Experimental and theoretical investigation on residual bearing capacity of CFDST-T joints after lateral impact

Abstract

This study investigates the residual performance of concrete-filled double-skin steel tubular (CFDST) T-joints after lateral impact. One hollow T-joint and five CFDST-T joints with various steel tube thickness and hollow rate were first tested by a pendulum machine. The axial compression test was subsequently performed to explore the residual performance in terms of failure mode, residual bearing capacity, ductility, energy dissipation, and strain evolution. Results indicated that the failure modes of the CFDST-T joint and hollow T-joint were characterized by global bending and severe local indentation, respectively. Besides, the CFDST-T joints exhibited the strongest residual bearing capacity with a hollow rate of 0.52 and the greatest ductility of 0.63. Moreover, increasing the outer tube thickness improved the residual bearing capacity and simultaneously reduced the ductility coefficient while the inner tube exerted little effect on residual performance. Simplified calculation formulas were finally derived to predict the impact residual deflection and residual bearing capacity of the CFDST-T joint based on parametric analysis. This study will provide a reference for future research to contribute to the design of more reasonable CFDST-T joints and promote their application.