• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.9-19
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• 2002

Steel piers and concrete-filled steel(CFS) piers, in spite of reasonable strength, high ductility, small section, and fast construction, have not been considered as one of alternatives to RC piers even in the highly populated urban area where aseismic safety, limited space and fast construction are indispensably required. This paper, the first of two companion papers for the seismic performance of steel and CFS piers, tests steel and CFS piers under quasi-static cyclic loading to estimate their ductility and strength. Additional details such as rebars and base ribs are added to increase the ductility of a concrete-filled steel pier with minimum additional cost. Also, simplified numerical analyses using nonlinear spring and shell elements are examined for the estimation of the ductility and strength of concrete-filled steel piers and a steel pier. The result shows that concrete-filled steel peirs have higher energy absorption, i.e., ductility and strength than those of steel pier and increasing bonding between in-filled concrete and lower diaphragm, and the improved details of stress concentrated region would be important for the ductility and strength of a pier. Numerical results show that simplified modeling with nonlinear springs and shells has potential to be effective modeling technique to estimate the seismic performance of a concrete-filled steel pier.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.161-168
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• 2001

The use of composite members to improve the compressive strength of steel structure is a common practice these days and its efficiency has already been proved by several researches and experiments. The result of concrete filled circular tubular(CFCT) stub column tests is introduced in this paper. The main parameter of this test is the ratio of diameter to thickness of circular hollow section. From the test results, the effect of concrete filled in steel tube on the ultimate strength, the deformation capacity and initial stiffness are discussed. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of various parameters and evaluate the compressive strength of confined concrete. It would contribute to a better understanding of CFT structure, further laboratory experimentations are needed for better accurate estimation on its effect.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.315-333
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• 2010

The structural behaviors of circular concrete filled steel tube (CFT) structures are investigated by nonlinear finite element method. An efficient three-dimensional (3D) degenerated beam element is adopted. Based on those previous studies, a modified stress-strain relationship for confined concrete which introduces the influence of eccentricity on confining stress is presented. Updated Lagrange formulation is used to consider the geometrical nonlinearity induced by large deformation effect. The nonlinear behaviors of CFT structures are investigated, and the accuracy of the proposed constitutive model for confined concrete is mainly concerned. The results demonstrate that the confining effect in CFT elements subjected to combining action of axial force and bending moment is far sophisticated than that in axial loaded columns, and an appropriate evaluation about this effect may be important for nonlinear numerical simulation of CFT structures.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.293-308
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• 2015

Interaction between the external thin-walled steel tube and the internal concrete core significantly increases the bending resistance of composite beams and beam-columns in comparison with the steel or concrete members. There is presented a developed method for design of hollow and solid concrete-filled steel tubular beams based on test data, which gives better agreement with test results than EC4 because its limitation to take an increase in strength of concrete caused by confinement contradicts the recommendation of 6.7.2(4) that full composite action up to failure may be assumed between steel and concrete components of the member. Good agreement between the results of carried out experimental, numerical and theoretical investigations allows recommending the proposed method to use in design practice.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.587-606
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• 2012

Concrete-filled-steel-tubular (CFST) columns have been well proven to improve effectively the strength, stiffness and ductility of concrete members. However, the central part of concrete in CFST columns is not fully utilised under uni-axial compression, bending and torsion. It has small contribution to both flexural and torsion strength, while it can be replaced effectively by steel with smaller area to give similar load-carrying capacity. Also, the confining pressure in CFST columns builds up slowly because the initial elastic dilation of concrete is small before micro-crackings of concrete are developed. From these observations, it is convinced that the central concrete can be effectively replaced by another hollow steel tube with smaller area to form double-skinned concrete-filled-steel-tubular (CFDST) columns. In this study, a series of uni-axial compression tests were carried out on CFDST and CFST columns with and without external steel rings. From the test results, it was observed that on average that the stiffness and elastic strength of CFDST columns are about 25.8% and 33.4% respectively larger than CFST columns with similar equivalent area. The averaged axial load-carrying capacity of CFDST columns is 7.8% higher than CFST columns. Lastly, a theoretical model that takes into account the confining effects of steel tube and external rings for predicting the uni-axial load-carrying capacity of CFDST columns is developed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.175-180
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• 2017

The load-carrying capacity and structural behavior of concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) structures is highly influenced by the grouting compactness in the steel tube. Due to the invisibility of the grout in the steel tube, monitoring of the grouting progress in such a structure is still a challenge. This paper develops an active sensing approach with combined piezoceramic-based smart aggregates (SA) and piezoceramic patches to monitor the grouting compactness of CFST bridge structure. A small-scale steel specimen was designed and fabricated to simulate CFST bridge structure in this research. Before casting, four SAs and two piezoceramic patches were installed in the pre-determined locations of the specimen. In the active sensing approach, selected SAs were utilized as actuators to generate designed stress waves, which were detected by other SAs or piezoceramic patch sensors. Since concrete functions as a wave conduit, the stress wave response can be only detected when the wave path between the actuator and the sensor is filled with concrete. For the sake of monitoring the grouting progress, the steel tube specimen was grouted in four stages, and each stage held three days for cement drying. Experimental results show that the received sensor signals in time domain clearly indicate the change of the signal amplitude before and after the wave path is filled with concrete. Further, a wavelet packet-based energy index matrix (WPEIM) was developed to compute signal energy of the received signals. The computed signal energies of the sensors shown in the WPEIM demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method in the monitoring of the grouting progress.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.469-488
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• 2011

This paper consists of two parts; the first part describes the laboratory work concerning the behavior of lightweight aggregate concrete filled steel tubes (LACFT). Based on eccentricity tests, fifty-four specimens with different slenderness ratios (L/D= 3, 7, and 14) were tested. The main parameters varied in the test are: load eccentricity; steel ratio; and slenderness ratio. The standard load-strain curves of LACFT columns under eccentric loading were summarized and significant parameters affecting LACFT column's bearing capacity, failure mechanism and failure mode such as confinement effect and bond strength were all studied and analyzed through the comparison with predicted strength of concrete filled steel tube columns (CFT) using the existing codes such as AISC-LRFD (1999), CHN DBJ 13-51-2003 (2003) and CHN CECS 28:90 (1990). The second part of this paper presents the results of parametric study and introduces a practical and accurate method for determination of the maximum compressive strength of confined concrete core ($f_{max}$), In addition to, the study of the effect of aspect-ratio and length-width ratio on the yield stress of steel tubes ( $f_{sy}$) under biaxial state of stress in CFT columns and the effect of these two factors on the ultimate load carrying capacity of axially loaded CFT/LACFT columns.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.257-284
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• 2006

The behaviour of hollow structural steel (HSS) stub columns and beams filled with normal concrete and recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) under instantaneous loading was investigated experimentally. A total of 40 specimens, including 30 stub columns and 10 beams, were tested. The main parameters varied in the tests were: (1) recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) replacement ratio, from 0 to 50%, (2) sectional type, circular and square. The main objectives of these tests were threefold: first, to describe a series of tests on new composite columns; second, to analyze the influence of RCA replacement ratio on the compressive and flexural behaviour of recycled aggregate concrete filled steel tubes (RACFST), and finally, to compare the accuracy of the predicted ultimate strength, bending moment capacity and flexural stiffness of the composite specimens by using the recommendations of ACI318-99 (1999), AIJ (1997), AISC-LRFD (1999), BS5400 (1979), DBJ13-51-2003 (2003) and EC4 (1994).

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.3 no.6
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• pp.889-910
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• 2012

Because of the heavy demand of confining steel to restore the column ductility in seismic regions, it is more efficient to confine these columns by hollow steel tube to form concrete-filled-steel-tube (CFST) column. Compared with transverse reinforcing steel, steel tube provides a stronger and more uniform confining pressure to the concrete core, and reduces the steel congestion problem for better concrete placing quality. However, a major shortcoming of CFST columns is the imperfect steel-concrete interface bonding occurred at the elastic stage as steel dilates more than concrete in compression. This adversely affects the confining effect and decrease the elastic modulus. To resolve the problem, it is proposed in this study to use external steel confinement in the forms of rings and ties to restrict the dilation of steel tube. For verification, a series of uni-axial compression test was performed on some CFST columns with external steel rings and ties. From the results, it was found that: (1) Both rings and ties improved the stiffness of the CFST columns and (2) the rings improve significantly the axial strength of the CFST columns while the ties did not improve the axial strength. Lastly, a theoretical model for predicting the axial strength of confined CFST columns will be developed.