an analytical model for the determination of confined strength of concrete.

• 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.17 no.4
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• pp.517-533
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• 2014

Experimental results of 39 specimens including concrete columns, RC columns, hollow steel tube columns, concrete filled steel tubular (CFT) columns, and reinforced concrete filled steel tubular (RCFT) columns are presented. Based on the experimental results, the load-carrying capacity, confined effect, ductility, and failure mode of test columns are investigated. The effects of the main factors such as width-thickness ratio (the ratio of external diameter and wall thickness for steel tubes), concrete strength, steel tube with or without rib, and arrangement of reinforcing bars on the mechanical characteristics of columns are discussed as well. The differences between CFT and RCFT are compared. As a result, it is thought that strength, rigidity and ductility of RCFT are improved; especially strength and ductility are improved after the peak of load-displacement curve.