Abstract
This paper presents an experimental and analytical investigation on the performance of partial penetration welds used to adjoin steel plates in irregular shaped multicell concrete filled steel tubes. The experimental program of this study is designed based on an actual implementation of such members as mega columns in a super high rise building in China. A total of six specimens are designed with different plate arrangements for the purpose of testing the performance of the partial penetration welds at different locations of the specimen. The designed specimens are tested under different load procedures and directions; this is achieved by placing them in vertical and slantwise manners between two loading plates which impose monotonic and cyclic actions. The failure conditions of each of the tested specimens are presented and discussed in detail and are based on the conclusions drawn from the experimental observations; the partial penetration weld at the corner of the tested specimens is found to be the most vulnerable. To facilitate large scale analysis, a finite element model constructed by the finite element analysis program ABAQUS is verified against experimental results. The evaluation of the stress at the partial penetration welded corner is carried out following an empirical procedure, which is adopted due to the complexity of the problem domain. The adopted procedure consists of two steps: the first one is to initially evaluate the stress based on an existing method in the literature, and the second one is to fit the results of the initial evaluation with the finite element model results based on parametric and regression analysis. After performing regression analysis, a formula to predict the weld stress is concluded, and the results of the proposed equation are found to be satisfactory when compared with the finite element model results.
Highlights
Concrete filled steel tubes (CFSTs) are currently gaining more popularity over conventional reinforced concrete columns
Typical CFSTs have single-cell circular or rectangular shaped forms with a variation of sizes depending on the design requirements
In this study, the behavior of irregular shaped multicell CFSTs made by welding steel plates is the one to be investigated
Summary
Concrete filled steel tubes (CFSTs) are currently gaining more popularity over conventional reinforced concrete columns. In the following analysis and study, the behavior of irregular shaped multicell welded CFSTs is investigated experimentally, implementing partial penetration welds for members subjected to monotonic and cyclic loads. The performance of this specific weld detail under the simultaneous effect of vertical and confinement pressures, which will lead to severe outward local buckling, is experimentally documented for the first time. Keeping in mind the main experimental observation and aided by the constructed FEM model, a method to initially evaluate the stress at the welded corner is developed in the last section of this paper This method that is developed for circular cross-sections may be transferred to rectangular forms roughly by assuming that both types of cross-sections have the same load capacity.
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