Buckling Performance of Thin-Walled Filled Steel Columns

Abstract

Concrete-filled composite elements have recently gained popularity as beams and columns all over the world. They have advantages similar to reinforced concrete elements, such as the moulding process and the lack of maintenance of the filled concrete, as well as advantages similar to hollow steel elements, such as enhancing compressive strength and bending capacity by using smaller sections. In this paper, the buckling behaviour of thin-walled steel columns with circular cross-section and different filling materials was investigated under uniaxial load. Six different materials (concrete produced using normal aggregate, concrete produced using waste aggregate, waste fine aggregate, waste coarse aggregate, waste iron dust and polyurethane) were used as filling. Filled columns were compared experimentally with hollow thin-walled steel columns that had the same height and diameter. All specimens had the same length (750 mm), same diameter (60.3mm) and the same wall thickness (3mm). Experimental results were compared with analytical results obtained from a calculation done using the national steel design code, Design, Calculation and Construction Principles of Steel Structures 2016. Additionally, columns specimens were modelled in Abaqus software. Conservative and consistent results were obtained from comparing experimental, analytical, and numerical results.