L-shaped concrete-filled steel hollow-section columns under diagonal cyclic loading

Abstract

L-shaped concrete-filled steel hollow-section (CFSHS) columns have the potential to be widely used as corner columns, and have the advantage of creating larger usable areas in buildings. However, few experimental tests of this kind of column under diagonal cyclic loading have been reported. Tests on eight L-shaped CFSHS columns with equal legs were conducted to study their hysteretic behaviour; the test variables were: loading angle, concrete compressive strength, axial load level and presence or absence of stiffeners. The failure process and modes, stiffness degradation, ductility and energy dissipation were observed, and lateral load–displacement hysteretic curves and envelope curves were plotted. The results show that L-shaped CFSHS columns have generally good hysteretic behaviour and that the displacement ductility coefficients are in excess of 3 in most cases. Columns with a loading angle of 45° have >10% decrease in ultimate strength but a slightly higher ductility than columns with a loading angle of 0°. The ultimate strength, ductility and energy dissipation of columns all decrease with increasing axial load levels. Discontinuously welded stiffeners can improve the ultimate strength and ductility, but the amplitude is limited. Finally, a finite-element model was developed; the predicted results agree well with the test results.