Global stability design of concrete-filled corrugated steel tubular columns

Abstract

In recent years, various types of concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns were proposed and they have been widely used in engineering practice. Considering the great confinement effect of corrugated steel plate on the concrete, a novel type of CFST column called concrete-filled corrugated steel tubular (CFCST) column was proposed. The CFCST column consists of horizontally corrugated steel plates, corner steel bars and infilled concrete. In this paper, the stability performance of CFCST columns is studied. Firstly, a finite element (FE) model was developed for numerical simulation. The ultimate resistances, load-displacement curves and failure modes obtained from the FE models were compared with previous test results to verify the validity of the FE model. Subsequently, seven sets of numerical examples were analyzed to investigate the impact of key parameters on the global stability performance of CFCST columns. These examples involved variations in geometric dimensions, corrugation shapes and material strengths. Finally, the stability coefficients φ of CFCST columns obtained from FE numerical simulation were compared to several existing stability curves. On this basis, a new stability curve was proposed for predicting the global stability resistance of CFCST columns with good accuracy and reasonable redundancy.