TUBULAR STRUCTURES XVI

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 16TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON TUBULAR STRUCTURES

(ISTS 2017), MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 4–6 DECEMBER 2017

Tubular Structures XVI

Editors
Amin Heidarpour & Xiao-Ling Zhao
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
COVER PHOTOGRAPHS:
Front: Melbourne Star Observation Wheel
Photographed by Vahid Emad

Back: Arts Centre Melbourne (left) & Southern Cross Railway Station in Melbourne (right)
Photographed by Vahid Emad

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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Table of contents

Preface xi
Publications of previous international symposia on tubular structures xiii
Organization xv
Acknowledgements xvii

ISTS Kurobane lecture

Fatigue of hollow section structures—Current research and developments 3
S. Herion

Architecture, applications and case studies

A walking tour of Melbourne tubular structures 17
R.H. Keays
The grandstand roof of the Olympic stadium in Berlin 27
R. Stroetmann
Preliminary report for the damaged tubular structures after the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes 35
T. Yamanaka & K. Ochi

Composite tubular structures

Analytical behavior of square CFST short beam-columns under sustained load and
chloride corrosion 45
Y.-X. Hua, L.-H. Han, C.-C. Hou, J.-L. Chu & Y. Ye
Parametric study on the flexural behaviour of circular rubberized concrete-filled steel tubes 51
J.B. Chen, T.M. Chan & J.M. Castro
Capacity of high strength square hollow section steel tube filled with concrete and
hardwood timber 61
H. Jiao, X.L. Zhao & T. Ghanbari Ghazijahani
Eccentric compressive behavior of concrete-filled double skin steel tubes with
dodecagonal section 67
J. Wang, J. Chen & F. Xu
Rubberised concrete-filled double-skin circular tubes under axial compression 77
M. Elchalakani & A. Hosseini
Rubberised concrete-filled double-skin square tubes under axial compression 83
M. Elchalakani, A. Hosseini & C. Marshall
Effect of using steel corner tubes on the static compressive and cyclic behavior of
concrete-filled double-skin fabricated columns 89
M. Farahi, A. Heidarpour, X.L. Zhao & R. Al-Mahaidi

v
Experimental investigation of concrete-filled lean duplex stainless steel RHS stub columns 95
B. Xing & B. Young
Thermal in-plane buckling of concrete-filled steel tubular arches 101
Y. Bouras, E. Torres-Don & Z. Vrcelj
Experimental investigation of concrete-filled cold-formed steel elliptical stub columns 109
S. Yi & B. Young
Structural performance of concrete-filled double skin tubular beams with eccentric inner tubes 117
F. Wang, B. Young & L. Gardner

Connections
A three-parameter power model for blind bolted connection with a concrete-filled steel tube 127
M.A. Bradford, A. Ataei & H.R. Valipour
Tests of concrete-filled high strength steel tubular X-joints under compression 137
H.T. Li & B. Young
Behavior of extended endplate connections between RHS column and H beam using
slip-critical blind bolts 145
W. Wang, M.X. Li, Y.Y. Chen & X.G. Jian
An experimental and numerical study of flange plate reinforcements on a square hollow
section T joint in compression 153
L.C.B. Guerrieiro, L.R.O. de Lima, P.C.G. da S. Vellasco, A.T. da Silva & L.F. Costa-Neves
3D component method for welded tubular T joints 165
M. Garifullin, S. Pajunen, K. Mela & M. Heinisuo
RHS X-connections near an open chord end 175
Y. Fan & J.A. Packer
Effect of chord tensile stress on the capacity of RHS K joints with gap in real girders 185
O. Fleischer & J. Wardenier
Experimental evaluation of moment-rotation response of an innovative modular
beam-to-fabricated column connection 193
S.N. Sadeghi, A. Heidarpour, X.L. Zhao & R. Al-Mahaidi
Influence of chord wall interaction on stress concentrations of square bird-beak SHS X-joints 201
C. Li, B. Cheng, Q. Qian, Y. Lou & X.L. Zhao
Punching shear behaviour and design of an innovative connection between steel tubular
column to flat concrete slab 207
J.L. Yu & Y.C. Wang
Laser tube cutting—Comparison of new types of K-joints and their SCF with standard solutions 215
S. Herion, O. Fleischer, J. Hrabowski, S. Raso, A. Valli, A. Mastropasqua & E. Bononi
High strength steel tubular X-joints—an experimental insight under axial compression 223
M. Pandey & B. Young
Contributions of welded web to rotational stiffness and bending moment capacity of
‘I beam-RHS column’ joints 231
M. Lozano, M.A. Serrano-López, C. López-Colina & Y.C. Wang
Application of the component method to bolted endplate composite beam-to-CFST
column joints 239
H.T. Thai
Engineering approaches to estimate effective notch stresses for welded circular hollow
section joints 247
M.R. Pradana, X. Qian & S. Swaddiwudhipong

vi
Numerical analysis of concrete-encased tubular base connections 255
A. Albareda-Valls, J. Maristany Carreras & S.S. Zaribaf
Damage analysis of doubler plate reinforced T-joints under uniaxial tensile load based
on stress triaxiality 263
W.N. Sui, Z.F. Wang, K. An & O.C. Peter
Strength estimation of CHS column to H-beam connections stiffened by exterior diaphragms 271
M. Okamoto, T. Tanaka & H. Asada
Effect of reinforcement on punching shear strength in embedded column base connections 279
K. Hirano, T. Tanaka & H. Asada
Axial compressive strength of CHS T-joints reinforced with external stiffening rings 285
L. Zhu, Y. Wei, K. Yang, Y. Bai & H.L. Sun
Compressive strength of square hollow section T-joints reinforced with novel collar-plate 295
H.F. Chang, J.W. Xia, G.H. Tian, Y.L. Qian & W. Xu

Extreme loading
Post-fire behavior of cold-formed ultra-high strength steel tubular stub columns 305
F. Azhari, A. Heidarpour & X.L. Zhao
Eurocode 4 based method for the fire design of concrete-filled steel tubular columns 311
A. Espinós, V. Albero, M.L. Romero, A. Hospitaler, C. Renaud & Y.C. Wang
Thermal behavior of connections between concrete-filled steel tubular columns and
slim-floors subjected to fire 317
V. Albero, A. Espinós, A. Hospitaler, M.L. Romero & A.M. Pascual
Behaviour and design of a continuous concrete-filled steel tubular column in fire for a
multi-storey building 323
K. Ukanwa, G.C. Clifton, J.B.P. Lim, A. Abu, S.J. Hicks & U.K. Sharma
Behavior of T and X joints of elliptical hollow sections at both ambient and high
temperatures 333
E. Ozyurt & Y.C. Wang
Behaviour of hexagonal concrete-encased CFST columns under cyclic bending 341
D.Y. Ma, L.-H. Han, X.D. Ji & X.L. Zhao
Cyclically strained grade 800 and 1200 steel tube materials 349
F. Javidan, A. Heidarpour, X.L. Zhao & H. Fallahi
Behaviour of double headed anchored blind bolt under cyclic loading 357
T. Pokharel, H.M. Goldsworthy & E.F. Gad
Experimental testing of tube-based seismic collar connections under cyclic loads 365
D. Wei & J. McCormick
Cumulative damage of notched specimens with brittle fracture under cyclic loading 373
T. Iwashita, A. Tateno & K. Azuma
Cyclic loading on cold-formed SHS stub columns 381
Y. Dong & L.J. Jia
Numerical modelling of FRP-concrete-steel double-skin tubular columns under blast loading 387
W. Wang & C. Wu
Rate and temperature dependent relations for CFSTs subject to post-impact fire conditions 395
M. Mirmomeni, A. Heidarpour, X.L. Zhao & J.A. Packer
CFRP-wrapped hollow steel tubes under axial impact loading 401
C. Batuwitage, S. Fawzia, D.P. Thambiratnam, T. Tafsirojjaman, R. Al-Mahaidi
& M. Elchalakani

vii
FE modeling of FRP strengthened CHS members subjected to lateral impact 409
M.I. Alam, S. Fawzia, T. Tafsirojjaman & X.L. Zhao
Experimental study on anti-impact performance of RHST and PCFST columns under
lateral impact 415
A.Z. Zhu, W. Xu, K. Gao, H.P. Zhu & F. Gao

Fatigue
Fatigue crack in an unloaded brace 425
M. Lefranc & R. Gladsø
Multiaxial loading of RHS by wheel loads 431
S. Herion, T. Ummenhofer & A. Lipp
Fatigue behavior of CFDST chord to CHS brace T-joints 439
W. Li, D. Wang, L.-H. Han & X.L. Zhao
Investigation on stress concentration factor in concrete-filled steel tubular T-joints under
out-of-plane bending moment 443
I.A. Musa, F.R. Mashiri & X. Zhu
Fatigue behavior of diamond bird-beak T-joints and design recommendations 449
L.W. Tong, G.W. Xu, Y.Q. Liu, D.Q. Yan & X.L. Zhao

Numerical modelling
Partial interaction analysis of multi-component members with the D-GBT approach 459
A. Ferrarotti, G. Ranzi & G. Piccardo
Direct strength prediction of innovative corrugated columns 467
A.N. Ajamyan, M. Nassirnia, A. Heidarpour, X.L. Zhao & L. Gardner
Numerical investigation on static strength of CHS X-joints using S700 and S900 steel 475
X.Y. Lan, T.M. Chan & B. Young
FE modeling techniques for hot spot stress analysis of diamond bird-beak SHS joints 481
B. Cheng, Y. Lou, C. Li & X.L. Zhao
Numerical investigation into the behaviour of HSS beam-columns strengthened using
CFRP plates 487
W. Attiah, A. Shaat & E. Sayed-Ahmed
Elliptical hollow steel cantilever members under ELCF load along major axis using finite
element analysis 495
P.V.R. Narendra & K.D. Singh

Stainless and high strength steel structures

Design of stainless steel CHS beam-columns 503
C. Buchanan, L. Gardner, O. Zhao & E. Real
Design of ferritic stainless steel tubular sections subjected to concentrated bearing load 513
H.T. Li & B. Young
Structural behaviour of stainless steel tubular columns 523
H.P.C.S.G. Duarte, L.R.O. de Lima, P.C.G. da S. Vellasco & A.T. da Silva
Experimental study for the effect of fabrication process on strength of high strength steel
box column 531
J. Jiang, C.K. Lee & S.P. Chiew
Strength and ductility predictions of stiffened box sectional columns made of high
strength steel 539
L. Kang, R. Long, M. Suzuki & H.B. Ge

viii
Tubular sections and members
Experimental study on cold-formed steel semi-oval hollow section columns 549
M.T. Chen & B. Young
On the post-buckling behaviour and imperfection sensitivity of regular convex polygonal columns 557
R. Gonçalves, D. Camotim & A.D. Martins
Structural behaviour of octagonal tubular steel stub columns under uniaxial compression 567
J.Y. Zhu, T.M. Chan & B. Young
Residual stress distribution in cold-rolled curved steel rectangular hollow sections 575
Y.F. Jin, S.P. Chiew & C.K. Lee
Experimental study on the compressive behavior of circular steel tube confined UHPC columns 583
L.H. An & E. Fehling
Buckling of multiple outside geometry (MOG) hollow sections 595
O. Fleischer, S. Herion, P. Lang & S. Scherf
Identification of parameters for continuum damage mechanics of ductile damage evolution
of cold formed Grade C450 steel rectangular hollow sections 605
M. Mohan & T. Wilkinson
Predicted behaviour of cold formed Grade C450 rectangular hollow sections under tensile
or compression loads 615
M. Mohan & T. Wilkinson
Leak-before-break (LBB) analysis and failure processes for small-diameter cast iron pipes 625
R. Jiang, D. Weerasinghe, C. Zhang, X.L. Zhao, J. Kodikara & C.R. Hutchinson
Circular hollow section joint fabrication using laser cutting technology: Tolerance assessment 631
A. Kanyilmaz, C.A. Castiglioni, S. Raso, A. Valli, M. Brugnolli, A. Galazzi & R. Hojda
Propagation of buckling mechanisms of pipe-in-pipe systems under external pressure 639
M. Alrsai, H. Karampour, B.P. Gilbert, S. Chowdhury & F. Albermani

Welding
Behavior of overlapped CHS K/KK-joints with different welding situations 647
X.Z. Zhao, S. Qiu, Y.Y. Chen, X.B. Xu, X.F. Wu, K.H. Hu, A.H. Wu & Y. Chen
Investigation of weld effective length rules for CHS X-connections 657
K. Tousignant & J.A. Packer
Assessment of welded transverse plate to hollow structural section connections 665
M. Ammons & J. McCormick
Effect of bending moment on capacity of fillet weld 675
N. Tuominen, T. Björk & A. Ahola
Non-uniform stress distribution at weld of CHS-CHS joint and its effect on failure mode 685
Y.Y. Chen, X. Ma & W. Wang
Milling of intersecting contours on tubular structures to avoid structural changes of the
material and meet the requirements for automated welding 693
J. Müglitz, S. Keitel & J. Schuster

Author index 701

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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Preface

This book contains the papers presented at the 16th International Symposium on Tubular Structures
(ISTS16) held in Melbourne, Australia from December 4th to 6th, 2017. The Symposium, now regarded
as the key international forum for the presentation and discussion of research, developments and appli-
cations in the field of tubular structures, was organised by Monash University in collaboration with the
International Institute of Welding Subcommission XV-E. The fifteen previous symposia, held between
1984 and 2015, are described in the “Publications of the previous international symposia on tubular struc-
tures” section of this book. Throughout its 33-year history the frequency and location of all the symposia
have been determined by the IIW Subcommission XV-E on Tubular Structures.
The Symposium was sponsored by BLM Group (Italy), Bestech (Australia), and Instron (Australia). It
is their generous support that has enabled the Symposium to take place.
A total of 85 technical papers, each of which has been peer-reviewed at least by two international
experts in the field is included in the proceedings. One of these papers relates to the invited “Kurobane
Lecture”, given at this Symposium by Prof. Stefan Herion from Karlsruhe Institute Technology, Karl-
sruhe, Germany. Prof. Herion was selected to give this address by the IIW Subcommission XV-E. The
Kurobane Lecture in the International Symposium on Tubular Structures is the Keynote Address and
was inaugurated at ISTS8 in 1998.
The editors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the reviewers of the papers for their hard
work and expert opinions. The editors also wish to thank the International Programme Committee,
the Local Organisation Committee, and Monash Accounting Services. Particular thanks are owed to
Mohammad Nassirnia, Mahsa Mirmomeni, Fatemeh Javidan, Vahid Emad and Sanaz Taleghani for their
effort on this Symposium.
The information provided in this publication is the sole responsibility of the individual authors. It does
not reflect the opinion of the editors, supporting associations, organisations or sponsors, and they are not
responsible for any use that might be made of information appearing in this publication. Anyone making
use of the contents of this book assumes all liability arising from such use.
The editors hope that the contemporary applications, case studies, concepts, insights, overviews,
research summaries, analyses and product developments described in this book provide some inspira-
tion to architects, developers, contractors, engineers and fabricators to build ever more innovative and
competitive tubular structures. This archival volume of the current “state of the art” will also serve as
excellent reference material to academics, researchers, trade associations and manufacturers of tubular
sections in the future.

Amin Heidarpour & Xiao-Ling Zhao

Editors
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
December 2017

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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Publications of previous international symposia on tubular structures

E. Batista, P. Vellasco & L. Lima (Eds.) 2015. Tubular Structures XV, 15th International Symposium on
Tubular Structures, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2017. Boca Raton/London/New York/Leiden: CRC Press/
Balkema.
L. Gardner (Ed.) 2012. Tubular Structures XIV, 14th International Symposium on Tubular Structures,
London, United Kingdom, 2012. Boca Raton/London/New York/Leiden: CRC Press/ Balkema.
B. Young (Ed.) 2010. Tubular Structures XIII, 13th International Symposium on Tubular Structures, Hong
Kong, China, 2010. Boca Raton/London/New York/Leiden: CRC Press/ Balkema.
Z.Y. Shen, Y.Y. Chen & X.Z. Zhao (Eds.) 2009. Tubular Structures XII, 12th International Symposium
on Tubular Structures, Shanghai, China, 2008. Boca Raton/London/New York/Leiden: CRC Press/
Balkema.
J.A. Packer & S. Willibald (Eds.) 2006. Tubular Structures XI, 11th International Symposium and IIW
International Conference on Tubular Structures, Québec, Canada, 2006. London/ Leiden/New York:
Taylor & Francis (including A.A. Balkema Publishers).
M.A. Jaurrieta, A. Alonso & J.A. Chica (Eds.) 2003. Tubular Structures X, 10th International Symposium
on Tubular Structures, Madrid, Spain, 2003. Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema Publishers.
R. Puthli & S. Herion (Eds.) 2001. Tubular Structures IX, 9th International Symposium on Tubular Struc-
tures, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2001. Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema Publishers.
Y.S. Choo & G.J. van der Vegte (Eds.) 1998. Tubular Structures VIII, 8th International Symposium on
Tubular Structures, Singapore, 1998. Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema Publishers.
J. Farkas & K. Jármai (Eds.) 1996. Tubular Structures VII, 7th International Symposium on Tubular Struc-
tures, Miskolc, Hungary, 1996. Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema Publishers.
P. Grundy, A. Holgate & B. Wong (Eds.) 1994. Tubular Structures VI, 6th International Symposium on
Tubular Structures, Melbourne, Australia, 1994. Rotterdam: A.A. Balkema Publishers.
M.G. Coutie & G. Davies (Eds.) 1993. Tubular Structures V, 5th International Symposium on Tubular
Structures, Nottingham, United Kingdom, 1993. London/Glasgow/New York/Tokyo/Melbourne/
Madras: E & FN Spon.
J. Wardenier & E.P. Shahi (Eds.) 1991. Tubular Structures, 4th International Symposium on Tubular Struc-
tures, Delft, The Netherlands, 1991. Delft: Delft University Press.
E. Niemi & P. Mäkeläinen (Eds.) 1990. Tubular Structures, 3rd International Symposium on Tubular
Structures, Lappeenranta, Finland, 1989. Essex: Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd.
Y. Kurobane & Y. Makino (Eds.) 1987. Safety Criteria in Design of Tubular Structures, 2nd International
Symposium on Tubular Structures, Tokyo, Japan, 1986. Tokyo: Architectural Institute of Japan, IIW.
International Institute of Welding 1984. Welding of Tubular Structures/Soudage des Structures Tubulaires,
1st International Symposium on Tubular Structures, Boston, USA, 1984. Oxford/ New York/ Toronto/
Sydney/ Paris/ Frankfurt: Pergamon Press.

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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Organization

This volume contains the Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Tubular Structures –
ISTS16 held in Melbourne, Australia from 4th to 6th December 2017. ISTS16 has been organised by
Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) and the International Institute of Welding (IIW) Subcom-
mission XV-E.

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

J.A. Packer, Chair—University of Toronto, Canada

E. Batista—Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
M.A. Bradford—University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
D. Camotim—Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
Y.Y. Chen—Tongji University, Shanghai, China
S.P. Chiew—Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore
Y.S. Choo—National University of Singapore, Singapore
A. Elghazouli—Imperial College London, UK
L. Gardner—Imperial College London, UK
L.H. Han—Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
A. Heidarpour—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
S. Herion—Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and KoRoH GmbH, Karlsruhe, Germany
G. Iglesias—Grupo Condesa, Alava, Spain
J.P. Jaspart—University of Liège, Belgium
P. Key—Australian Steel Institute, Sydney, Australia
U. Kuhlmann—University of Stuttgart, Germany
M. Lefranc—Force Technology Norway, Sandvika, Norway
P.W. Marshall—MHP Systems Engineering, California, USA
A.C. Nussbaumer—Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
K. Ochi—Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan
R.S. Puthli—Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
T. Schlafly—American Institute of Steel Construction, Chicago, USA
M. Serrano—University of Oviedo, Spain
L.S. da Silva—University of Coimbra, Portugal
A. Syam—OneSteel Manufacturing, Woolwich, Australia
T. Ummenhofer—Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
B. Uy—University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
P. Vellasco—State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
J. Wardenier—Delft University of Technology, Netherlands & National University of Singapore, Singapore
K. Weynand—Feldmann+Weynand GmbH, Aachen, Germany
T. Wilkinson—University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
B. Young—University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
X.L. Zhao—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

A. Heidarpour, Chair—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

X.L. Zhao, Co-chair—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

xv
R. Al-Mahaidi—Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Y. Bai—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
M.A. Bradford—University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
M. Elchalakani—University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
M. Farahi—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
F. Javidan—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
H. Jiao—University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia
R.H. Keays—Keays Engineering, Melbourne, Australia
P. Key—Australian Steel Institute, Sydney, Australia
F. Mashiri—University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia
M. Mirmomeni—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
M. Nassirnia—Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
A. Syam—OneSteel Manufacturing, Woolwich, Australia
D. Thambiratnam—Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
B. Uy—University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
T. Wilkinson—University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
C. Wu—University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

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Acknowledgements

The Organising Committee wish to express their sincere gratitude for the financial assistance from the
following organisations: BLM Group (Italy), Bestech (Australia), and Instron (Australia).
The technical assistance of the IIW Sub-commission XV-E is gratefully acknowledged. We are thankful
to the International Programme Committee as well as the members of the Local Organising Committee.
Finally, the editors would like to acknowledge the following ISTS16 reviewers:

F. Aslani R.H. Keays

Y. Bai M. Lefranc
M.A. Bradford L. de Lima
D. Camotim F. Mashiri
T.-M. Chan M. Mirmomeni
Y.Y. Chen M. Nassirnia
S.P. Chiew P. Nguyen
M. Elchalakani J.A. Packer
M. Farahi R.S. Puthli
S. Fawzia M. Serrano
O. Fleischer A. Shaat
J. Flor S. Sinaie
L. Gardner R. Stroetmann
L.H. Han P. Vellasco
S. Herion Z. Vrcelj
G. Iglesias Y. Wang
J.P. Jaspart J. Wardenier
F. Javidan T. Wilkinson
H. Jiao C. Wu
H. Karampour B. Young

Amin Heidarpour & Xiao-Ling Zhao

Editors
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

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ISTS Kurobane lecture
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Fatigue of hollow section structures—Current research

and developments

S. Herion
KIT Stahl- und Leichtbau, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
CCTH Center of Competence for Tubes and Hollow Sections, Karlsruhe, Germany

ABSTRACT: For the fatigue design of steel structures made of hollow sections only limited informa-
tion is available. Especially for joints made of thick-walled sections and for fatigue details in structures
made of high strength steels, recommendations are missing which allow for an easy and efficient fatigue
design. Several research projects were started during the last years to form a basis for extending these
rules having the main focus on onshore applications. But not only the fatigue behavior of isolated joints
needs to be studied in more detail, also end-to-end connections as they are needed e.g. in bridge girders
and attachments welded to sections are of interest. A short summary of the research on fatigue in recent
years carried out at Karlsruhe and at other places is presented here.

1 INTRODUCTION been transferred to ISO Standard 14347 (2008) are

Within the last few years the need for lightweight
structures made of steels with yield strengths of
355 MPa and higher has been increasing, not only
for statically, but also for fatigue-loaded structures.
Welded plates made of steel grades S460 and S700
have been widely investigated and are now success-
fully used in the fields of machine building, plant
and crane construction.
In addition to that, also new application fields
become important, such as the use of hollow sec-
tions in the area of wind energy, bridges and roller
coasters to give just some examples. The type of
joint most frequently used is the K joint with gap,
as generally used in lattice girders.
Besides the classification method, which is used
in Eurocode as well as in other codes, the structural
stress method is widely used and accepted for all
kind of applications of hollow sections. The dis-
advantage of the classification method is the little
knowledge which is all based on limited experi-
mental investigations carried out in the 1970 s to
1990 s, mainly in Europe. Therefore, the structural
stress method, also called hot spot stress method,
is the more favorable way to design hollow section
structures against fatigue.
The first international design recommendations
for joints made of CHS were developed for offshore
oil and gas applications in the 1970 s and 1980 s. In
the 2006 Kurobane lecture Peter Marshall gives fur-
ther insight in these developments (Marshall, 2006).
For onshore applications the CIDECT design rec-
ommendations (Zhao et al. 2001) which also have
accepted in all parts of the world. The rules given
in these recommendations are based mainly on
experimental examinations on joints with small wall
thickness (RHS with maximum wall thickness of
12 mm and CHS with maximum wall thickness of
16 mm) made of S235H or S355H which have been
carried out in the scope of two common European
research projects in Delft and in Karlsruhe. Based
on this and incorporating the experimental results
from various research programs, the CDIECT rec-
ommendations are valid for RHS joints with wall
thickness 4  mm ≤ t ≤ 16  mm and for CHS joints
with wall thickness 4  mm ≤ t ≤ 50  mm. This was
more than 25 years ago.
Meanwhile development has been going on
and thick-walled CHS and RHS, and also sections
made of high strength steels, have been available
for many years in high quality. Parallel to this
development the application of hollow sections
in lightweight structures as well as in heavy steel
constructions is needed by the building industry.
The possibility to use high strength steel sections
opens new application fields, e.g. hoisting devices,
equipment in agricultural/machine engineering
and similar applications. This also applies to the
thick-walled sections, where there is a need for
bridges and cranes and also for on- and offshore
wind energy structures.
For joints made of high strength steels, as well as
for hollow sections with large wall thickness, only
isolated information about the fatigue behavior of K
joints is available. Not only does the fatigue behavior
of K joints needs to be studied in more detail; also

3
end-to-end connections between CHS (which are
used in bridge girders for example) as well as attach-
ments to hollow sections and other details.
A brief overview of the research work in recent
years, carried out in Karlsruhe and related to these
topics, is presented here. Also, a short summary of
the research on fatigue carried out at other places is
given.
2 STATE OF THE ART
Based on investigations on riveted joints in the
1940s, Thum devised the “Lehre von der Gestalt-
festigkeit” (model of design strength) (Thum 1944),
which was the starting point of Neubers “Kerb-
spannungslehre” (notch stress model) (Neuber
1973). Together with other research, the existence
of local hot spot stresses due to notches, geometric
changes or other imperfections was expressed and
further investigated in oil and gas industry.
As here the main focus is on onshore applica-
tions with lower d0/t0 ratios than usually needed in
oil and gas offshore industry no further informa-
tion about this field of application is given in the
following. Furthermore, a good and comprehen-
sive overview is given by Marshall, 2006.
The development of modern test and measur-
ing techniques, as well as computer-assisted calcu-
lations, enable a systematic investigation of such
stress concentrations and their influence on the
fatigue resistance of structures.
Up to the 1990 s, formulae for the calculation
of stress concentration factors (SCF) have been
developed, so that design within a defined param-
eter range is possible. From 2000 on, no further
efforts have been made to develop new formulae
or to extend the validity range. Only single SCFs
for certain load combinations or dimensions were
determined. General conclusions of the inclusion
of other geometries have not been systematically
tackled.
The first systematic investigations on the fatigue
resistance and behavior of uniplanar T, X and K
joints made of circular (CHS) and rectangular hol-
low sections (RHS) started in 1987. Within a joint
European research project (ECSC) of the Univer-
sity of Karlsruhe (today Karlsruhe Institute of
Technology—KIT), the Technical University Delft
and IBBC TNO Delft, parametric formulas based
on the hot-spot stress method were published by
various members of this research team. The work
on connections of CHS was mainly done in Delft
with main focus on uniplanar and multiplanar
K-joints (Romeijn et al. 1992, Romeijn et al. 1993,
Romeijn 1994, Romeijn et al. 1997).
For RHS connections the main findings were
published by Puthli et al. (1988), Puthli (1989) and
4
Mang et  al. (1989a, 1989b). Based on this joint
research, van Wingerde published new formulas
for T and X joints (van Wingerde 1992). Mang
reported in 1993 the results of a new European
research project concerning the fatigue behavior
of multiplanar RHS joints (Mang et al. 1993). The
first parametric formulas for the fatigue resistance
of multiplanar K joints made of RHS were pre-
sented in the PhD-thesis of Herion 1994 (Herion
1994).
The results of the above mentioned work were
summarized in 2000 in the CIDECT Design Guide
8 (Zhao et al. 2001), which is the basis for all recog-
nized design recommendations worldwide concern-
ing the fatigue behavior of hollow section joints. In
2008 also the ISO 14347 (2008) emanated from the
CIDECT Design Guide 8.
At about the same time, in the development of
the Eurocode 3 Part 1.9 (EN 1993-1-9. 2005), the
most recent international research results were
considered. Up to then very few systematic inves-
tigations on hollow section joints had been pub-
lished, so that only a few details are included in
the tables of detail categories in Eurocode 3. Fur-
ther is already known since the 1980 s, that due to
the complex behavior of such joints the nominal
stress concept is not suitable for an economic and
safe fatigue design hollow section joints (Marshall,
2006).
Since the release of the CIDECT Design Guide 8
(Zhao et al. 2001) only a few research projects on the
fatigue behavior of K joints with gap have been initi-
ated. Schumacher investigated, at EPFL Lausanne
four CHS K joints with chords of 273 × 20 mm and
braces 139.7 × 12.5 mm in lattice girders within her
doctoral thesis (Schumacher. 2003). In the recent
report of FOSTA project P815 (FOSTA P815,
2014) Kuhlmann et  al. published test results of
CHS K joints with axially loaded braces. For the
chords CHS 177.8 × 20 mm and for the braces CHS
88.9 × 5.0 mm and 88.9 × 12.5 mm were used. Also
test with loads introduced into the chord and with
larger hollow sections were carried out.
About the fatigue behavior of K joints with
normal or higher strength steel grades, only a few
publications are available, mostly based on finite-
element (FE) analysis. An ECSC research project
about RHS joints made of higher strength steels
performed in Karlsruhe gave first initial results.
However, the materials used in this program are no
longer used and not covered by recent standards
(Mang et al. 1993).
Beyond that, several publications by research-
ers from Singapore, Australia and China exist
with experimental fatigue tests on CHS K joints as
well as FE based investigations. Good overviews
of these activities were given at the last Tubular
Structures Symposia. One of the focuses of the

Figure 1. Example excerpt of ECCS TC6 database for
re-evaluation of detail categories for EN 1993-1-9.
Singaporean researchers is on fracture mechanics
models for tubular joints (Lie et al. 2006, Qian &
Zhang. 2015).
At Lappeenranta University special investiga-
tions have been made in the corner area of cold-
formed high strength rectangular hollow sections
within the CIDECT Project 7X (Kokkonen &
Björk, 2006). The fatigue behavior of thin-walled
RHS connections (t < 4 mm) has been investigated
widely in Australia at Monash University and the
5
University of Western Sydney by Mashiri & Zhao
(2006) and Mashiri et al. (2007).
In the scope of the planned update of EN
1993-1-9 (2005), and as an additional background
document for the planned revisions of CIDECT
Design Guide 8 and ISO 14347 (2008), all available
experimental fatigue data are collected in a data-
base which will allow a re-evaluation of the exist-
ing design rules (see Figure 1).
Hereafter, some aspects of the recent research
carried out at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
KIT and the Center of Competence for Tubes and
Hollow Sections (CCTH) are presented.
3 FATIGUE OF STEEL TUBES WITH
LONGITUDINAL ATTACHMENTS
The development of fine grained structural steels
with high and very high strengths is aimed at an
in-crease in load capacity together with constant
weight. Currently, the standardized steel grade
with the highest yield strength for hollow sections
has become S460  NLH in the technical delivery
conditions for hot-finished hollow sections EN
10210–1 (2006), and EN 10219-1 (2006) for cold
formed hollow sections. Steel grades with higher
yield strength fy > 460 N/mm2 are already produced
since many years for all kind of applications. For
hot rolled plates and beams these steel grades are
standardized in EN 10025-6 (2009). For hollow
sections the preliminary standard prEN 10210-2
(2016) enlarges the specifications up to steel grades
S960QLH and S960QL1H with yield strength
fy  =  960  N/mm2. The material specifications for
cold formed hollow sections are nearly identical
and listed in prEN 10219-2 (2016).
Most of the very high strength steel CHS are
produced and already used for crane structures.
High-strength fine grained steels can be welded
with usual methods, such as MAG and submerged
arc welding. Corresponding filler material is avail-
able up to yield strength of fy = 960 N/mm2. The
fine-grained structure of high- and ultra-high-
strength steels is sensitive to high temperatures,
however, so special attention has to be paid con-
cerning working temperature and energy input
during welding.
In the following, the longitudinal attachment
detail will be discussed. This detail is mainly used
by the crane industry to fix hydraulic pipes and
gangways. The fatigue behavior of longitudinal
attachments is dominated by the stiffener length,
the shape of the stiffener and the weld execution
(FOSTA P512. 2006). Rectangular stiffeners with
80 mm length are classified as FAT 71 according
to Hobbacher (2008) and EN 13001-3-1 (2010).
In EN 1993-1-9 (2005) the 80  mm-long stiffener
represents a border case between Detail Categories
63 and 71. Former investigations of Ummenhofer
et al. on rectangular attachments to planar plates
indicate a fatigue resistance of 63 MPa at two mil-
lion load cycles (FOSTA P778. 2013).
All these investigations are mainly done in the
area above 50,000 load cycles up to 5 million load
cycles. Standards and recommendations, such as
EN 1993-1-9 (2005) and Hobbacher (2008) provide
linear fatigue design S-N-curves starting at 40,000
load cycles. Low-cycle fatigue means usually a
number of load cycles to failure below 10,000 to
40,000; the transition to high-cycle fatigue is fluid
and not clearly defined. So the question is where
the line to low-cycle fatigue has to be drawn and
the so-called Woehler-curves loose validity.
In practice, often the yield strength Re is con-
sidered to be the lower limit to low cycle fatigue
(Herion et  al. 2011, Hrabowski et  al. 2014). For
more detailed analyses, low-cycle fatigue of ductile
materials can be separated from high-cycle fatigue
by means of the deformation criterion (Gudehus
& Zenner. 2000). Herein, also the influence of the
stress range ratio, R, is considered with-in the fol-
lowing equations:
Fatigue design is usually independent of the
material strength. But as it is shown in Figure  2
higher strength steels still can be advantageous for
fatigue resistance.
Figure 3 shows the S-N-diagram for CHS with
longitudinal attachments in the as-welded condi-
tion. Series MB2 (tube dimension 101.6 × 8.8 mm,
steel grade S960QH) and MB3 (CHS
139.7 × 8.8 mm, steel grade S960QH) are plotted
together in one diagram. The larger total number
of tests provides statistically ensured results. But
the rather small spectrum of failure load cycles
between 5,000 and 75,000  cycles requires a too
large extrapolation to obtain the characteristic
value for fatigue resistance at two million load
cycles. This fact, together with the resulting steep
slope of the curve with m = 2.5, leads to a low value
of 43.5 N/mm2 for the fatigue resistance.
Further tests with failures around 1 million load
cycles will help to adjust the S-N curve for the
whole range up to 5 million load cycles.

R*e Re ( − R ) (1)

with : σ miin / σ max const. (2)

where Re is the yield strength in N/mm2; R is the

stress range ratio; σmin and σmax are the lower and
upper nominal stresses.
For axial loading the maximum stress range to
be reached is

Rm* Rm ( − R ) (3)
Figure  2. Fatigue resistance S-N curves according to
Hobbacher (2008) with yield strength limit R*e and maxi-
where Rm is the tensile strength in MPa and R is mum stress range Rm* (R = +0.1) for S355H and S960H.
the stress range ratio according to Equation (2).
In Table 1, the limiting yield strength R*e and
the maximum stress range R*m are calculated
for steel grades S355 J2H and S960QH. On the
basis of the fatigue tests presented in the follow-
ing, the values are given for a stress range ratio
R = +0.1.

Table  1. Yield strength limit R*e and maximum stress

range Rm* for stress range ratio R = +0.1 and wall thick-
ness t ≤ 16 mm.

Steel Re Rm Re* Rm* Material proper-

grade N/mm2 N/mm2 N/mm2 N/mm2 ties acc. to

S355 355 500 320 450 EN 10210 (2006)

S960 960 980–1150 860 882 prEN 10210
(2016) Figure 3. S-N-curve for fatigue test on specimens in as-
welded condition.

6

Figure  4. Test specimen with eccentric welded longi-
tudinal attachments made of S355 and S690 and butt
welded fork ends.
All the tests have been carried out on CHS ten-
sion members (see Figure  4). This element has,
besides the attachments, also the connections of
the fork ends to the CHS as a notch detail which
needs to be evaluated. This is actually being done
in a running industrial research project. First
results of this project show that fatigue details for
the fork ends and connections of the fork ends
to the testing machine lead to SR-Nf- lines with a
steeper slope than were found for the longitudinal
attachments. So, for smaller stress ranges the fork
ends and their connections are cracking before the
connections of the longitudinal attachments. Thus
these results are invalid test results for the attach-
ments. In areas of higher loads the attachments are
the decisive fatigue detail.
The longitudinal attachments have been made
from two different steel grades, S355MC and
S960QL, and two different shapes to distinguish
easily between both materials. During the experi-
mental tests both the S355 attachments as well as
theS960 attachments showed a more or less equal
crack distribution.
4 FATIGUE OF BUTT WELDED CHS IN
BRIDGE APPLICATIONS
Very similar connections, but for other purposes,
were investigated in two large research projects
with regard to using hollow sections in bridge
applications. The outcome of these projects funded
by CIDECT and FOSTA (a national steel research
funding organization in Germany), were presented
7
at previous ISTS conferences, at ISTS12 in Shang-
hai (Veselcic et al. 2008), at ISTS13 in Hong Kong
(Nussbaumer et  al. 2010) and at ISTS15 (Herion
et al. 2014a).
Here the main findings are summarized and a
new proposal for updating the detail tables in EN
1993-1-9 will be given. As the production costs for
the butt welds investigated have been reported dur-
ing the project, also some specific recommenda-
tions with regard to the production costs and the
fatigue resistance are given.
Butt welds are used in bridge constructions in
diverse varieties as a connection of two chords
or between a casted steel joint and a steel CHS.
These connections are butt welds with or with-
out weld backings. All welds can be carried out as
single-side welds only. Within the scope of these
projects different variants for butt weld designs are
investigated.
Since the chemical as well as the mechanical-
technological properties of the cast steel parts used
are nearly the same as for the hot-rolled hollow
sections, all of the following assumptions are not
only valid for butt welds between hollow sections
and cast steel parts but furthermore for butt welds
connecting hollow sections also.
Both projects were carried out in close coopera-
tion between the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
(KIT), the Center of Competence for Tubes and
Hollow Sections (CCTH) and EPFL Lausanne.
Detailed information on the manufacturing
processes is available in the former publications
mentioned above. Information on quality levels
and welding parameters mentioned in this section
are described in detail in Veselcic et al. (2006, 2007,
2008).
For the research projects, steels according to
Table 2 were used for the tests. With the use of high
strength steel, a reduction of the member thick-
ness can be realized in practice, keeping in mind
that the wall thickness reduction factor for fatigue
will decrease also. To ensure good weldability, the
casting quality was chosen according to previous
projects. For the welding, pre-heating was only
used for the steel grade S690. For all other steel
Table  2. Steel grades for the hollow sections and cor-
responding cast steels.
Hollow
sections Standard Cast steel Standard
S355J2H EN 10210 G20Mn5(V) EN 10293
S460NH EN 10210 G10MnMoV6-3 EN 10293
S460NH EN 10210 G10Mn7V EN 10293
S550QH prEN 10210 G10Mn7V EN 10293
S690QH EN 10210 G10MnMoV6-3 EN 10293
grades pre-heating could be omitted, which entails The outcome of both projects led to a proposal
a significant cost reduction. for an extension of the detail category tables of EN
The whole project included ultrasonic test pro- 1993-1-9 which are limited to same wall thickness
cedures and their evaluation as well as repair con- t of both partners without backing and maximum
cepts for cracked connections. All this was done on t  =  12.5  mm under pure tension load. In Table  3
single connections as well as on large-scale trusses the proposed Detail Categories for butt welded
at EPFL where attention was paid to strain gauge CHS under pure tension are given. Table  4  gives
measurements.
However, the formulas from the CIDECT rec-
ommendations were not used since the geometric Table 4. Detail categories for typical butt joints used in
parameters of the tested trusses were outside the bridge constructions—bending load.
application range for SCF tables given by Zhao
et al. (2001). Consequently, as will be shown in the
next section, research on the revision of these for-
mulas has been started in 2015.
For the K joints, no difference was observed in
the behavior and the fatigue strength between S690
trusses and S355 trusses previously tested. Thus,
the same fatigue category can be used for both steel
grades. The trusses systematically failed at the K
joints; i.e. for the load combination applied, the K
joints had a lower fatigue strength compared to the
casting-to-tube butt welded joints. Thus only “run-
outs”, but no failures, resulted from the fatigue
tests on the casting-to-tube butt welded joints.
Subsequent NDE by KIT on some of the joints
using the phased-array method confirmed that
no fatigue crack initiated in these joints. A couple
of the run-outs were below, but near to, the curve
ΔσC, tension = 71 with a slope of m = 5, which is a logical
confirmation that, for these load levels and number
of cycles, no fatigue cracks should be found.

Table 3. Detail categories for typical butt joints used in

bridge constructions—tension load.

Figure 5. Efficiency of the connections (V2 – reference

value 100%).

8
the proposal for pure bending where the stresses
of the Detail Categories are calculated at the outer
surface of the CHS, as these stresses normally are
given by structural analysis programs. In contrast
to this, it has to be mentioned that the crack always
started at the root from the inside of the CHS.
In both projects the industrial partners involved
counted their production costs when fabricating the
butt joints, so a relationship between relative fatigue
resistance and relative production costs can be given.
The reference value for both is a butt weld with a
backing ring (V2), with this type of connection des-
ignated as having 100% fatigue resistance and 100%
production costs. All other data in Figure 5 are plot-
ted in relation to this connection variant (V2).
5 FATIGUE OF K-JOINTS—EXTENSION
OF THE EXISTING SCF FORMULAE
As already mentioned there is a need for many
modern applications to use rectangular and cir-
cular hollow sections made of high strength steels
and/or thick-walled sections. The question though
was whether the existing design formulas could be
used for thick-walled joints also.
So, in a first initial step, K joints made of RHS
with gap with chord dimensions b0 × h0 × t0 = 300 ×
300 × 20 mm and braces b1 × h1 × t1 = 200 × 200 ×
20 mm and a gap of g = 100 mm (e/h0 = 0.14) have
been investigated by FE analysis and presented in
Herion et al. (2013) and Herion et al. (2014b). The
boundary conditions for the comparisons involved
braces with balanced axial loads.
One of the questions to be solved is whether
the extrapolation points for thick-walled sections
are the same as for thin-walled sections. In the lit-
erature different distances can be found, for which
it can be assumed that local discontinuities at the
weld do not influence the hot spot stresses. The
distances according to CIDECT (Zhao et al. 2001)
and ISO 14347 (2008) are clearly defined. For
plated structures or for connections with a pro-
nounced non-linear stress increase, at sharp diver-
sions of force or for thick-walled structures similar
distances are given in the IIW recommendations
(Hobbacher. 2008). All three recommendations
use the same quadratic extrapolation and use the
same distances for the extrapolation.
The effects of primary bending moments and
bending moments due to unequal stiffness distri-
butions at the intersections (secondary bending
moments) are covered by the numerical investigations
as well as by experiments. They are also included in
the formulae given in ISO 14347 (2008) and CID-
ECT (Zhao et  al. 2001). So, the determination of
SCFs has been done following the recommendation
as given in CIDECT Design Guide 8.
9
For the joint configurations studied in this
phase it was found that fatigue design accord-
ing to the methods of van Wingerde et al. (1996,
1997), CIDECT (Zhao et al. 2001) and to Herion
& Mang (1996) for axially loaded welded RHS K
joints made of thick-walled hollow sections, led to
conservative estimations for the SCFs compared
to FE predictions. This leads to safe results, but
it might also lead to an uneconomic joint design
(Herion et al. 2013).
Regarding the situation for thick-walled CHS K
joints, a comparison of FE results and CIDECT
predictions produced nearly the same SCF for
the braces. However, for the chord the FE solu-
tion gave a SCF which was nearly twice the SCF
determined by CIDECT formulas (Herion et  al.
2014b). It is assumed that the missing influence
of eccentricity in the design formulas is the reason
for this discrepancy. The influence of the resulting
moments due to this eccentricity will be part of the
further investigations. Furthermore, the experi-
ments in this new research are also designed to
get more information and evidence about the size
effect, which was under discussion at the first and
second ISTS in Boston and Tokyo already and fur-
ther discussed by van Wingerde et al. (1997).
All this was reason enough to initiate a new
research project. In this project, which is jointly
supported by the German research organization
FOSTA and by CIDECT, fatigue tests will be car-
ried out on RHS and CHS K joints made of S355
and S700 cold-formed and hot-rolled sections.
Small-scale specimens will be examined at TNO,
Delft in a test frame with single-acting actuators
(Figure  6). Tests on large-scale specimens will be
carried out at KIT in Karlsruhe within a rigid test
rig (Figure 7).
With both test set-ups, fatigue loads up to 2.5
MN on the chords can be realized. The maximum
Figure 6. Test set-up at TNO for small K-joints.

Figure 7. Planned test set-up for large K-joints for 6.3
MN testing machine at KIT.
Figure  8. Maximum joint sizes for the fatigue tests in
Karlsruhe.
sizes of the K joints will be 323.9  ×  20  mm for
chords of CHS K joints and 300  ×  300  ×  20 for
chords of RHS K joints. The planned specimens
for the fatigue tests are shown in Figure. 8. The
production of the joints is scheduled for mid-2017.
Parallel to the fatigue tests numerical parameter
studies using FE analysis are being done at CCTH
using the FE package ABAQUS. The FE models
will be verified by strain gauge measurements at
TNO and KIT. The results of this project will be
reported at the next ISTS.
10
6 APPLICATION EXAMPLES
6.1 Bridges made of CHS
In Germany, one of the first CHS truss bridges
under the government administration was the
motorway overpass at Lichtenfels, with direct
welded joints and with an in-situ concrete deck
slab. The bridge was completed in 2008 with a
span of 53.4 m. It is a frame construction with two
separate planar frameworks without moving bear-
ings (integral bridge). This bridge was planned and
realized by SSF Ingenieure in Munich, Germany
(Figure 9).
The main technical aspects, with special regard
to fatigue of the CHS joints, could be solved using
the research works mentioned previously. On first
sight it seems to be very surprising that this was
the first bridge over a highway in Germany real-
ized with a supporting CHS framework. However,
knowing the very complicated and conservative
regulations in Germany, it is not a real surprise.
While the research was going on and more
knowledge and trust in this technology was
achieved, another similar bridge, Nussweg Bridge,
was planned over the highway A8 between Karl-
sruhe and Stuttgart by Ingenieurgruppe Bauen
IGB, Karlsruhe together with CCTH, which
was responsible for the technical expertise (see
Figure 10). Nevertheless, it needed another 6 years
from the realization of the bridge in Lichtenfels to
the accepted planning of the Nussweg Bridge.
As the political orientation in this part of Ger-
many changed more in the direction of the Green
Figure  9. Bridge over highway A73 near Lichtenfels
(animation by SSF Ingenieure).
Figure 10. Nussweg bridge over highway A8 near Karl-
sruhe (animation by IGB, Karlsruhe).
Party, this bridge was not realized. Instead, a
bridge to make the crossing of the highway easier
for wild animals was built and this resulted once
again in a concrete beam bridge.
All in all, the situation for hollow section bridges
in Germany is still very complicated. To give a
better understanding of the design, realization,
fabrication and the actual standardization and
research background a new book about hollow
sections bridges has been recently written by Diet-
rich & Herion “Brücken mit Stahlrohrtragwerken
gestalten und realisieren” and will be published
in German in 2017 by Ernst & Sohn in Germany
(Dietrich & Herion, 2017).
6.2 Crane runway made of RHS and CHS
As published already, a new type of crane runway
was developed using hot-finished RHS and CHS
according to EN 10210 (2006) (Figure  11). The
first fatigue tests with stationary wheel loads were
carried out at KIT and presented earlier (Ditt-
mann et al. 2008, Herion et al. 2010).
This new type of crane runway has been very
successful in practice for many years already, but
some open questions remain. To get a deeper
insight into the multi-directional fatigue behavior
of crane runways under wheel loads which are
moving along the runway, a joint research project
between University of Stuttgart and KIT was
initiated.
Within the scope of a German research project
supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG) the effect of wheel loads on crane runway
beams with hot-rolled I-sections, as well as on crane
runway beams made of hot-rolled square hollow
sections, has been investigated. For systematic
investigation fatigue experiments were performed
with stationary wheel loads and roll-over tests as
Figure 11. New crane runway and cross section.
11
Figure 12. Von Mises stresses at the center of the crane
girder at the load-introduction area.
well. This resulted in a multi-axial stress state with
longitudinal, transversal and shear stresses as the
FE analyses shows (Figure 12).
For the various failure modes found during the
laboratory experiments comparison with existing
fatigue design lines was done. In all cases, very
high fatigue resistances for the whole system were
found, which were even above the highest detail
class according to EN 1993-1-9 (2005).
Additional numerical computations were car-
ried out to simulate the fatigue tests. The stress
concentrations were determined under static load
taking into account large deformations. In addi-
tion, non-linear, friction-free contact was used in
the analysis to get a deeper insight into the stress
flow of this special detail.
The numerical investigation of the influence of
the elastomer layer between the rail and the both
RHS shows that a higher stiffness of the layer
reduces the stresses in the rail and increases the
fatigue life of the rails (Figure 12). Detailed results
of these investigations are presented by Herion
et al. (2017) elsewhere.
7 SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK
This paper summarizes the latest research and
developments on the fatigue behavior of hollow
section connections, with the main focus being
on the work carried out in Karlsruhe at KIT and
CCTH during recent years.
All this research together with the work carried
out by many others around the world will influ-
ence the future development of design recommen-
dations and standards. For the coming years work
will be done for the revision of CIDECT Design
Guide 8 (Zhao et al. 2001) and ISO 14347 (2008).
Work for the update of Eurocode 3 (EN 1993-
1-9, 2005) has already started and is well under-
way. The release of the new version is planned for
2020 /2021.
Many other research projects are actually
ongoing at Karlsruhe on high frequency ham-
mering (HFH), the development of adhesively
bonded joint connections between cast steels and
tubes, and new connections in the scope of sup-
porting structures for offshore wind converters.
These are not mentioned here in detail, as well
as all the projects on structural behavior and
stability. However, the principal results of these
research projects will be published within the
ISTS series.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is a great honor to have been asked by the Inter-
national Institute of Welding, Subcommission
XV-E to present this “Kurobane Lecture” at the
16th International Symposium on Tubular Struc-
tures, especially as this is the second time for the
University of Karlsruhe, after Prof. Dr. Eur.-Ing.
Ram Puthli received this award in 2008. The Karl-
sruhe work presented here reflects the dedicated
research carried out by a whole team of research-
ers at the Center of Competence for Tubes and
Hollow Sections CCTH and the Karlsruhe Insti-
tute of Technology KIT, now headed by Prof. Dr.-
Ing. Thomas Ummenhofer. Between many others I
want to thank Dr.-Ing. Oliver Fleischer, Dipl.-Ing.
Jennifer Hrabowski and Dipl.-Ing. Marian Vesel-
cic, whose efforts are gratefully acknowledged.
Further, the author and the whole research team
are grateful for the financial and coordinating sup-
port of the Forschungsvereinigung Stahlanwend-
ung e.V. (FOSTA) and Dipl.-Ing. Franz-Josef
Heise and Dr. Gregor Nüsse in particular, for
many years of support. The financial support of
CIDECT and the German Federal Ministry of
Education and Research (BMBF) is also much
appreciated. Thanks are also due to the many
industrial and project partners that unfortunately
have to remain anonymous, as there are so many
involved. However, special mention must be made
of Vallourec Deutschland GmbH, who have con-
stantly supported our work at Karlsruhe for very
many years. This lecture is also in memory for a
good friend, Dipl.-Ing. Jürgen Krampen, who
passed away too early in 2017.
Lastly, I would like to express my sincere thanks
to Prof. Dr. Eur.-Ing. Ram Puthli and Prof. Dr.
Ir. Jaap Wardenier for the long and fruitful coop-
eration in research on tubular structures since the
1980 s.
12
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Architecture, applications and case studies
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

A walking tour of Melbourne tubular structures

R.H. Keays
Keays Engineering, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT: The author has been involved with the design and construction of steel structures in
Melbourne for the past four decades, including a number of the city’s iconic tubular structures. A sample
of these have been selected, and ordered to follow a route through the city and immediate surrounds.
The paper includes a brief description of each structure, with mention of its architect, engineer, and steel
fabricator, followed by comments from the author on the engineering aspects of the structure. Warning:
The tour takes over 4 hours on foot!

1 INTRODUCTION The twin towers (50  storeys) were Melbourne’s

Melbourne was established on the banks of the
Yarra River in 1835 by free settlers, with the grid
for the city centre laid out by the far-sighted sur-
veyor, Robert Hoddle. It became the capital of the
new British Colony of Victoria in 1851. Discovery
of gold in Ballarat and Bendigo soon after led to
an explosive growth of the city. It continues to grow
and prosper, as the population approaches 5 million.
A number of the buildings constructed in the
second half of the 19th century remain—see Sheard
(2015), juxtaposed with more recent structures.
This paper is about some of the more recent
structures featuring tubular members. The earliest
was constructed in 1956, and the latest completed
in 2015.
The author is a structural engineer, specializing in
temporary works for construction, and “unusual”
structures. He was born in Melbourne, and has lived
there since 1971. His involvement with a number of
these structures has been a highlight of his career.
The paper is written as a guidebook for tour-
ing the city and its immediate surrounds. A map
is included as Appendix 1. The tour starts at the
ISTS16 Conference venue, Novatel on Collins, 270
Collins Street, which features an Octalok space-
frame roofing the atrium (best viewed from the
14th Floor).
highest building from 1978 to 1986. One tower is
occupied by a bank, with an impressive banking
chamber spread over three storeys. The other has a
luxury hotel occupying its top 15 storeys. At ground
level, there is a shopping plaza covering the entire
block, including the space between the two buildings.
2.1 Roofs over forecourt, grand space, and
hotel driveway
These three roofs serve to protect the ground floor
from wind gusts accentuated by the adjacent build-
ings, as well as rain.
Each structure is a constant depth spaceframe
using the Mero system for its connections. The
components were fabricated in Germany, with
erection by local contractor Rigfield.
2.2 Atrium roof
The hotel occupying the top 15 floors of 25 Col-
lins Street features a 15-storey atrium topped with
another Mero spaceframe Roof. This was designed
by Mero, fabricated by Commonwealth Aircraft
Corporation, and erected by Rigfield.

2 COLLINS PLACE—MERO SPACEFRAMES

Collins Place is a pair of high-rise buildings near

the eastern end of Collins Street. The two office
blocks are set at 45° to the Hoddle Grid. The archi-
tect was I.M. Pei of New York in association with
local architect, Bates Smart and McCutcheon.
Structural engineer was Connell Wagner. Figure 1. Collins Place plaza.

17

Figure 2. Collins Place atrium.
Figure 3. Federation Square atrium.
Tourists should take the opportunity to use
the Public Toilets at the 35th Floor. These feature
windows with a view of the Melbourne Cricket
Ground, the National Tennis Centre, and (on good
days) the Dandenong Ranges in the distance.
3 FEDERATION SQUARE ATRIUM
BUILDING
Federation Square occupies a complete city block,
bounded by Swanston Street, Flinders Street,
Exhibition Street and the Yarra River. The archi-
tect for the complete square and its buildings was
LAB architectural studio of London, in partner-
ship with local firm, Bates Smart. The structural
engineer for the project was Hyder Consulting.
A theme of the project is the use of Radin and
Conway’s “Pinwheel tiling” using right angle trian-
gles with sides 1:2:√5 (Radin, 1994). The mathemat-
ical beauty of this form is that five such triangles
can be assembled to form a larger similar triangle.
18
Figure 4. Radin & Conway’s pinwheel triangle.
Figure 5. William Barak bridge.
The Atrium Building frame uses 200SHS mem-
bers to form the walls and roof, with an ingenious
transformation to form them into portal frames. Fab-
rication was by Riband Steel. The hollow sections
are open-ended to allow galvanizing. Field-bolted
lap joints are used throughout the construction.
4 WILLIAM BARAK BRIDGE
This is a pedestrian bridge crossing local roads and
suburban rail tracks east of Federation Square and
connecting Birrarung Marr Park to the Melbourne
Cricket Ground. The architect was Cox Architects,
engineer KBR, and steel fabricator, Thornton
Engineering.
The long spans feature a central Warren truss
with curved 610CHS top chord and 500CHS webs,
plus side trusses from 356CHS. Induction bending
was required for the top chord. The smaller side
trusses allow the pedestrians an uninterrupted view
of the surrounds, with the higher central truss car-
rying about 80% of dead and live load. Mechani-
cal dampers are included to alleviate vibrations in
“twist” between the side trusses.
5 MELBOURNE CRICKET GROUND
The Melbourne Cricket Ground has been the
home of both cricket in Victoria since 1853, and
for Aussie Rules football since 1859. It also served
as the main venue for the 1956 Olympic Games
and the 2006 Commonwealth Games. It currently
seats 100,000 people, but the record attendance
was 130,000 at a Billy Graham Crusade in 1959.
The current Great Southern Stand was com-
pleted in 1995, and the Northern Stands (Ponsford,
Olympic and Members Stands) in 2006. The 75 m
high light towers were first switched on in 1985.
5.1 Great Southern Stand
On the Great Southern Stand, the roof is sup-
ported by lattice towers with CHS chords and
braces. There is a circumferential truss under the
roof to provide for some load distribution between
adjacent towers. This also serves as support for
access to under-roof lighting of both the stands
and playing field.
The architect for the Great Southern Stand was
Jackson Architects. The structural engineer was
Connell Wagner, and the steel fabricator DiFabro
Constructions.
5.2 Northern Stand
The architect for the Northern Stand was MCG5,
a consortium of Daryl Jackson, Cox Architects,
Hassell, Populous, and TS&E. Structural engi-
neers were Connell Wagner with Arup as sub-
consultant for the roof. The steel fabricator was
Alfasi Constructions.
The roof structure uses tubular towers with a
cable-net supporting the roof. Wind tunnel tests
showed that the maximum uplift forces could be
modelled in design with a nominal length of about
60  m subject to uplift at the 3-second gust wind,
with the remainder at the mean wind speed. A cir-
cumferential truss above the roof serves to distrib-
ute the peak wind uplift to the adjacent zones with
lower uplift forces. Details at the ends required
some compression members between the towers.
Figure 6. Great Southern Stand.
19
Figure 7. MCG Northern Stand & light tower.
During construction, it became apparent that
there was a problem with vibration of the tubu-
lars in moderate winds (Keays, 2015). Tuned mass
dampers were added, and can be seen in various
parts of the final structure.
5.3 Light towers
The light towers were designed by GHD (as archi-
tect and engineer), and fabricated by Newsteel.
The towers are 75  m tall, with the tubular leg
tapering from 4.2  m diameter at the base to two
metres at the top. The lights are suspended from
RHS framing.
The towers have no problems with wind-induced
vibration—the array of lights and associated steel-
work at the top produces turbulence; the resulting
aerodynamic damping prevents development of
significant displacements.
From the MCG, the tour crosses the railway
reserve by a tubular truss pedestrian bridge, designed
and built by Leighton Contractors. Crossing at right
angles to the tracks, it has shorter spans than Wil-
liam Barak Bridge, and requires no dampers.
6 NATIONAL TENNIS CENTRE ARENAS
The National Tennis Centre is the venue for the
Australian Open, one of four “Grand Slam”
tournaments. The Centre has three “show
courts” – Rod Laver Arena, Hisense Arena, and
Margaret Court Arena. Each has a moving roof
that is closed during rain or if the ground tem-
perature exceeds 40°C. All three roof structures
feature tubular trusses, but they have different
arrangements of the runways and supporting
steelwork.
6.1 Rod Laver arena
Rod Laver was perhaps the best tennis player ever,
winning the Grand Slam twice, and a member of
Australia’s winning Davis Cup team in 1959–62
and 1973.
Rod Laver Arena was opened in 1988. Designed
by Philip Cox of Cox Architecture and Jamie Lear-
month of Peddle Thorp Learmouth, with Bob Stur-
rock of Maunsell as the structural engineer. Together
they devised the layout of the roof with the runways
outside the arena. This unique arrangement resulted
in longer roof trusses, but hid the runways from the
view of the 15,000 patrons in the arena.
The steel fabricator was Newsteel. The roof trusses
were assembled and welded on the ground south of
the arena, with welding by boilermakers with recent
experience in the fabrication of off-shore platforms
for the Bass Strait oilfields. [At a site visit by engi-
neers, Bob Sturrock was asked about the extent of
weld inspection. He replied “All of them! But we
wasted our money because we found no defects.”]
After welding, the trusses were jacked 2 m off the
ground to allow addition of the rafters, purlins and
cladding, and then jacked another 30 m to height.
Runway extensions and bogies were then added
and the 300t structure rolled onto the permanent
runway. The author designed the jacking system
and associated temporary works (Keays, 1994).
6.2 Margaret Court arena
Margaret Court was Australia’s greatest female
tennis player, winning a Grand Slam and three
Figure 8. Rod Laver arena.
Figure 9. Margaret Court arena.
20
“boxed sets” (singles, doubles, mixed doubles) in
Grand Slam Tournaments.
Margaret Court Arena was opened as Show
Court 1 in 1988 at the same time as the Rod Layer
Arena. It has been redeveloped to increase the seat-
ing to 7,500, and add a moving roof. The architect
for the redevelopment was NH Architecture and
Populous, structural engineer Aurecon, and steel
fabricator GVP Fabrications.
The moving roof uses an unusual arrange-
ment of bogies to minimise the structure height.
It has the conventional two at the inboard end,
but 8 bogies running on tracks on the saw-tooth
roof valleys at the rear. The front is trussed with a
500CHS chords, backed by a second tubular truss
supporting the edge of the fixed roof.
Trusses were delivered in two halves, erected
onto props with cranes, and spliced with bolted
cruciform joints with bolts in shear.
6.3 Hisense arena (multi-purpose venue)
The Hisense Arena (then called Multi-Purpose
Venue) was constructed east of Rod Laver Arena,
and opened in 2000. It seats 9,500  in “tennis”
mode, or 4,500 when the lower tiers of seating are
removed from the sides and raised at the ends to
reveal the cycling track.
The architect was Peddle Thorp, structural
engineer was Connell Wagner, and steel fabricator
Keppel Prince.
The moving roof segments are each a pair of
tied arches fabricated from CHS. The design draw-
ings allowed the fabricator to choose whether the
chords were curved or straight lengths mitre-cut at
nodes; the fabricator chose the latter.
The fabricator also chose to fully weld the
trusses. This was carried out on the playing field
between Hisense and Rod Laver Arenas. The com-
pleted halves were erected using a 600t crawler
crane to lift them from the oval, crawl to the north-
ern end of the runway and place them in position.
Figure 10. Hisense arena.
7 MELBOURNE RECTANGULAR
STADIUM
This stadium (also known as AAMI Park) sur-
rounds a rectangular pitch for soccer and rugby
football. It seats 30,000.
The roof structure is called a Bioframe, with
20  interconnected geodesic domes framed with a
single layer of 273CHS, and supported by 500CHS
spine beams at the dome intersection points.
It was designed by Cox Architects of Mel-
bourne, with structural engineering by Arup.
Three fabricators were engaged for the project
with one quadrant fabricated by GVP Fabrica-
tors, another by Aus Iron Industries, and the
other two by Haywards Steel Fabrication and
Construction.
The Contractor (Grocon Constructions) dic-
tated that the field splices should be “hidden
bolted joints” with bolts in tension (Keays (2006)),
even for the 500CHS spines (with 45 mm wall and
4/32 mm inserted plates).
Such joints required the use of Grade 12.9 bolts
to achieve the required strength. Some of these
bolts failed during construction leading to field-
welded repairs to such splices. (The author warned
of the potential for such failures following investi-
gation of similar failures on the runways at Dock-
lands Stadium.)
The roof leaked during the official opening
rugby league test match between Australia and
New Zealand, leaving many people drenched. This
happened because the gutters and flashings were
incomplete at that time. There have been no subse-
quent reports of the roof leaking.
8 1956 OLYMPIC SWIMMING AND
DIVING STADIUM
This stadium is the one remaining structure from
the 1956 Olympic Games. Designed by architects
Kevin Borland, Peter McIntyre, and John and
Figure 11. Rectangular stadium during construction.
21
Figure 12. Olympic swimming & diving stadium.
Phyllis Murphy, it is a superb example of ‘form fol-
lows function’, with the underside of the seating
plats as the exterior wall.
The structural engineer was Bill Irwin. His
inspired design features post-tensioning rods to
secure the roof against uplift. A detailed account
of the structure and its construction is given in
Beauchamp (2016).
The 73 m long roof truss chords were fabricated
from 219 × 9.35, 7.9, and 6.35 Grade 20 high ten-
sile seamless tubing (BS.1775:1951), and the webs
from Grade 13 tubing.
On the way to the next tubular structure, engi-
neers should pass by the Sidney Myer Music Bowl
in the park across St Kilda Road. This is a cable-
net structure built in 1959, to a design by Barry
Patten of Yuncken Freeman Architects and the
same structural engineer, Bill Irwin. The design
pre-dates Frei Otto’s cable net structures that were
a feature of the Munich Olympic Games and the
Montreal World Fair. The cable net is covered with
aluminium-clad plywood panels.
9 NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA
GLAZED ROOF
The National Gallery of Victoria on St Kilda Road
was designed by architect Sir Roy Grounds, in the
same commission as for the Arts Centre. It was
opened in 1968. In 2003, renovations and altera-
tions designed by Italian architect, Mario Bellini,
were completed. These alterations included a roof
over the central ground floor Federation Court.
This roof is glazed with clear glass, supported
by a structural frame designed by engineer, Arup.
It uses a grillage of SHS members gently arching
across the void. The SHS members are supported
by posts at the nodes, with the posts connected by
tie-bars to form a tied arch. The Arup design used
VSL MT-600 bars and connections for the tie-bars.
The author was approached by the steel fabri-
cator, GVP Fabrications, to design an alternative
tie-bar system. The design drew inspiration from

Figure  13. Roof over Federation Court, National
Gallery of Victoria.
Figure 14. Arts Centre Spire.
the Mero system, with nodes drilled and tapped
for threaded ends on the tie-bars. Intermediate tie-
bars had left- and right-hand threads at each end to
allow quick assembly and adjustment on site. The
SHS frame was supported by scaffold until all the
tie-bars had been installed and plumbed. The tie-
bar system was then tensioned by tightening nuts
at the perimeter, lifting the frame off the scaffold.
Whilst in the National Gallery, take the opportu-
nity to inspect Leonard French’s glazed roof in the
adjacent room, and Inge King’s “Forward Surge”
sculpture on the short walk to the Arts Centre.
10 ARTS CENTRE SPIRE
The Arts Centre, Melbourne is a performing arts
centre consisting of a complex of buildings. The
22
Spire sits atop the larger Theatre Building; next
door is Hamer Hall, the home of the Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra.
The Spire was originally 115 m high, but was sub-
sequently rebuilt to its current height of 162 m.
The architect for the complex, and for the
National Gallery of Victoria just to the south, was
local architect, Sir Roy Grounds, who was actively
involved in its design and construction from 1959
until his death in 1982.
Structural design of the tower was by Dr Peter
Kneen, an engineer with an intimate knowledge of
light-weight structures, in association with John
Connell and Associates, structural engineers for
the project. The spire has eight chords in two sets
of four, with one set offset 45° and half a bay from
the other. The connecting diagonals give a robust
redundant structure, able to sustain wind-induced
fatigue loading for the design life of 100 years.
The original Spire was completed in 1982; it
used the Mero (of Germany) spaceframe connec-
tor system for the main body of the tower, with the
skirts at the base constructed using the Triodetic
(of Canada) connectors. Fabrication of the Mero
components was by Commonwealth Aircraft Cor-
poration, and of the Triodetic components by Tri-
odetic and Johns & Waygoods.
The Mero system used galvanized and painted
steel CHS sections for the tubulars, and stainless
steel for the connection components—Grade 630
for the bolts and Grade 431 for the spherical nodes.
This was done with the aim of producing a struc-
ture requiring minimal maintenance for the design
life of 100 years, but with limited success.
Referring to Figure 15, above, the rusting of the
43 m level node was caused by iron dust particles
from the brake blocks on trams running below.
A significant crack was found in one of the
large (450φ) base nodes after four years in serv-
ice. This led to the eventual replacement of the
structure, with the opportunity taken to increase
the height to 162  m (the limit of the supporting
Figure  15. 431 stainless nodes from 92  m and 43  m
levels.
Figure 16. Southgate bridge.

structure), and to change the connection system to Figure 17. Colonnade at Melbourne exhibition centre.
a more conventional welded tube/tube connection,
omitting the stainless steel components. At the
same time, an extensive array of lights was added
to give an impressive display at night (but leaving a
clutter of wires and fittings visible during the day).

11 SOUTHGATE BRIDGE

Southgate Bridge is a pedestrian bridge connect-

ing Flinders Street Station to the Southgate restau-
rant, shopping and entertainment precinct.
The bridge structure is a tied parabolic arch with
a triangular hanger supporting the bridge deck at
mid-span, deliberately breaking as many rules of
structural form as the inventive architects, Cooks
Carmichael, could imagine. The structural engineer
was Irwin Johnson, and the steel fabricator Newsteel.
The arch section is a fabricated box. The trian-
gular hanger has a triangular cross-section—the
least efficient form possible for an elastic beam.
Did they read Shanley (1960)?
The bridge was assembled on barges on the south
bank of the river, floated into position at high tide,
and then lowered onto the permanent bearings. The
author designed the associated temporary works.
12 MELBOURNE EXHIBITION CENTRE
COLONADE
Opened in 1996, the Melbourne Exhibition Centre
has 30,000 square metres of column-free exhibition
space. The architect was local firm, Denton Corker
and Marshall. The structural engineer was Arup,
and the steel fabricator, DiFabro Constructions.
The exhibition space roof is supported by 84 m
long triangular trusses above at 18 m centres, with
operable walls to divide the floor into separate
areas. The trusses were fabricated with CHS top
chords and webs, and boxed UB sections for the
bottom chord. These are clad for sound-proofing
and fire containment, and so not visible.
Along the river side of the exhibition hall is a
veranda, featuring an impressive colonnade of
Figure 18. Melbourne Star observation wheel.
inclined 125SHS columns. This provides an open
area for pedestrian traffic to enter the exhibition
hall when it is sub-divided.
At first construction, the SHS columns were
noted to vibrate in a stiff breeze, but it was soon
found that the vibration was sufficiently damped
by the addition of grout round the column bases.
13 MELBOURNE STAR OBSERVATION
WHEEL
This 120  m high Ferris Wheel was originally
designed by Sanoyas Rides Corporation of Japan,
with fabrication by Alfasi Constructions, and
opened to the public in late 2008. After a short
time in service, a structural defect was detected.
A new wheel structure was subsequently designed
by Arup, and the wheel reopened in 2013. The
original 28 cabins, drive system and the supporting
structure were retained for the new design.
The wheel has seven radial spokes, reflecting the
seven-pointed star on the Australian flag.
Both the original and replacement wheels were fab-
ricated from CHS members, with bolted field splices.
Ferris wheel structures typically endure a
full stress-reversal cycle of gravity loads at each

23
revolution of the wheel. The original design was
fully redundant, allowing the growth of detectible
cracks to the full loss of a member without struc-
tural collapse. One detail at the intersection of the
inner circumferential bracing member’s connection
to the spoke member was intended to have a fin
plate slotted through the spoke, but this was actu-
ally constructed with the fin butt-welded to the face
of the 6 mm wall of the spoke. This detail (missed
by both the designer and the author as reviewer)
fractured after only 1,300 revolutions of the wheel.
The replacement structure has been designed with
a fatigue life of over 400,000 revolutions (25 years
continuous service at 30 minutes per revolution).
14 DOCKLANDS STADIUM
Docklands Stadium (also known as Etihad Sta-
dium) is one of two grounds in Melbourne used
for Australian Football League (“Aussie Rules”)
matches. Completed in the year 2000, it seats about
56,000. (The other ground is Melbourne Cricket
Ground, discussed earlier).
The architect was Daryl Jackson of Melbourne.
The structural engineer was Connell Wagner. Steel
fabrication was by Alfasi Constructions, with
Transfield as a major sub-contractor.
The playing field is an oval 170  m by 140  m,
making it suitable for both Aussie Rules football
in the winter and cricket in the summer. Movable
seating at the sides allows re-configuration of the
field for soccer, rugby, and concerts.
The stadium has a movable roof, 168 m × 104 m,
which is normally left open to allow the turf to
grow naturally, but closed when inclement weather
is forecast.
Sight lines are critical for any stadium, and espe-
cially so in the high-kicking Aussie Rules game.
The roof soffit lines are curved so that the specta-
tors in the back row of seats can see the tops of the
15 m goal posts at the far end of the ground.
On non-match days, the public can enter parts
of the ground and stadium. (Go to Gate 2 near the
railway station entrance for information.)
The primary structure for the roof is triangular
trusses with CHS chords and webs. The second-
ary members are universal sections (on the mov-
ing roofs) or planar tubular trusses (on the fixed
Figure 19. Docklands stadium.
24
roofs) supporting the purlins. Runway beams for
the moving roof bogies are incorporated in the pri-
mary trusses on the northern and southern sides.
The moving roof was assembled on the (then
vacant) ground on the railway side of the stadium,
jacked to height and rolled over a temporary exten-
sion of the runways to the permanent position. The
roof was lifted in four pieces, weighing up to 600t.
The author designed the system of jacking, and
associated temporary works. Each lift was carried
out in 450 mm steps, taking the best part of a day to
lift the assembly 40 m. The temporary extension of
the runway included the far end of the runway truss.
The roof sections were moved along the runway
using a pair of 12,000  lb 24 volt winches (double
reeved), taking about an hour to move the 600t parts
100 m. In service, the roof closes in about 8 minutes.
15 SOUTHERN CROSS RAILWAY STATION
Southern Cross Railway Station has 10 platforms
as the termini for country and interstate trains,
and 6 platforms for suburban trains. It was first
established in 1859 as Spencer Street Station; it
was redeveloped and renamed Southern Cross in
2006.
The architect was Nicholas Grimshaw of the
UK. Structural design was by Winward Structures.
Steel Fabrication was by Geelong Fabricators,
Haywards Steel Fabrication & Construction, and
Alfasi Constructions.
The roof has a unique undulating form, with a
single-layer shell of 356CHS members spanning
up to 40 m between Vierendeel trusses parallel to
the platforms. Crests in the roof include vents to
remove diesel fumes. Valleys include ETFE sky-
lights to provide natural light to the platforms.
During construction, the long spans of curved
CHS were braced with cables to form tied arches
until the weight of the adjacent span provided bal-
ancing moments at the haunches.
Figure 20. Southern cross station roof.
 The station continued in service throughout the
construction period, with major parts erected dur-
ing the night. Comprehensive details of the struc-
ture and the construction process are included in
Skene and DiBlasi (2006).
The best approach for viewing the structure is
from the Collins Street/Spencer Street intersection.
One can then walk the length of Platform 5/6 to
the Bourke Street Footbridge, leading to Dock-
lands Stadium.
16 THE CONE AT MELBOURNE CENTRAL
Melbourne Central is a shopping centre sitting
atop an underground railway station. Within the
shopping centre is the heritage-listed “Coop’s Shot
Tower”, built in 1888, and 50  m tall. The glazed
Cone serves to protect the Shot Tower from the ele-
ments, whilst providing an atrium to allow natural
light into the shopping precinct.
The centre was designed by Kisho Kurokawa of
Japan. Structural Engineer was John Connell and
Associates, and steel fabricator Newsteel.
The structure consists of four circumferential
rings supported by 12 columns tapering to the
apex. Both the rings and columns are triangular
trusses with CHS webs and chords. The purlins for
the glazing are also CHS, rolled to radius.
The author’s involvement was two-fold. First
he prepared the estimate for fabrication, then he
designed the erection scheme.
In preparing the estimate, it was noted that
the Engineer had specified full-penetration butt
welds for the tube-to-tube connections. He iden-
tified that this was not necessary for structural
strength, and the tender offered a significant
reduction to change this detail to a fillet weld.
After award, an X-joint prototype was made with
fillet weld one side and butt weld the other, and
tested to failure. The joint survived intact, with
Figure 21. Cone at Melbourne central.
25
the failure occurring at the net section where the
“grip plates” were slotted into the brace member.
The Contract required there be no temporary
structures within the circular hole in the roof slab sur-
rounding the Shot Tower. The twelve column trusses
(with circumferential trusses pre-welded to form a
tee), were supported by external guy ropes until each
ring was complete. Limited space meant that the guy
system included “jockey poles” for the elevated rings.
The Cone has two bespoke building maintenance
units (BMUs) for cleaning the glazing inside and
out. The outer BMU’s upper bearing is built into the
apex of the Cone. The inner BMU has an articulat-
ing arm to allow access round the truss structures.
17 CONCLUSIONS
This has been a brief tour of Melbourne’s tubu-
lar structures highlighting the features relevant to
engineers. The tour is limited to those structures
within easy walking distance of the city centre, and
with features of special interest. Other structures
considered as candidates for discussion are listed
in Appendix 2.
As an engineer, the author is impressed with the
imagination Melbourne’s architects and structural
engineers have applied to the city’s public struc-
tures, with the intelligent use of tubulars to achieve
unique forms.
Enjoy the walk!
REFERENCES
Beauchamp, D. 2016. 1956 Olympic Swimming & Diving
Stadium, Nomination for Engineering Heritage. Engi-
neering Heritage Victoria, Melbourne.
Keays, R.H. 1994. The occasional heavy lift. In Gilbert &
Koetz (eds), Australasian Structural Engineering Con-
ference 1994: 309–315, IEAust, Sydney.
Keays, R.H. 2006. Field joints for tubulars—Some
practical considerations. In Packer & Willibald (eds),
Tubular Structures XI: 309–316, Taylor & Francis:
London.
Keays, R.H. 2012. Blue Tree in a Red Landscape—
Structure of a Sculpture. In Gardner (ed), Tubular
Structures XIV:473–480, Taylor & Francis: London.
Keays, R.H. 2015. Where tubular structures fail—
examples from one engineer’s experience. In Batista,
Vellasco, & Luciano (Eds.), Tubular Structures XV:
51–58, Taylor & Francis: London.
Radin, C. 1994. “The pinwheel tilings of the plane”,
Annals of Mathematics, 139, 661–702, Princeton Uni-
versity Press: Princeton.
Shanley, F.R. 1960. Weight-Strength Analysis of Aircraft
Structures, 2nd edition, Dover: New York.
Sheard J. 2015. Melbourne, Joseph Reed, 1850–1890,
(Book), Footpath Guides: Melbourne.
Skene, P. & DiBlasi, R. 2006. Tubular steel roof for Spen-
cer Street Station in Melbourne, Australia. In Packer
& Willibald (eds), Tubular Structures XI: 23–31,
Taylor & Francis: London.
APPENDIX 1: TOUR MAP APPENDIX 2:

Following is a list of structures not mentioned in

the text, but worthy of a visit.

Pedestrian Bridges
Webb Bridge—South Wharf to Docklands
Williams Landing Station—Princes Freeway
Deakin University Link Bridge, Burwood
Towers on high-rise buildings
101 Collins Street
600 Bourke Street
242 Exhibition Street
316 Elizabeth Street
Sports Buildings
Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre, Albert Park
Darebin Velodrome, Thornbury
Waverley Netball Centre, Glen Waverley
High-Rise Building Forecourts, Facades
316 Elizabeth Street
600 Bourke Street
616 St Kilda Road
424 St Kilda Road
700 Bourke Street
Tubular Columns
567 Collins Street
720 Bourke Street
Sculptures
Beam & Sticks, Flemington Road
727 Collins Street
Blue Tree, RACV Club, Healesville (Keays 2012)
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen
McClelland Sculpture Park & Gallery

26
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

The grandstand roof of the Olympic stadium in Berlin

R. Stroetmann
Institute of Steel and Timber Construction, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
KREBS+KIEFER Ingenieure GmbH, Dresden, Germany

ABSTRACT: The Olympic stadium in Berlin was modernized and restored under strict requirements
of the monument protection authority. Part of the extensive construction work was the new construction
of the grandstand roof. This is a light and far cantilevering skeleton framework of steel hollow sections,
which is covered by an upper and lower membrane as well as with glass in the inner roof area. After a
short description of the historic development of the stadium and the overall construction work there fol-
lows a report on design, construction and execution of the grandstand roof (see Stroetmann & Schneider
2003, Stroetmann 2005).

1 INTRODUCTION “Reichssportfeld”. The contract for the design

The eventful past of the Olympic stadium in
Berlin and its spacious Olympic Park go back to
the beginning of the 20th century, (Kluge 1999,
Schäche 2001). In the year 1907 the “Berliner Ren-
nverein” decided to build a 2,400 m long horse rac-
ing track in the Grunewald area. It was completed
in May 1909. After the IOC had chosen Berlin as
the venue of the 1916 Olympic Games, the archi-
tect and builder Otto March (1845–1913) designed
the so-called “Deutsches Stadion” (German sta-
dium), which was positioned inside of the horse
racing track. The stadium was designed for more
than 30,000 spectators. It includes a velodrome, a
600 m running track, sport and soccer yards and
a swimming stadium at the northern side of the
grandstand building (Fig. 1).
After the 1916 Games had been canceled due to
the First World War, Berlin successfully applied for
the 1936 Olympic Games. In October 1933 Adolf
Hitler ordered to build a new large stadium and
to rearrange the total area of the “Grunewaldren-
nbahn”, which henceforth was designated as
went to Werner March (1894–1976), who was the
son of Otto March. Dominant characteristic of
the stadium for 100,000  spectators (65,000  seats
and 35,000  standing places) was its opening to
the west. It exposes the elevation to the Marathon
Gate, the Maifeld parade grounds and the 70  m
high Bell tower at the western side (Fig. 2).
On the occasion of the 1974 FIFA World Cup
various modifications of the stadium were con-
ducted. The significant change was the erection
of canopies over the north and the south grand-
stands. The roofs were built as cantilever structures
with spatial frameworks by the company MERO in
Würzburg.
After various considerations with respect to
the future use as well as the restructuring of the
former “Reichssportfeld” and its buildings, in May
1998 the Berlin Senate decided to rehabilitate the
Olympic stadium in line with historic preservation
principles and the modernization for a multifunc-
tional use. They were looking for a design that
would make the entire site accessible to the public
through a viable compromise between competitive

Figure 1. The German stadium within the Grunewald Figure  2. The Olympic stadium—view from the west
racetrack (photo from 1923). (Werner March 1936).

27
and recreational sports, complemented by cultural
offerings. A realization competition was launched,
in which numerous planning associations from
Germany and abroad participated.
The contract was awarded to the planning asso-
ciation “Olympiastadion Berlin − gmp’p” under
the leadership of the gmp-architects − von Ger-
kan, Marg und Partner. The overall structural
design, the inventory of the existing structures and
the planning of concrete renovations were carried
out by KREBS+KIEFER Ingenieure GmbH as a
member of the association gmp’p.
2 THE GRANDSTAND ROOF
2.1 The design
To raise the spectator comfort, the execution of the
grandstand roof was an important component of
the modernization measures. For the design vari-
ous functional and esthetic requirements had to
be considered. The simultaneous fulfilment was
a challenge. For reasons of monument conserva-
tion the new grandstand roof should hardly be vis-
ible from outside of the stadium. Thus, an outer
overhang over the floor plan of the grandstand
building was not approved. Despite of the grand-
stand roof good lighting conditions should be
ensured. To enable the continuing use of the sta-
dium the roof should be erectable in sections. In
addition, restrictions of the visibility of the pitch
for the spectators due to inner columns on the
stands should be avoided as much as possible.
To fulfil these requirements the roof was
designed with a uniform regular structure around
the stands, which is interrupted at the Marathon
Gate in the west. This interruption and the possibil-
ity for a sectional fabrication were decisive for the
Figure 3. Cross-section of the grandstand and the grandstand roof, denomination of the components.
28
design of a lightweight cantilevered steel construc-
tion (Fig. 3). The length of all steel girders, which
determine the depth of the oval roof, is approxi-
mately 68 m. The section of the roof has a shape
like an aircraft wing, which tapers off to the inner
and the outer side. The outer roof termination was
designed as slim as possible, so that the domination
architecture of the natural stone cladded grand-
stand construction with its 136 shell limestone pil-
lars is not affected by the roof structure.
The optical and structural lightness of the roof
results mainly from the use of membrane construc-
tions as upper and lower claddings, which at the
same time enabling good lighting conditions on the
stands. The intermediate main bearing structure
made of circular hollow sections remains visible
because of the translucency of the textile mem-
brane. The inner roof edge area is covered with
glass panels, which are supported by tapered hollow
section girders. The cantilevered steel construction
remains visible. The outer edge of the roof consists
of a triangulated reinforced concrete ring, which is
cladded with aluminum panels on the underside.
The eaves height of the grandstand roof is
approximately 22 m over the ground surface out-
side of the stadium. The average of the outwards
oriented roof inclination is 5°. The depth of 68 m
meets the requirement that the outer contour cor-
responds to the tribune structure and the specta-
tors in the inner front row of the stands have an
appropriate weather protection. The inner roof
overhang was designed for an incident angle for
the rain of 15° (Stroetmann & Schneider 2003).
2.2 The main bearing structure
The supporting structure of the grandstand roof
consists of the following main members (Figs. 3
and 4):

Figure 4. Section of the structural model of the grand-
stand roof.
– 76 lattice girders aligned radially to the stadium
ground plan,
– tangentially oriented supporting beams for the
membrane structure and the glass roofing,
– 20 tree-shaped steel columns (tree-columns),
– 132 outer columns,
– a triangular lattice truss, which runs tangentially
over the tree-columns,
– a tangentially oriented two-chord lattice truss,
which is located near to the inner roof edge,
– four radially oriented bracings and
– a triangular outer ring of reinforced concrete
with integrated and adjacent steel composite
beams.
The regular load-bearing structure of the roof
is primarily formed by the 76 lattice girders, which
are aligned radially to the floor plan of the stands.
The outer diameters of the circular hollow sec-
tions from the members are uniform for all gird-
ers. Its course of the upper chords is straight-lined;
the lower chords have a curvature in the region of
the tree-columns. The web members of the lattice
girders consist of rising and falling diagonals. In
the region of the girder tips, a Vierendeel-shaped
execution was chosen for design reasons.
In order to keep the visibility obstructions of
the spectators as low as possible, the tree-columns
were positioned as far back as possible. With a
maximum system height of 5.10  m, the radial
trusses have a cantilever arm length of approxi-
mately 49  m and a field length between the tree-
columns and the outer columns of approximately
17.50 m (Fig. 3).
Above the tree-columns, a triangular lattice
truss runs as a continuous beam in tangential
direction. Its spans are between 32 and 40 m. This
truss supports the radial lattice girders and takes
29
over bracing functions in the roof plane. Its chords
and web members consist of circular hollow
sections and round steel anchors, which are con-
nected via steel cast nodes.
In order to compensate for the vertical defor-
mations of the radial trusses, a tangentially run-
ning two-chord lattice truss was located near to
the inner roof edge. Its chords and web members
consist of circular hollow sections and round steel
anchors, similar to the triangular lattice truss.
The roof should be supported by a minimum
number of slender columns to minimize visibil-
ity obstructions for the spectators on the upper
tier. The optimization process took into account
the achievable spans of the roof structure and the
possibilities of the load transfer via the tribune
structure. A variant with 20 very slim tree-columns
and an axle spacing of 32 to 40 m was chosen. The
tree-column trunks have a length of approximately
8.50 m. The tree trunk divides into four branches
at two-thirds of its overall height. Thereby the
buckling length of the column trunks and the
spans of the trusses and girders in tangential and
radial direction are significantly reduced.
The bars of the tree-columns have a circular
solid cross-section. The trunks taper conically from
the fork nodes to the column bases from 350 to
250 mm. The design compression load is approxi-
mately 12,000 kN. The used material is quenched
and tempered forged high-strength steel. The con-
necting branches have diameters of 290 mm. The
fork nodes are made of high-strength cast steel.
The short length of the back-span of the canti-
lever roof results in uplift forces at the outer col-
umns. For this reason close to the outer roof edge
a triangular reinforced concrete ring with a width
of approximately 8.50  m was constructed as a
counterweight (Fig. 3). This outer ring consists of
prefabricated reinforced concrete sections with in-
situ concrete supplements. In addition to its func-
tion as a ballast body, the ring is part of the outer
grandstand roof and contributes to the horizontal
bracing of the structure (Stroetmann & Schneider
2003).
2.3 Bracing of the roof and expansion
joint concept
The ground plan dimensions of the grandstand roof
are approximately 300  ×  230  m. The load transfer
structures below the upper grandstands are sepa-
rated from each other by building joints so that their
positions due to temperature effects will not signifi-
cantly change. When the entire stadium is heated or
cooled due to the ambient temperatures, constraint
stresses arise between the roof and the load-bearing
structures. Additional stresses result from the differ-
ent cooling and heating rates of the steel structure
and the outer concrete ring of the roof. In order to
minimize the occurring constraint stresses, a joint
concept was developed for the roof structure. In
terms of the number and the position of the expan-
sion joints it was to differentiate between the outer,
middle and inner roof areas. The construction of
the reinforced concrete ring on the outer roof edge
has no expansion joints. In the middle part of the
roof the steel structure is subdivided into four sec-
tions by three expansion joints. Shifted to them,
six expansion joints are arranged in the inner roof
area. These joints are positioned in roof sections
with tree-columns in order to prevent discontinuous
deformations of the girder tips from vertical loads.
At the inner ends of the expansion joints in the mid-
dle roof area, the two-chord lattice truss ensures a
continuous deformation line (Figs 4 and 5).
Convenient to the expansion joints the grand-
stand roof is stabilized in the middle part by four
radial oriented bracings. They are running alter-
nately between the upper and the lower chord of
each two radial girders, so that the stabilization of
the two levels is ensured (Fig. 8). Located behind
the two chord lattice truss in the inner roof area,
six further bracings were arranged in the upper
chord level of the radial girders. The connect-
ing diagonals consist of prefabricated tension
anchors of the steel grade S460. They are connect-
ing at the nodes of the radial girders and they are
pre-stressed.
2.4 Membrane claddings
The roof structure is cladded on top with 77 mem-
brane panels with a total area of approximately
27,000  m2. Each panel is supported between the
edges from six curved steel arches, which consist
of circular hollow sections. They enable the cur-
vature, which is necessary for the membrane effect
and the form stability.
Figure 5. Layout of the expansion joints and the brac-
ings of the stadium roof.
30
The longitudinal edges are connected with bolt
ropes and clamping strips at the upper chords of
the radial girders. To stabilize the arches and to
get the shape and the form stability, the mem-
brane panels are pre-stressed in longitudinal and
transverse direction. The drainage of the roof
surface takes place along the gutter membranes
above the upper chords of the radial girder to
the outer roof edge. As membrane material, a
PTFE-coated glass fiber fabric was selected not
least because the material is dirt-repellent and, in
contrast to the PVC-coated polyester fabric, not
combustible.
The steel arches are connected to each system
node of the upper chords of the radial girders.
Depending on the position, its spans range between
approximately 6.0  m and 11.0  m. Suitable to the
spans, the height of the arches rises from the inner
to the outer area of the stadium roof, but it is lim-
ited to a maximum of 2.0 m. They consist of slen-
der circular hollow sections with an outer diameter
of 139.7 mm. The stabilization of the arches in and
perpendicular to their plane takes place by the tex-
tile membrane, which is connected with bolt ropes
in extruded aluminium profiles to the hollow sec-
tions. The arch thrust forces are absorbed by tan-
gential tubes, which are positioned in the plane of
the upper chords of the radial girders.
In order to achieve a planar and translucent
finish at the underside of the roof, it was clad-
ded there with approximately 28,000  m2 textile
membrane. The individual membrane panels are
spanned between the lower chords of the radial
girders and the crossing tangential tubes by means
of bolt ropes, clamping strips and turnbuckles. The
membrane material consists of an open mesh fab-
ric made of PTFE-coated glass fiber (Fig. 6).
The lower membrane serves as a maintenance
level for repairing and replacing of lamps, loud-
speakers and similar. The choice of an open fabric
mash provides the necessary sound permeability
for the grandstand loudspeakers inside of the roof
structure (Fig. 10). Furthermore, pressure equali-
zation under wind loads takes place between the
upper and lower side, so that only comparatively
small loads were taken into account in the static
design of the lower membrane.
2.5 Glass roofing of the inner edge
The approximately 6,000 m2 area of the inner roof
edge was covered with four-point supported glass
panels made of partially pre-stressed compos-
ite safety glass. The approximately 13.40  m wide
glass ring is divided in radial direction into 5 fields
with 2.40 m each and two edge fields with approxi-
mately 70 cm length. The subdivision in tangential
direction took place in 3 to 4 fields (Fig. 7) depend-
ing on the distance of the radial girders.

Figure  6. Upper and lower membrane of the grand-
stand roof.
Figure 7. Glass roofing of the inner edge.
The thickness of the about 3.0 to 5.0  m2 glass
panels is mostly 2 × 10 mm. In the area of the Mar-
athon Gate, panels with 2 × 12 mm were required
for strength reasons. The composite effect of the
laminated glass is ensured by a 1.5 mm thick PVB
film. The panels are designed as “walk-through”
for maintenance and cleaning purposes in addition
to wind and snow loads. They are supported via
stainless steel casting arms (so-called “spiders”)
with ball joints and plate-like bearing areas.
Due to the relatively flexible support structure,
the joints between the glass panels are designed for
correspondingly large movement capacities in and
31
perpendicular to their plane (3  cm joint width in
the standard range). The glass panels, which con-
necting to the six expansion joints (Fig.  5), are
supported with transversely displaceable point
holders. The joints are closed with edge profiles
and plastic films fixed with rubber piping.
The static calculation was carried out for dead
weight, wind-, snow- and man loads. In addition, dis-
tortions of the glass panels were taken into account
to consider the flexibility of the supporting steel
construction. The composite effect of the PVB film,
frequently discussed in the literature, was only consid-
ered for the determination of the constraining forces.
3 MANUFACTURING AND ASSEMBLY
Before the roof installation, the reconstruction and
renovation works of the stands and in the stadium
interior took place. Since the renovation of the
existing lower ring was not appropriate due to eco-
nomic reasons, it was demolished and replaced by
a new prefabricated reinforced concrete structure,
consisting of the steps of the grandstands, tooth
beams and columns with sleeve foundations.
In the course of refurbishment and reconstruc-
tion of the upper stands, the load bearing struc-
tures for the stadium roof were produced and
integrated. The grandstands were equipped with
the complete seating arrangements before the roof
was installed, in order to provide the number of
grandstand seats during the gaming operation.
In December 2001 the general contractor and
concessionaire Walter Bau-AG awarded the work
for the steel constructions to DSD Dillinger Stahl-
bau GmbH. The work was largely completed in
May 2004.
The large number of trades involved in the project
resulted in a high coordination effort for the work-
shop and assembly planning. Numerous interfaces
between the steel construction on the one hand and
the following disciplines, such as concrete-, mem-
brane-, glass- and façade constructions as well as
technical installations, on the other hand, had to be
managed with regard to the necessary preliminary
works (e. g. connection constructions), production
accuracy and the timely and technical processes.
During the assembly work, various boundary
conditions had to be considered. For example,
the operation of heavy lifting equipment for roof
mounting was not possible within the stadium, so
the assembly had to be carried out from the outside.
The outer subterranean buildings as well as the
low-floor basements under the upper stands of the
stadium were leading to restrictions for the crane
sites. An unlimited bypassing of the stadium was
impossible. Due to the low load-bearing capacity
of the existing reinforced concrete frames of the
upper stands, no large additional loads, e. g. from
scaffolding, could be carried off without additional – Laying of the reinforced concrete elements of the
measures. Furthermore, the completed construc- outer ring. This step was necessary in order to
tion works and installed seats on the grandstands ensure the static equilibrium during the assembly
had to be saved against damages during the roof of the cantilevered segments of the radial girders.
installation. For this reason, the assembly of the – Installation of the inner segments of the radial
roof was largely carried out without any auxiliary girders.
supports on the grandstand structure. – Completion of the tangential structure of the
Due to the many limitations, mounting concepts inner roof area.
had already been developed during the structural – Completion of the outer reinforced concrete ring.
design and had been further specified in the scope – Assembly of the structural ribs as well as the
of the execution planning. Principles were, among sheet covering on the outer roof edge.
other things, a high degree of prefabrication to – Erection of the membrane and the glass panels
transportable elements in the factory and the pre- on the inner roof edge (Fig. 9).
assembly of large units at the ground level of the
The roof structure deforms under dead loads
construction site. The design of assembly-friendly
at the ends of the cantilever girders by about
connections as well as the consideration of possibili-
200–280 mm in the vertical direction. In order to
ties for tolerance compensations was necessary for
reach the desired geometry in the final state, the
the adjustment of the steel structure and corrections
steel structure was produced and assembled with
of dimensional deviations. In addition to functional
the corresponding camber.
requirements, the choice of connections was also
Depending on the structural elements and their
strongly influenced by design aspects in order to ful-
positions various corrosion protection systems
fill the aesthetic requirements of the overall concept.
were used. The largest part of the steel structure
The assembly of the steel structure started on
was coated with an organic three-layer system with
the north side of the stadium in June 2002 and
a total dry film thickness of 240 μm. It consists of
continued all the way through the eastern curve
and over the southern stand to the Marathon Gate.
On pre-assembly sites the radial girders, which
were subdivided into two sections in longitudinal
direction, were preassembled in pairs, including
the intermediate and partly the external steel struc-
ture (Fig. 8). The roof installation was carried out
in the following steps:
– Erection of the outer columns, the tree-column
trunks and the outer edge beams.
– Installation of the outer sections of the radial
girders. They started with the pairs over the tree-
columns. Subsequently, the intermediate girder
pairs were mounted and connected to the pairs
over the tree-columns via the adjacent segments
of the triangular lattice truss.
– Completion of the tangential beams in the outer Figure 9. View to the steel structure and the membrane
roof area. installation.

Figure 8. Pairs of radial lattice girders with bracing and connecting edge beams and tree-columns.

32
a two-component zinc dust base coating on the
basis of epoxy resin (80  μm), a two-component
epoxy resin intermediate coating (100  μm) and a
two-component polyurethane topcoat (60  μm) in
light-aluminum color (RAL 9006). A duplex coating
(hot-dip galvanizing and organic coating) was used
for the outer columns with integrated drainage pipes.
The small-scale auxiliary constructions of the techni-
cal installations (e. g. gutters and their support struc-
tures, catwalks, consoles) were hot dip galvanized.
4 TECHNICAL INSTALLATION
OF THE GRANDSTAND ROOF
The operation of the stadium requires extensive
technical equipment. This includes facilities for
lighting and sounding of the grandstands as well as
of the pitch. In addition, there are necessary tech-
nical systems for information and communication.
With the aim of minimizing the visual appear-
ance of the stadium as much as possible, a large
part of the technical equipment was arranged
within the new stadium roof. The accessibility for
maintenance and renewal purposes is provided by
a system of radial and tangential catwalks, which
at the same time serve as support of the electrical
supply lines. At the transition to the glazed area of
the roof there is a catwalk, which runs tangentially
along the entire roof oval and which is accessible
via four radial catwalks from the outer roof edge.
The entry takes place from the attic via folding
stairs, which can lead up to entrance hatches in the
outer reinforced concrete ring and can be folded up
in their parking position.
All catwalks are equipped with appropriate con-
soles for the routing of busbars and cables. Con-
soles on the tangential catwalk, which are arranged
alternately with loudspeakers for the grandstand
sound, serve to accommodate switching and tech-
nical cabinets. The loudspeakers for sonication of
the upper ring are suspended on tension anchors in
the region of the triangular lattice truss (Fig. 10).
Figure 10. Technical installation—loudspeakers and grandstand lighting.
33
The video display panel above the north stand
with an area of approximately 60 m2 was fixed at
the lower chords of two adjacent radial girders
(Fig. 6). Behind the display panels are maintenance
walkways for exchanging the modules. Access is
provided via a radial catwalk within the tribunal
roof and a flap in the lower membrane.
For the lighting of the stadium, visual comfort,
atmosphere and the world of experience are at the
forefront. The field lighting is provided by a cir-
cular ring of floodlights, which are attached to a
frame structure running parallel to the tangential
catwalk. As a result, the outer floodlight masts,
which affected the appearance of the stadium,
could be removed. Above and below the flood-
lights are glazed metal housing with fluorescent
tubes positioned, which are acting as the so-called
“ring of fire”. With its light the oval shape of the
grandstand roof is picked up and emphasized. In
the case of football matches, only the playing field
with sufficient light intensity and high uniformity is
illuminated with the entry of the teams. Special lumi-
naires with 2000 W metal halide lamps are arranged,
which show the interior area media-effective
(Angerer 2003). At the same time, the grandstand
lighting is dimmed.
The lighting of the stands is carried out by chains
of fluorescent tubes, which are arranged along the
lower chords of the radial girders and are directed
towards the upper membrane (Fig. 10, right). The
reflection to the lower grit membrane creates a uni-
form diffuse light on the stands. In order to achieve
special effects (La ola wave and similar), the fluo-
rescent tubes can be individually controlled.
The outer roof termination—consisting of the
reinforced concrete ring, the steel composite edge
girder and the subsequent rib construction—is
cladded on the underside with powder-coated
aluminum panels. Through the brightening of
this metallic cladding by means of separate lumi-
naires the grandstand roof appears in the evening
sky like a light body floating above the stone
stadium.

Figure  11. The Olympic stadium of Berlin shortly
before the completion of the renovation and refurbish-
ment (Pictures Heiner Leiska, Hamburg).
5 CONCLUSIONS
With its convincing overall concept, the sensitive
handling of the historic grandstand construc-
tion and the unique stadium roof, the project
“Modernization and restauration of the Olym-
pic stadium Berlin” takes an exceptional position
among the stadium buildings in Germany and
abroad (Fig.  11). The multi-functional usage con-
cept allows, in addition to athletics competitions
and professional football matches, the organization
of rock concerts and other major events.
With the completion of the project, 80,000 spec-
tators places (76,000  seats and 4,000  standing
places), approximately 100 VIP boxes and around
6,000  m2 of VIP catering areas, 630 underground
car parking spaces, truck and bus parking areas
with direct stadium access and an underground
warm-up hall with five 100 m runways are available.
The conversion and repair costs are around
250  million euros. The stadium was inaugurated
at the end of July 2004, the symbolic handover of
keys to the client took place shortly before.
INVOLVED PARTIES
Client: Land of Berlin, represented by the
Senate Department for Urban Development
Concessionaire and general contractor: Walter
Bau-AG vereinigt mit DYWIDAG
General planning: gmp’p planning association
Olympiastadion Berlin, comprising of:
34
– gmp Architects from Gerkan, Marg and Partner
(Object Planning),
– KREBS+KIEFER Ingenieure GmbH, (struc-
tural engineering, planning of concrete repair),
– BLL-I’RW AG, Consulting Engineers (schedule
planning and building logistics),
– ibb Ingenieurbüro Prof. Burkhardt (cost
calculation).
Structural Engineering of the Grandstand roof:
KREBS+KIEFER Ingenieure GmbH,
Partitions of the membrane construction and
the casting nodes: sbp GmbH, Schlaich Berger-
mann und Partner.
Execution planning: ARCADIS Bauconsult
GmbH, Berlin.
Proofing engineer: Prof. Dr.-Ing. M. Specht,
Berlin.
Wind reports: Wacker Ingenieure, Karlsruhe
and Institute for Industrial Dynamics, Aachen.
Expertise for special steels: RWTH Aachen,
Chair for Steel Construction and Ingenieurbüro
für Werkstofftechnik, Aachen.
Execution of the grandstand roof
Steel construction: DSD Dillinger Stahlbau
GmbH, Saarlouis;
Membrane construction: B  &  O Hightex
GmbH, Rimsting/Chiemsee;
Glass construction: Mero GmbH & Co. KG,
Würzburg.
PICTURES AND PHOTOS
KREBS  +  KIEFER Ingenieure GmbH, Darm-
stadt, gmp Architects of Gerkan, Marg and Part-
ner, Berlin, Heiner Leiska, Hamburg.
REFERENCES
Angerer, H. 2003. Spielfeld im Rampenlicht. LPI
Leuchten PRO-IN. In Sonderheft Stadionbeleuchtung
2003. Saarbrücken: SDV Saarbrücker Druckerei und
Verlags-GmbH.
Kluge, V. 1999. Olympiastadion Berlin—Steine beginnen
zu reden. Berlin: Parthas-Verlag.
Schäche, W. 2001. Von der Rennbahn bis zum Sportpark
des 21. Jahrhunderts—Etappen einer Komplexen
Baugeschichte. In Panorama eines Bauwerks—
Olympiastadion Berlin. Berlin: Jovis Verlag.
Stroetmann, R. & Schneider, R. 2003. Olympiastadion
Berlin—Die neue Tribünenüberdachung. In Stahlbau.
Berlin: Verlag Ernst und Sohn.
Stroetmann, R. 2005. Modernisierung und Instandset-
zung des Berliner Olympiastadions. In Sonderheft
Arenen des 21. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Verlag Ernst und
Sohn.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Preliminary report for the damaged tubular structures after the 2016
Kumamoto earthquakes

T. Yamanaka & K. Ochi

Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan

ABSTRACT: This paper presents preliminary field observations and analytical results on the tubular
damaged structures at Kumamoto after the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes. It comprises two damaging
earthquakes on 14th event at Magnitude 6.5 and JMA Seismic Intensity 7 and 16th event at Magnitude
7.3 and JMA Seismic Intensity 7, April 2016. Damaged steel structures focused on tubular truss, tubular
braced frames with flexural buckling, fracture of the joints and damaged supports are on performance
of roof truss of gymnasium and space structures. The gymnasium with serious damaged roof has been
investigated with 3D time history response analysis. The results of the analysis of reinforced concrete
frame with steel roof focused on displacement of roller supports are presented.

1 INTRODUCTION 2002). Also, Cross gusset plate connections as

The Kumamoto Earthquakes brought about wide-
spread destruction of timber houses, collapse of
a few reinforced concrete buildings, structural
damage to multi-story buildings and space frames
and severe soil liquefaction across the Kumamoto
prefecture.
The multi-story steel structures with RHS col-
umns are popular use for store and office building
at city area in Japan. Because of the exterior and
interior cladding, these buildings have difficulties
for outside observing damages. These buildings
will be reported after restoration works.
Based on outside observations, It is focused on
selected braced frames, gymnasiums and exhibi-
tion hall with CHS structures built after the revi-
sion for the current Seismic Design Code of Japan
(BCJ 1981).
shown in Figure 2. are recommended for using full
strength braces under compression or cyclic loads.
The main building of college at Kikuyo Machi
has tubular braced frames along aesthetic facade.
The steel frame is supported on concrete ped-
estals and walls from the basement as shown in
Figure 3.
Reinforced concrete walls at structural expan-
sion joints are damaged as shown in Figure  4.
These separations and cracking of cladding and
concrete elements are not so serious for reinforced
concrete structures.
Tubular chords with cross gusset plates
and braces single plate are shown in Figure  5.

2 SEISMIC PERFORMANCE

2.1 Braced frames

A number of braced frames were constructed as
multi-story car parks and space frames. Some
damaged frames using tubular brace members
have been recorded. These buildings with seismic-
resisting structures built in the last 20 years.
Slotted plate joints at tubular brace ends have
been required over strength factor of the full-
strength connection and flexural rigidity for buck-
ling strength of braces. These weld length (L) to
outer diameter (D) of CHS ratio required for full
strength connection with over strength factor (AIJ Figure 1. Single gusset plate-to-slotted CHS connections.

35
Figure 2. Cross gusset plates-to-slotted CHS connections.
Figure 3. Global view of main building.
Figure 4. Separation of cladding and crack of walls.
Bolted joints with high tensile bolts were slipped at
the splice plates in the chord ends.
The side of the tubular structures has the tubu-
lar braces performed better, without fractures,
with visible residual buckling as a consequence of
brace elongation as shown in Figure 6.
A parking garage at Kumamoto City Center
has tubular braced frames as part of their lateral
36
Figure 5. 3D joints with chord and braces with gusset
plates and splice plates.
Figure 6. Buckled brace with single gusset plate joints.
load resisting system. The tubular brace elements
did not exhibit inelastic deformations as shown in
Figure 7.
There was evidence of minor movement of the
bolted splice connections and out-of-plane defor-
mation of splice plates in the brace ends as shown
in Figures 8 and 9.
Recommendation (AIJ 2002) required both the
strength and rigidity of the gusset plate joint of
CHS for seismic design use. Main brace ends and
elements based on the recommendation have been
decided the specification for the cross type gusset
plates as shown in Figures 2, 5 and 8.
The braces with cross type gusset plates have no
visible buckled deformation.
A structure of an exhibition main hall at Mashiki
Machi suffered damages of connections with con-
crete columns and truss roof. These structures
do not use tubular elements. A foyer of the exhi-
bition hall with tubular braced frame was found
to have performed poorly as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 7. Global view of parking garage.
Figure 8. Brace end.
Curtain walls with glass were damaged and broken
as shown in Figure 11.
The built-up columns with tubular elements and
T-joints were damaged at the toes of the welds as
shown in Figures 12 and 13.
Almost of these columns at the foyer failed at
the weldments under shear load. The exiguous
rigidity of the columns with no web smoothness
cause the non-structural damages.
37
Figure  9. Out-of-plane deformation and yielding of
splice plates.
Figure 10. View of the foyer.
2.2 Tubular roofs
Three damaged gymnasiums of high schools at
Kumamoto City are almost same sizes and struc-
tures as main arena on second story. All vertical
elements as columns and walls of main build-
ing structures are made by reinforced concrete.
The roof systems are steel structures using CHS.
These gymnasiums were built over the same age for
National sports festival in 1999 at Kumamoto.
Figures  14 and 15  shows the global view of a
gymnasium. Stringer beam systems using in roof
have not so visible damages for in-plane direction.
Main beams and sub beams with deformation for
out-of-plane brake down the eaves as shown in
Figure 16.
Space frame roofs are used for other two dam-
aged gymnasiums. Figure 17 shows the entrance of
a gymnasium. Damaged space frame structures are
not behind cladding but are visible for the reason
 Figure 14. Global view of a gymnasium.

Figure 11. Entrance of foyer.

Figure 15. Main beams and damaged ceiling.

Figure 12. Fracture at brace ends.

Figure 16. Up view of eave.

of seismic recommendations for ceiling as shown

in Figure 18.
The roof is supported by reinforced concrete
Figure 13. Close-up view of T-joints. beams or columns as pin or roller supports.

38
Figure 17. Entrance of gymnasium. Figure 19. Buckled lower chord at corner support.

Figure  18. Internal view of damaged roof, showing Figure  20. Buckled upper chord and lower damaged
buckled brace members. joint.

Corner supports have been pin actions for seismic

structural design of roof self-weight. In Figure 18,
brace members connected with roller supports
were buckled. Also, Chord with corner pin sup-
ports was buckled as shown in Figure 19. Figure 20
shows the situation that chord member at lower
layer gave away. Also, upper chord member cor-
responded to lower lost member is buckled. In
these Figures, connection type is shown as MERO
System. The system consists of solid forged steel
spheres into which threaded holes are bored, circu-
lar tubular members with cone-shaped ends, and
protruding threaded bolts fitting the tapped holes
in the end.
Figure  21  shows a fallen member with visible
no damage. Fractured threaded bolt is shown in Figure 21. Fallen member with fractured end bolts.
Figure 22. The both ends of member were frac-
tured at the threaded bolts.
Figure  23  shows a gymnasium composed of spans 34.36 (m) in transverse direction as shown in
space frame roof with serious damage. The dou- Figure 24. The slender members are used as braces
ble-layer trussed tubular barrel of the gymnasium and chords with MERO System.

39
Figure 22. Closed-up view of fracture bolt of MERO
System.
Figure  23. Separation of cladding and cracking of
walls.
Figure 24. Internal view of damaged roof.
Figure 25 shows the support positions and types
of the roof. The bolt connected supports with the
roof structure were damaged as shown in Figure 26.
The roller support for transverse direction limited
40
Figure 25. Roof plan and support positions.
Figure 26. Damaged supports and buckled members.
with loose hole tolerance of base plates are over
the allowable deformation of structural design.
The excessive deformation changed the roller into
the pin action caused unpredictable solutions for
roof structure. Some chord members in the lon-
gitudinal direction gave away. Some members in
the transverse direction buckled and fractured
at mid span as shown in Figure  27. Figure 28
shows a section of fallen member broken in two
pieces.
A joint between the supports shown in Fig-
ure 29 was damaged in the collision with concrete
walls. The maximum deflection of the roof calcu-
lated as following time history analysis located at
these nodes. Figures  30–31  show the fallen mem-
bers and end conditions. Fallen members expect
the member showing in Figure  28 were fractured
at the threaded bolts.

Figure 27. Fractured member under cyclic loads.
Figure 28. Flattened and fractured section.
Figure  29. Fractured bolt at edge in a longitudinal
direction.
3 ELASTIC TIME HISTORY ANALYSIS
The structural engineering software (ROBOT 2016)
for the gymnasium was conducted as part of the
ongoing project. Its primary purpose was to dem-
onstrate the feasibility of using an elastic analysis
41
Figure 30. Fallen members.
Figure 31. Fractures at brace end.
Figure 32. Finite element model for Gymnasium.
with the software to quantify the gap supports of
the roof and inelastic behavior of roof structures.
The gymnasium with serious damage is a rein-
forced concrete structure with tubular steel truss
roof. The concrete walls and slabs were modelled
with elastic shell elements having both in-plane
and out-of-plane stiffness. The concrete columns
and beams were modelled with 3D bar element.
The tubular roof with pin and roller supports was
modelled as 3D steel frame as shown in Figure 32.

Figure  33. Roller action displacement for
direction.
Roof supports of the model were following the
conditions as Figure 25. The sectional sizes, ele-
ment size and nominal elastic modulus took nom-
inal values of structural design drawings. Using
the strong motion records at Kumamoto Kasuga
(JMA 2017), NS and EW direction records by
JMA used for Y and X coordinates respectively.
The relative displacement of roller action
located at dashed line circle in Figure  25. Roller
action for the N-S direction limited by loose hole
tolerance. The displacements of analysis were over
the limitation shown as dashed lines in Figure 33.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents the damages of the tubular
structures built in last 20 years. The tubular struc-
tures designed using Japanese current seismic
design code generally performed well during the
Kumamoto earthquakes, comprising 2 damaging
events. However, two gymnasiums with tubular
truss roof developed link fractures. The fractures
at the tubular members and bolted joints were
observed with unpredicted damage in structural
design.
It was found from the analytical result that the
roof supports at mid span for longitudinal direction
response went into over the roller tolerance range.
It causes that main failure mode of tubular truss
roof. The relative stiffness of the floor slab and wall
is an important factor to consider in the design of
NS both reinforced concrete structure and roof steel
structure.
A comparison of the roller action and gap
action of the critical supports at the roof will be
presented.
REFERENCES
AIJ. 2002. Recommendations for the design and fabrica-
tions of tubular truss structure in steel. Architectural
Institute of Japan, Tokyo, Japan.
BCJ. 1981. Regulations for building structures. The
Building Centre of Japan, Tokyo, Japan
JMA. 2016, The 2016  Kumamoto Earthquake. Japan
Meteorological Agency. Tokyo, Japan.
ROBOT 2016, Robot Structural Analysis 2016, Autodesk,
California, USA.
42
Composite tubular structures
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Analytical behavior of square CFST short beam-columns under

sustained load and chloride corrosion

Y.-X. Hua, L.-H. Han & C.-C. Hou

Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

J.-L. Chu
State Grid Lishui Power Supply Company, Zhejiang Province, China

Y. Ye
China Energy Engineering Group Zhejiang Electric Power Design Institute Co. Ltd., Zhejiang Province, China

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a Finite Element Analytical (FEA) model for square Concrete-Filled
Steel Tubular (CFST) short beam-columns (with slenderness ratio λ = 10.4) under combined long-term
loading and chloride corrosion. Full-range analysis of square CFST was conducted based on the FEA
model. The influence of combined effects of sustained load and chloride corrosion on the bearing capac-
ity and load-displacement relationship of square CFST beam-columns was investigated. The effects of
long-term loading effect and corrosion history on the structural behavior were discussed. Furthermore,
analysis on the load transfer mechanism and interaction between inner concrete and outer steel tube was
conducted to reveal the effects of long-term loading and chloride corrosion on the composite action of
square CFST short beam-columns.

1 INTRODUCTION of concrete. Both the chloride corrosion of outer

Concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) members have
excellent structural performance owing to the com-
posite effect of the inner concrete and the outer
steel tube, which brings high sectional strength,
good ductility, outstanding energy absorption
capacity and etc. CFST members have been widely
used in various types of structures all over the
world, some of which have served for a long period
of time. It is well-known that civil structures would
experience degradation of their performance due
to the long-term effects of concrete as well as the
effect of outer environment during their lifecycle.
Therefore, it is necessary to study the long-term
performance of CFST members so that the safety
of CFST members can be ensured for life-cycle
usage.
In practice, some CFST members are located
in inshore and coastal environment, for instance,
the coastal electrical transmission tower with
CFST columns as its main structural component
in China (Han et al., 2012), many arch bridge with
CFST arch used in coastal areas and etc. These
CFST members are exposed to chloride environ-
ment which can lead to chloride corrosion of the
outer steel tubes, meanwhile, the inner concrete
suffers sustained load which can induce the creep
steel tube and the long-term effect of inner con-
crete will apparently affect the structural behavior
of CFST members in life-cycle period.
Extensive studies have been conducted for ten-
sile, compressive, bending and both compressive
and bending performance of CFST members in
short-term loading (Roeder et al., 1999; Uy, 2001;
Giakoumelis and Lam, 2004; Han et al., 2005). Han
et  al. (2014a) reviewed the up-to-date researches
on CFST members. It shows that the research for
CFST members in corrosive environment is still
very limited. Potyondy (1985) reported an experi-
mental study on CFST members in marine envi-
ronment. Han et al. (2012) and Hou et al. (2013)
had conducted experimental and analytical studies
on square CFST stub columns and beams, which
indicate that the corrosion and sustained load
can lead to remarkable reduction of stiffness and
strength of square stub columns and beams. The
performance of circular CFST stub columns and
beams under long-term loading and chloride cor-
rosion were investigated by Han et al. (2014b) and
Hou et al. (2016). However, the CFST members in
practical application are mostly under combined
compressive and bending load and there is seldom
study on the performance of CFST beam-columns
under sustained load and chloride corrosion in

45
previous research. Therefore, corresponding
research on CFST beam-columns is of great
significance.
This paper thus aims to present a numerical
investigation of square CFST short beam-columns
under the effect of sustained load and chloride
corrosion. With the effect of creep and shrinkage
of inner concrete and wall-thickness loss of outer
steel tube considered, a finite element analytical
(FEA) model for the simulation of square CFST
short beam-column was established. The modeling
method is similar with those presented in Hou
et  al. (2013), Han et  al. (2014b) and Hou et  al.
(2016). This model was used to further investigate
the mechanical behavior of square CFST short
beam-columns under sustained load and chloride
corrosion. The influence of wall-thickness reduc-
tion caused by corrosion is studied and presented.
Moreover, the load transfer mechanism and inter-
action between inner concrete and outer tube are
presented as well to reveal the effects of long-term
loading and chloride corrosion on the composite
action of square CFST short beam-columns.
2 NUMERICAL MODELING
2.1 General description
Based on the finite element software package
ABAQUS, a numerical model considering the long-
term effect of inner concrete as well as the corro-
sion of outer tube was developed. The modeling
methods presented in previous research mentioned
above were adopted in this model.
In order to simulate the wall-thickness loss of
the outer steel tube under the effect of chloride cor-
rosion, 8-node 3D solid elements were adopted for
the modelling of steel tube. The “Model change,
remove” method can be used to simulate the cor-
rosion process. Dai et  al. (2014) has verified the
rationality of simulating the outer steel tube with
two layers of solid elements, which concluded that
solid element could capture the local and overall
buckling effects of the thin-walled tube structure
effectively. As shown in Fig. 1, the outer steel tube
was modeled and cut into five layers while the out-
ermost one layer would be corroded in the corro-
sion process. The 8-node 3D solid elements were
adopted for inner concrete as well, which is widely
accepted by previous researchers.
The CFST specimen was tied to two rigid plates
in the ends. The rigid plates were coupled with two
reference points. Boundary conditions were set on
these reference points, one of which is a hinge con-
straint while another is a roller constraint with the
axial displacement being free for loading. The ref-
erence points were placed with an eccentricity of
46
Figure  1. A schematic view of the FEA modeling
for square CFST short beam-column subjected to
corrosion.
e, so that the combined compressive and bending
state can be achieved. “Coulomb friction” model
with fiction coefficient of 0.6  in tangential direc-
tion and “Hard” contact in normal direction was
applied for the interaction between outer tube and
inner concrete.
In addition, the mesh density was tested by mesh
convergence studies to obtain a balance between
accuracy and computation cost.
2.2 Materials, specimen information and loading
procedure
For the consideration of concrete creep and shrink-
age, a material subroutine based on UMAT was
adopted in the long-term loading stage (Hou et al.,
2013). The increase of concrete strain under sus-
tained compression can be reasonably simulated in
this subroutine, which would be replaced by com-
mon damage plasticity model in the last damage
loading stage. Meanwhile, the elastic-plastic model
was used for outer steel tube, detail information
can be found in Han (2016).
CFST beam-columns were studied in this paper
without considering the influence of slenderness
ratio since the slenderness has much complex influ-
ence on the CFST beam-column behavior, which is
beyond the scope of the current study. Therefore,
the dimension of the square CFST short beam-
column was designed as 140 mm in sectional side
length (B), 420 mm in length (L) and 3.67 mm in
wall-thickness (t) of outer steel tube, which had the
slenderness ratio (λ) of 10.4.
The compressive cube strength (fcu) and the
modulus (Ec) of inner concrete are 40  MPa and
32500 N/mm2 respectively, while the yield strength
(fy) and the modulus (Es) of the steel are 345 MPa
and 206000 N/mm2, respectively.
 Corrosion effect is simplified as even, which
leads to a consistent wall-thickness loss (Δt) on
the tube surface in this model. Based on the trial
calculation results, the corrosion depth is set to be
0.6 mm to avoid possible local buckling. The long-
term loading ratio (n) is the ratio between the sus-
tained load and the ultimate load of the member
without corrosion, which is designed to be 0.3.
Two models were developed for the full-range
simulation of CFST beam-columns under sus-
tained load and chloride corrosion. In the first
model, the subroutine was adopted for the consid-
eration of concrete creep and shrinkage. The long-
term load was applied in the first step and sustained
for 120 days in the next step, since the long-term
effect of inner concrete in CFST would become
stable after 100 days (Han, 2007). After the calcu-
lation of the first model, the stress field and strain
field was imported into the second model. In the
second model, the sustained load was reloaded in
the first step, after which the corroded element was
removed for the simulation of corrosion. When
the corrosion finished, the member was loaded to
failure. It should be noted that, the corrosion proc-
ess was simulated after the long-term loading stage
finished since corrosion is a process with a much
longer duration compared with that of the long-
term effects of concrete.

Figure 2. Comparisons of N-M curves of typical square

3 ANALYTICAL BEHAVIOR CFST short beam-columns under different situations.

Based on the established model, full-range analysis

was conducted to investigate the influence of long-
term loading and corrosion history on the bearing
capacity, load-displacement relationship, contact
force and load transfer mechanism of square
CFST short beam-columns.
3.1 Bearing capacity
Several typical square CFST members mentioned
above were calculated to compare their bearing
capacity deteriorations when suffering long-term
loading and chloride corrosion. Since the load
would keep increase under displacement loading
for members with large eccentricity, the load corre-
sponding to the longitudinal strain in tensile zone
of 0.01 was defined as the ultimate capacity, which
is similar to the definition for CFST beams (Hou
et al., 2016).
Fig.  2  shows the comparisons of N-M curves
and normalized N-M curves under short-term
loading as well as combined long-term loading
and chloride corrosion, where M is the bending
moment in the two ends (M = N⋅e). In the normal-
ized curves, “Nu” and “Mu” are the axial compres-
sive and pure bending strength of the member.
As shown in Fig.  2(a), typical curves of CFST
members are similar to that of reinforced con-
crete beam-columns, there is a characteristic point
on each curve where the largest bending moment
is achieved. The effects of long-term loading and
chloride corrosion apparently lead to a reduction
of the characteristic strength. Table 1 presents the
reduction ratio of ultimate load under long-term
load and chloride corrosion with different eccen-
tricity. The reduction ratio is generally around
10%, the lowest reduction ratio is achieved with an
eccentricity ratio (2e/B) of 0.8. The reduction ratio
will increase when the eccentricity ratio increases or
decreases. When under pure bending, the highest
reduction ratio of strength was obtained as 14.6%.
Fig.  2(b) shows the normalized N-M curves,
which can indicate the influence of long-term
loading and chloride corrosion on the shape of the
curves. It can be seen that the curve moved outward
when suffering combined long-term loading and
chloride corrosion. It is concluded in Han (2007)
that the main factor influencing the position of the
characteristic point for short-term loading CFST
beam-column is the confinement factor ξ, which
is defined by (As ⋅ fy)/(Ac ⋅ fck), and the characteristic

47
Table  1. Reduction ratio of ultimate load under the
effect of sustained load and chloride corrosion.

Eccentricity Nshort-term Ncorrosion Reduction

(mm) (kN) (kN) ratio

0 1454.5 1351.8 7.1%

28 943.4 886.0 6.1%
56 684.0 652.2 4.6%
84 533.8 495.0 7.3%
112 425.4 386.5 9.1%
160 306.7 274.2 10.6%
220 224.4 197.8 11.9%

Figure  3. Comparisons of load versus displacement

point would move outward when the confinement
factor ξ decreased. The phenomena in Fig.  2(b)
indicates that the CFST beam-column suffered
long-term loading and chloride corrosion meet
similar rule since the corrosion of outer steel tube
would lead to the decrease of confinement factor
ξ so that the outward movement of characteristic
point could be induced.
3.2 Load displacement relationship
Based on the above study, the characteristic point
for the typical square CFST short beam-column
corresponds to the eccentricity of 160 mm. There-
fore, the load versus displacement curves for mem-
bers with the eccentricity of 160 mm are compared
in Fig. 3.
Two of these four curves are for the members
under short-term loading as well as combined
long-term loading and chloride corrosion, so that
the effect of long-term loading and chloride cor-
rosion can be expressed. Moreover, to present the
difference between a CFST member with the wall-
thickness of “t-Δt” and the CFST member suffered
this history of combined long-term loading and
chloride corrosion, the other two curves are the
CFST members with the wall-thickness of “t-Δt”
under short-term loading and long-term loading,
respectively.
As can be seen, the long-term loading and chlo-
ride corrosion leads to strength reduction of 10.6%
as well as obvious reduction of stiffness. For the
members with the wall-thickness of “t-Δt”, slightly
stiffness reduction as well as the strength increase
(2.8%) was induced when suffered long-term load-
ing. The member suffered long-term loading with
and without corrosion history shows slight differ-
ence in post-peak stage; the member with corrosion
history is slightly weaker than the one without.
3.3 Load-transfer mechanism
The composite action between inner concrete and
outer steel tube mainly includes two parts: the load
curves.
transfer and the interaction on the contact surface.
The axial load and bending load distribution dur-
ing the loading process is thus presented in Fig.  4.
As showed in the figure, the percentage of bending
moment carried by outer steel tube changed rela-
tively little under the effect of long-term loading and
chloride corrosion, while the percentage of axial load
carried by inner concrete decreased until the axial dis-
placement reached twice of that of the peak-point.
As showed in Fig.  5, there are two opposite
load-transfer inducers in this situation, which
are the long-term loading effect that leads to the
load transfer from concrete to steel tube and the
corrosion effect leading to the load transfer from
steel tube to inner concrete. Results showed in
Fig.  4  indicate that the load-transfer mechanism
induced by long-term loading effect is more sig-
nificant in the initial loading stage of this exam-
ple. The axial load-transfer from inner concrete
to outer steel tube makes the compressive zone of
concrete and the tensile zone of steel tube harder
to fail, which leads to the increase of ultimate
strength compared to the member with the wall-
thickness of “t-Δt”. Moreover, the wall-thickness
loss caused the decrease of capacity for carrying
axial load of steel tube at the later loading stage.
3.4 Interaction
As mentioned above, the interaction on the con-
tact surface is a key aspect of the composite action.
Fig.  6 presents the contact pressure of typical
points on the contact surface under short-term
loading and combined long-term loading and
chloride corrosion.
Points A, B and C showed in Fig. 6 are the points
at the tensile zone, middle height of the side surface
and the compressive zone in the mid-span cross-sec-
tion, respectively. As can be seen, there is no contact
pressure at the middle height of the side surface (B),
which indicates that the confinement effect on the

48
 side surface of square CFST short beam-column is
not significant. The contact pressure in both tensile
and compressive zone decreased before the axial dis-
placement achieved twice that of the peak-point. It
can be explained that the wall-thickness loss caused
by corrosion leads to the reduction of confinement
capacity of the outer steel tube.

4 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Based on the studies in this paper, conclusions can

be drawn as follows:
1. Considering the long-term effect of inner con-
crete and wall-thickness loss of outer tube
caused by corrosion, an FEA model for square
CFST short beam-columns subjected to long-
term eccentric loading and chloride corrosion
was developed.
2. The ultimate strength and stiffness of the
square CFST short beam-columns decreased
when suffered sustained load and chloride cor-
rosion. Meanwhile, the long-term effect and
corrosion history induced remarkable influence
on the load-displacement relationship of the
members.
3. The influence of long-term load and corrosion
Figure 4. Load distribution between inner concrete and on the load-transfer and interaction between
outer steel tube under different situations.
inner concrete and outer steel tube was revealed
to clarify the effect on the composite action
under sustained load and chloride corrosion.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The research reported in this paper is part of the

Project 51178245 supported by the National Natu-
ral Science Foundation of China (NSFC). The
financial support is highly appreciated.
Figure  5. Two opposite load-transfer mechanisms
when suffered combined long-term loading and chloride
corrosion.
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culations for hollow structural steel (HSS) stub col-
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filled steel tubular (CFST) members under loading
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outer steel tube under different situations. structional Steel Research 71: 11–25.

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Han, L.H., Li, W. & Bjorhovde, R. 2014a. Developments
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circular CFST stub columns under sustained load and
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theory and practice (3nd version). Beijing: China Sci-
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ysis on square CFST stub columns and beams under
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tures 68: 50–64.
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Hou, C.C., Han, L.H., Wang, Q.L., et al. 2016. Flexural
behavior of circular concrete filled steel tubes (CFST)
under sustained load and chloride corrosion. Thin-
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Potyondy, J.G. 1985. Concrete filled tubular steel struc-
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posite action in concrete filled tubes. Journal of struc-
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Parametric study on the flexural behaviour of circular rubberized

concrete-filled steel tubes

J.B. Chen & T.M. Chan

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

J.M. Castro
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a parametric study on the monotonic and cyclic flexural behaviour of
circular rubberized Concrete-Filled Steel Tube (CFST) beam-columns. Finite Element (FE) models were
developed using the FE software ABAQUS (2013). The FE models were validated against sixteen circular
rubberized CFST beam-columns incorporating different parameters including diameter to thickness ratio
(D/t ratio), concrete cube strength (aggregate replacement ratio), axial load ratio, and lateral load type
(monotonic and cyclic) conducted by Silva et al. (2016). Subsequently, the validated FE modelling meth-
odology was used to conduct a parametric study to investigate the influence of D/t ratio, concrete cube
strength, steel yield strength, axial load ratio, and lateral load type on the ductility and cumulative energy
dissipation behaviour of circular rubberized CFST beam-columns.

1 INTRODUCTION
In recent years, CFST members have been increas-
ingly used in modern structures due to its favour-
able load-carrying capacity and ductility. CFST is
an efficient combination of steel and concrete, mak-
ing full use of the strengths from both materials.
The infill concrete can delay, even eliminate local
buckling of steel tubes. And in turn, the steel tube
can confine the concrete core which can increase
both the strength and ductility of concrete.
Significant progress has been made in the past few
decades on the behaviour of CFST members (Tomii
et al. 1977, Schneider 1998, Han 2002, Giakoumelis
& Lam 2004, Liew & Xiong 2010, Yu et  al. 2013,
Evirgen et  al. 2014, Ren et  al. 2014, and Xu et  al.
2016) and the influence of extensive parameters, like
cross-sectional shapes (circular, rectangular, square,
hexagonal, and octagonal sections), D/t ratio, steel
yield strength and concrete strength has been studied.
The strength of structural members is continu-
ously degraded when the member is subjected to
cyclic load since the cyclic load leads to material
cumulative damage. Due to the higher capac-
ity, excellent ductility and low strength degrada-
tion compared to reinforced concrete members,
CFST members have been increasingly used in
earthquake-resistant structures. Several investiga-
tions have been carried out to study the hysteretic
behaviour of CFST members (Ge & Usami 1996,
Nakanishi et  al. 1999, Elremaily & Azizinamini
2002, Varma et al. 2002, 2004, Nie et al. 2012, Shee-
han & Chan 2014, Skalomenos et al. 2014, 2016).
Currently, the application of rubberized concrete
has drawn the interest of many researchers. Rub-
berized concrete not only has a higher ductility,
but also is environmentally-friendly since the waste
rubber is recycled (Xue & Shinpzuka 2013). Duarte
et al. (2016a, b, c) experimentally and numerically
investigated the rubberized CFSTs under axial load
and flexural load, and found that the ductility of
CFSTs were greatly increased if rubberized con-
crete was used instead of conventional concrete.
Silva et al (2016) conducted sixteen circular rubber-
ized CFST tests under combined axial and flexural
load to study the hysteretic behaviour of circular
rubberized CFST beam-columns. The authors con-
cluded that the cross-section slenderness ratio limit
in Eurocode 3 (2004) and Eurocode 8 (2005) were
conservative for circular rubberized CFST mem-
bers since the ductility was much improved.
This paper aims to establish accurate FE mod-
els to simulate the flexural behaviour of circular
rubberized CFST beam-columns. The FE models
were validated against tests conducted by Silva
et al. (2016). Subsequently, the validated FE mod-
elling methodology was used to carry out a para-
metric study to investigate the influence of D/t
ratio, concrete cube strength, steel yield strength,
axial load ratio, and lateral load type on the ductil-
ity and cumulative energy dissipation of circular
rubberized CFST beam-columns.

51
2 PREVIOUS EXPERIMENTAL TESTS

The experimental tests conducted by Silva et  al.

(2016) consist of sixteen circular CFST specimens,
twelve with rubberized concrete and four with
standard concrete. The cube strength of the stand-
ard concrete is 53 MPa. Regarding rubberized con-
crete, two levels of aggregate replacement ratios, 5%
and 15%, by substituting the coarse aggregate by
rubber particles, were used and the corresponding
cube strengths are 39 MPa and 20 MPa. The axial
load ratios defined as the ratio of the applied load
to the axial plastic capacity of the cross-section were
taken as 0 and 0.15. The details of the specimens
are listed in Table 1, in which the specimen designa-
Figure 2. Steel stress-strain curves.
Table 1. Specimen list.

Concrete tion is a simple combination of cross-section type,

cube Steel tube Axial concrete cube strength, axial load ratio and lateral
strength D×t load load type (monotonic and cyclic). The schematic
Designation MPa mm × mm kN test setup is shown in Figure  1. The steel coupon
C219-3-20-0-M 20 0
test results (Engineering stress strain curves) and
219 × 3
converted true stress strain curves (the range after
C219-3-20-15-M 20 219 × 3 222
necking is not included) are presented in Figure 2.
C219-3-20-0-C 20 219 × 3 0
C219-3-20-15-C 20 219 × 3 222
C219-5-20-0-M 20 219 × 5 0
3 NUMERICAL MODELLING
C219-5-20-15-M 20 219 × 5 290
C219-5-20-0-C 20 219 × 5 0
In this study, the FE software ABAQUS (2013)
C219-5-20-15-C 20 219 × 5 290
was adopted to establish an accurate FE model for
C219-5-39-0-M 39 219 × 5 0
predicting the flexural and hysteretic behaviours of
C219-5-39-15-M 39 219 × 5 359 CFST members.
C219-5-39-0-C 39 219 × 5 0
C219-5-39-15-C 39 219 × 5 359
C219-5-53-0-M 53 219 × 5 0 3.1 Element type, meshes and boundary
C219-5-53-15-M 53 219 × 5 380 conditions
C219-5-53-0-C 53 219 × 5 0 The CSFT members consist of two different
C219-5-53-15-C 53 219 × 5 380 parts, namely a concrete core and a steel tube. The
former was modelled using the C3D8R solid ele-
ment, while the latter was modelled using the S4R
shell element (Ellobody et al. 2006, Li & Han 2011,
Lai et al. 2014, Thai et al. 2014). Considering both
the computational efficiency and the accuracy
of the modelling results, the beam-columns were
modelled with mixed mesh sizes. Refined mesh was
used for the bottom 200 mm part where the stress
gradient is higher, while a coarser mesh was used
for the remaining column where the stress gradient
is smaller. Due to the symmetry of the tests and in
order to reduce the computational efforts, a half
model was used. The mesh of the concrete core,
steel tube, and the cross-section mesh discretiza-
tion of the column are shown in Figures  3a, 3b,
and Figure 4, respectively.
As for the boundary conditions, the columns
were cantilevered, fixed at the bottom section of
Figure 1. Schematic test setup. (Silva et al. (2016)). both concrete core and steel tube and free at the

52
 iour of concrete. In this model, a Poison ratio, ν,
equal to 0.2 and a Young’s modulus Ec, calculated
according to Equation 1 (ACI318 2011), where fc′ is
in MPa, were adopted.

Ec fc ′ (1)

Figure 3. Mesh of the 3D FE model.

Flow potential eccentricity (e) and viscos-
ity parameter were taken as 0.1 and 1  ×  10–5
respectively.
The dilation angle (ψ) for circular CFST mem-
bers was calculated using Equation 2 proposed by
Tao et al. (2013).

⎧ 56.3(1 − ξc ξc ≤ 0.5
⎪
ψ =⎨ 7.4 (2)
⎪⎩6.672
672e 4.64 +ξc for ξc > 0.5

Figure 4. Cross-section mesh discretization. where the confinement factor ξc is defined in

Equation 3.

top section. A constant axial load and an imposed As fy

lateral load were applied to the top section. ξc = (3)
Ac fc′

3.2 Contact In which As and Ac are the cross-sectional areas

The contact interaction between the concrete core
and the steel tube was modelled using surface-
to-surface contact in ABAQUS. In the normal
direction of the two surfaces, a “hard contact”
behaviour, allowing for separation but not pen-
etration, was defined. As for the tangential com-
ponent, a Coulomb friction model was adopted
to simulate the friction force that developed when
slippage between the two surfaces occurred. In this
study, a value of 0.5 (Lai et al. 2014) was adopted
for the friction coefficient of the contact surface of
the whole length of the members.
3.3 Material modelling of steel
In the elastic behaviour range of the steel tube mate-
rial, a Young modulus, Es, of 200  GPa (Hu et  al.
2003) and a Poisson ratio, v, equal to 0.3 (Hu et al.
2003, Elloboday et al. 2006) were used. As for the
material inelasticity, the nonlinear isotropic model
was adopted for the modelling of members under
monotonic load, while the combined nonlinear iso-
tropic/kinematic model was adopted for the mod-
elling of the members under cyclic load. The true
stress strain curves converted from the tensile cou-
pon test data were input into ABAQUS (2013).
3.4 Material modelling of concrete
The concrete damage plasticity model in ABAQUS
(2013) was adopted to model the nonlinear behav-
of the steel tube and concrete, respectively; fy and
fc′ are steel yield strength and concrete cylinder
strength. The relationship between concrete cube
strength (fcm) and concrete cylinder strength (fc′) is
expressed in Equation 4 (Tao et al. 2013).
⎛ f ⎞
fc ′ = 0.76 + 0.2 log10 cm ⎟ fcm (4)
⎝ 19.6 ⎠
The ratio of the compressive strength under
biaxial loading to the uniaxial compressive
strength (fb0/fc′) was estimated with Equation  5
(Papanikolaou & Kappos 2007).
fb0 fc ′ 1.5( fc ′ )−0.075 (5)
The ratio of the second stress invariant on the
tensile meridian to that on the compressive merid-
ian (Kc) was determined using Equation  6 pro-
posed by Yu et al. (2010).
5.5 fb0 5.5
Kc = = (6)
3 fc ′ fb fc ′ )0 075 + 5
As for strain hardening and softening rules
(shown in Figs.  5, 6), the model used in Duarte
et al. (2016b) was adopted.
The calculations of the damage parameters fol-
lowed the recommendation of Li & Han (2011).
It is assumed in the uniaxial stress-strain plane

53
 including four monotonic tests without axial load,
four monotonic tests with axial load, four cyclic
tests without axial load, and four cyclic tests with
axial load.
The comparisons of the local buckling mecha-
nism and the fracture mechanism between test
results and FE modelling results are presented in
Figures 7 and 8. The results indicate that the FE
model can accurately simulate the local deforma-
tion behaviour.
In addition, Figures  9 to 12  show a compari-
Figure 5. Concrete hardening rule in compression. son of lateral load and lateral displacement curves
between the test results and the FE modelling
results, taking the specimens C219-5-39-0-M,
C219-5-53-15-M, C219-5-39-0-C, and C219-5-39-
15-C as examples of the monotonic tests without
axial load, the monotonic tests with axial load,
the cyclic tests without axial load, and the cyclic
tests with axial load, respectively. The results reveal

Figure 6. Concrete softening rule in tension.

that there are some geometrical locations defined

as ‘focal points’. The coordinates of these virtual
focal points are given by Equations 7 and 8. Figure  7. Comparison of local buckling mechanism
between the test results and the FE modelling.
⎛ nσ ⎞
R( xR , yR ) , ncσ cu ⎟ (7)
⎝ Ec ⎠
⎛ ntσ tt0 ⎞
Z ( xZ , yZ ) , ntσ tt0 ⎟ (8)
⎝ cE ⎠

where, σcu and σt0 are the ultimate compressive and

tensile stresses, respectively; nc and nt are the con-
Figure 8. Comparison of fracture mechanism between
stant factors for compression and tension, respec- the test results and the FE modelling.
tively. nc and nt should be larger than 0. Therefore,
the damage variables can be then defined as
follows:

σ c + ncσ cu
dc = 1 − (9)
nc cu Ecε c
σ t + ntσ tt0
dt = 1− (10)
nt t0 Ecε t

In this paper, both nc and nt were taken as 0.5.

4 VALIDATION OF FE MODELS

In order to ensure the accuracy and reliability of

the FE model, a validation process was conducted
against the sixteen tests described in Section  2, Figure 9. Comparison of specimen C219-5-39-0-M.

54
 5 PARAMETRIC STUDY

In this section, the validated FE model was used

to carry out a parametric study to investigate the
influence of D/t ratio, steel yield strength, the con-
crete aggregate replacement ratio, axial load ratio,
and lateral load type on the ductility and cumu-
lative energy dissipation of circular rubberized
CFST beam columns.
The outer diameter of the steel tube is 219 mm,
while the thicknesses of the tube ranges from
2.4 mm to 5.7 mm, in which the D/t ratios vary from
50ε2 to 120ε2. The length of all columns is 1.35 m.
Three types of concrete, which are consistent with
Silva et al. (2016), are considered in the parametric
Figure 10. Comparison of specimen C219-5-53-15-M. study. The corresponding concrete cube strengths
are 53 MPa, 39 MPa, and 20 MPa, respectively. The
axial load ratios vary from 0 to 0.6 with an inter-
val of 0.1. It should be noted that 0.3 is the upper
limit of axial load ratio for all composite columns
in moment-resisting frames specified in Eurocode
8 (2005). The loading protocol for the modelling
of members subjected to cyclic load is the same as
Silva et al. (2016). Regarding the FE modelling of
CFSTs without axial load, the lateral drift ratio is
limited to 8% (the corresponding lateral displace-
ment was 1350  ×  8%  =  108  mm) since there is a
dramatic decrease of lateral load when the lateral
drift ratio exceeds 8%, as shown in Figure 11. As for
CFSTs with axial load, the lateral displacement was
limited to the displacement when the lateral load
falls to the 85% peak load in the descending part.
Figure  13 demonstrates a typical lateral load
Figure 11. Comparison of specimen C219-5-39-0-C. and lateral displacement curve, in which K, Py, Δy,
Δu are the initial stiffness, the peak lateral load, the
yield displacement, and the displacement when the
lateral laod drops to 85% of Py. Ductility ratio, μ,
is defined in Equation 11 to evaluate the ductility
of CFST members subjected to a constant axial
load and monotonic or cyclic flexural loading
(Han et al. 2003, Han & Yang 2005).

Figure 12. Comparison of specimen C219-5-39-15-C.

that the FE model can precisely capture both the

monotonic and cyclic behaviours, such as the stiff-
ness, ultimate lateral force, and strength degrada- Figure  13. Typical lateral load-lateral displacement
tion due to cyclic lateral load. curve.

55
 Δu Figure 16 presents the lateral load and lateral dis-
μ= (11) placement curves, while the results of accumulative
Δy
dissipated energy are shown in Figure 17. With the

The cumulative hysteresis dissipated energy (Eh)

is the energy that the CFST members dissipate dur-
ing the cyclic load and is expressed in Equation 12.

∑
n
Eh i =1
( Eit + Eic ) (12)

where i is the number of cycles, Eit and Eic are the

energies dissipated in the ith half cycle in tension
and the ith half cycle in compression respectively.

5.1 Effect of D/t ratio

The values of 50ε2, 80ε2, 90ε2 (limits in Eurocode
4), and 120ε2 were adopted to investigate the
influence of D/t ratio. Other parameters, namely
the concrete cube strength (39  MPa), steel yield Figure 15. Comparison of cumulative dissipated energy
strength (308 MPa), and the axial load ratio (0.3), for columns with different D/t ratios.
were kept constant.
Figure  14 presents the lateral load and lat-
eral displacement curves for CFST members
under monotonic load, while the results in terms
of cumulative dissipated energy are shown in
Figure 15 for the CFST members under cyclic load.
With the increase of D/t ratio from 50ε2 to 120ε2,
the ductility ratio decreases by 24% from 5.83 to
4.42, and the cumulative dissipated energy drops
dramatically as well from 61.3 kN⋅m to 11.1 kN⋅m.

5.2 Effect of concrete strength

To study the influence of concrete cube strength,
three cube strengths consistent with the test described
in Section  2 were used. Other parameters, namely,
steel yield strength (308 MPa), D/t ratio (90ε2), and Figure 16. Comparison of lateral load-lateral displace-
the axial load ratio (0.3), remained constant. ment curves for columns with different concrete cube
strength.

Figure 14. Comparison of lateral load-lateral displace- Figure 17. Comparison of cumulative dissipated energy
ment curves for columns with different D/t ratios. for columns with different concrete cube strength.

56
increase of concrete cube strength from 20  MPa
to 53 MPa, the ductility ratio falls by 27.5% from
6.32 to 4.58, and the cumulative dissipated energy
decreases from 32.7 kN⋅m to 28.7 kN⋅m.
5.3 Effect of steel yield strength
Three steel yield strengths, 275 MPa, 355 MPa and
460 MPa with the constitutive model proposed by
Yun & Gardner 2017, were used. Other parame-
ters, namely the concrete cube strength (39 MPa),
D/t ratio (90ε2), and the axial load ratio (0.3), were
kept constant.
Figure  18 presents the lateral load and lat-
eral displacement curves of the CFSTs under
combined axial load and flexural load while
Figure  19  shows the results of cumulative dis-
sipation energy. While the steel yield strength
increases from 275  MPa to 460  MPa, the duc-
tility ratio drops slightly by 5.6% from 4.30 to
Figure  18. Comparison of lateral load-lateral dis-
placement curves for columns with different steel yield
strength.
Figure 19. Comparison of cumulative dissipated energy
for columns with different steel yield strength.
57
4.06, however the cumulative dissipated energy
is almost doubled from 14.3 kN⋅m to 26.2 kN⋅m.
5.4 Effect of axial load ratio
The influence of the axial load ratio was thor-
oughly investigated in this section. The axial load
ratios were taken from 0 to 0.6 with an interval of
0.1. Other parameters, namely the concrete cube
strength (39 MPa), steel yield strength (308 MPa),
and D/t ratio (90ε2), were kept constant.
Figure  20  shows the lateral load and lateral
displacement curves, while Figure 21 presents the
results of cumulative energy dissipation behaviour
of CFSTs under cyclic lateral load. When axial
load ratio is 0, the lateral load keeps increasing.
Therefore, no ductility ratio can be defined. The
ductility ratio plunged from 7.42 to 3.82 with the
axial load ratio rises from 0.2 to 0.6. Moreover,
the cumulative dissipated energy falls by 85% from
Figure 20. Comparison of lateral load-lateral displace-
ment curves for columns with different axial load ratios.
Figure 21. Comparison of cumulative dissipated energy
for columns with different axial load ratio.

Figure 22. Comparison of lateral load-lateral displace-
ment curves for columns with different loading type.
91.7 kN⋅m to 13.8 kN⋅m when the axial load ratio
varies from 0 to 0.6.
5.5 Effect of lateral load type
There is accumulated strength degradation due to
the local bucking of the steel tube and the concrete
crack and crushing of concrete when CFST mem-
bers are subjected to cyclic load. Taking the speci-
men when D/t = 90 ε2, fy = 308 MPa, fcm = 39 MPa
and n = 0.3 as an example, the lateral load, when
lateral displacement is 46.05  mm (corresponding
to Δu), reduced by 26% from 42.15 kN to 31.08 kN.
6 CONCLUSIONS
A 3D FE model was developed in this paper to
simulate the hysteretic behaviour of circular rub-
berized CFST members. The FE model was vali-
dated against sixteen tests. Subsequently, the FE
model was used to conduct a parametric study to
investigate the influence of D/t ratio, concrete cube
strength, steel yield strength, axial load ratio and
load types on the ductility of energy dissipation
behaviour of circular rubberized CFST members.
The results of the parametric study indicate
that the ductility ratio is significantly affected by
the D/t ratio, concrete cube strength and axial load
ratio, but slightly influenced by steel yield strength.
With the increase of the D/t ratio, concrete cube
strength and axial load ratio, the ductility ratio falls
sharply, indicating that the ductility of the CFST
members is reduced. However, increasing the steel
yield strength from 275  MPa to 460  MPa causes
only a 5.6% drop of the ductility ratio. The notable
changes in the cumulative dissipated energy sug-
gest the obvious effects of the D/t ratio, concrete
58
cube strength, steel yield strength and axial load
ratio on the energy dissipation behaviour of CFST
members. Moreover, the strength degradation due
to cyclic load is significant and capacity loss can
be up to 26%.
ACKNOWLEGEMENT
Authors are also grateful for the support by the
research funding from the Construction Industry
Council under the project “Application of Polygo-
nal High Strength Concrete-filled Composite Col-
umn in Seismic-resistant Buildings in Hong Kong”
and the support from the Chinese National Engi-
neering Research Centre for Steel Construction
(Hong Kong Branch).
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Capacity of high strength square hollow section steel tube filled

with concrete and hardwood timber

H. Jiao
School of Engineering and ICT, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

X.L. Zhao
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

T. Ghanbari Ghazijahani
School of Engineering and ICT, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a study on the compressive behavior of a composite structural mem-
ber that consist of steel, concrete and hardwood timber. Samples were created in such a way that a hard-
wood timber core was placed in the middle of each SHS tube before concrete was filled in the tube. A total
of 14 samples, with the timber diameter ranging from 30 mm to 80 mm, were tested under axial compres-
sion. The test results were compared with those of hollow steel tubes and fully concrete filled tubes. The
aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of utilizing the fast-growing planation hardwood resources
in Australia to produce innovative structural members for the construction industry.

1 INTRODUCTION an increasingly plantation hardwood estate. While

The behavior of concrete filled steel columns
under axial loading have been extensively studied
by many researchers (Zhao & Packer 2009; Bong
Kwon et al. 2011; Yang & Han 2011; Dundu 2012).
The load carrying capacity and energy absorption
of concrete filled steel columns were improved with
the double skin concrete filled steel columns (Zhao
& Grzebieta 2002; Han et al. 2004; Han et al. 2006;
Lu et  al. 2010; Zhao et  al. 2010; Li et  al. 2012;
Farahi et al. 2016). In this study, a hardwood cyl-
inder timber core was placed in the center of high
strength square hollow section steel tube before
concrete was cast in between the timber and steel.
A study was conducted on the behavior of con-
crete-filled circular steel stub columns with a timber
infill (Ghazijahani et al. 2017). The specimens were
prepared using mild steel tube with a yield stress of
around 300 MPa, soft wood of Radiata pine with a
grade of MGP10 and C35 concrete. It was found a
solid timber, as an infill, can more effectively prevent
the inward failure of the concrete compared to the
double skin concrete-filled tubes. The compressive
capacity of the composite column was enhanced.
The fast-growing plantation hardwood resources
in Australia make it a potential to use hardwood logs
as infill in concrete filled steel columns. Australia has
two major hardwood resources, a native forest estate
producing a steadily decreasing supply of logs, and
4 million m3 of native forest hardwood logs were har-
vested in Australia in 2013–14, almost 7 million m3
of plantation hardwood logs were harvested in the
same year (ABARE 2013). The availability of plan-
tation hardwood saw logs is projected to increase
over the next five to ten years (Nolan et  al. 2005).
While Australian Government policy intended to
expand Australia’s commercial plantations of hard-
woods so pas to provide an additional, economically
viable, reliable and high-quality wood resource for
industry, the majority of plantations have been man-
aged and grown predominantly for pulpwood with
98 per cent of logs harvested from these forests being
used for paper manufacturing and woodchip exports
in 2011–12. The plantation management teams rec-
ognized the risk of exposure to a single market. Steps
are taken to diversify the potential product stream.
As hardwood logs have performance characteristics
that most softwoods cannot match, such as higher
strength and higher durability, there are potentials to
use hardwood as infill for concrete filled composite
columns for the building industry.
High strength cold-formed SHS steel tube with a
yield stress of 760 MPa was used in this study. The
behavior of high strength and ultra-high strength
steel has been investigated extensively by many
researchers (Van Binh et al. 2004; Kim et al. 2010; Shi
et al. 2012; Ban et al. 2013; Zhao et al. 2014; Chan
et al. 2015). The aim of this study is to examine the

61
failure mode and the load carrying capacity of stub
columns consist of high strength steel, concrete and
hardwood as an infill. Results are compared with
those reported in Ghazijahani et al. (2017).

2 MATERIAL PROPERTIES

2.1 High strength steel square hollow section

The high strength tubes used in this study have
a nominal dimension of 100  ×  100  ×  3  mm. Two
tensile coupons were cut from the web of a tube. Figure  3. Hardwood timber samples for compressive
Strain gauges were applied on each sample. Ten- strength test.
sile tests were conducted in accordance with SAA
(1991). The two samples showed ductile failure
with necking in the middle section as shown in
Figure  1. Figure  2  shows the stress-strain curves.
An average of 760 MPa and 860 MPa was obtained
for the yield stress and the ultimate tensile strength
respectively with a Young’s modulus of 199.4 GPa.

2.2 Hardwood timber

The species of the hardwood timber was Tasmania
oak. Timber boards with the cross-sectional dimen-
sion of 45 × 90 mm was purchased from the local
hardware store. Twenty samples were prepared
with the dimension of 43  ×  43 × 176  mm shown
in Figure 3. Compression tests were conducted in Figure 4. Typical failure mode of the hardwood timber
accordance with AS/NZS4603.1 (SAA 2010). All samples in compression.

Table 1. Hardwood compression test results.

Cross-sectional Ultimate Strength

Label dimension (mm) load (kN) (MPa)

W1 43 × 43 134.5 72.7

W2 43 × 43 120.5 65.2
W3 43 × 43 126.8 68.6
W4 43 × 43 124 67.1
W5 43 × 43 118 63.8
W6 43 × 43 129 69.8
Figure 1. Failure mode of the tensile coupons. W7 43 × 43 122 66.0
W8 43 × 43 126.5 68.4
W9 43 × 43 115.5 62.5
W10 43 × 43 131.4 71.1
W11 43 × 43 127 68.7
W12 43 × 43 120 64.9
W13 43 × 43 125.2 67.7
W14 43 × 43 125.8 68.0
W15 43 × 43 115.6 62.5
W16 43 × 43 120.3 65.1
W17 43 × 43 126.5 68.4
W18 43 × 43 128.2 69.3
W19 43 × 43 124 67.1
W20 43 × 43 117 63.3
Mean 67.0
COV 0.041
Figure 2. Stress-strain curves of the tensile coupons.

62
samples failed by diagonal shear of the timber
fibers at one end of each sample. Figure 4 shows
the typical failure mode. The ultimate load and
strength of the samples are listed in Table  1. An
average of 67 MPa was obtained with a standard
deviation of 0.041.
The moisture content of the hardwood was
measured in accordance with AS/NZS1080.1 (SAA
2012). An average of 10.5% was obtained.
2.3 Concrete
The concrete used in this study was purchased
from the local hardware store. Six concrete cylin-
ders with the diameter of 100 mm and the height
of 200  mm were cast at the same time when the
other concrete fill stub column samples were pre-
pared. Compression test were conducted after the
samples were cured for 28 days. An average com-
pressive strength of 39 MPa was obtained.
3 STUB COLUMNS TEST
Concrete was filled in between the steel and timber
core. Strain gauges were applied on the samples before
testing. Figure 5 shows the samples. A diamond grind-
ing wheel was used to remove the excessive concrete
and timber on the top end surface of each specimen
to ensure the even contact of the steel, concrete and
timber with the loading head of the testing machine.
3.2 Test setup
Compression tests were conducted in a universal
testing machine with a load capacity of 5000 kN
as shown in Figure 6.
A HBM QuantumX MX1615 data acquisition
system was used to log the load, displacement and
strain data. All samples were tested to failure with
a loading rate of 5 × 10–5/s.
3.3 Failure modes
The void SHS stub columns failed by inward
and outwards bucking of the webs as shown in

3.1 Specimen preparation

A total of 14 stub column samples were prepared.
Two of the samples were fully filled with concrete
while three were tested as void SHS tube without
any infill. The other nine samples were filled with
concrete and varying diameter hardwood timber
core. The sample details are listed in Table 3. Dtimber
refers to the diameter of the timber infill.
All steel SHS tubes were cut into 315 mm in length.
Two end surfaces of each tube were machined paral- Figure 5. Stub column samples.
lel to each other. Hardwood infill were machined into
cylinder and cut to 315 mm in length. All hardwood
cores were wrapped with a layer of thin waterproof
membrane before placed in the center of a SHS tube.

Table 2. Sample details.

Dtimber Ultimate
Label Infill materials (mm) load (kN)

S1 Timber + concrete 80 930
S2 Timber + concrete 70 950
S3 Timber + concrete 60 975
S4 Timber + concrete 50 875
S5 Timber + concrete 40 890
S6 Timber + concrete 30 1013
S7 Timber + concrete 70 925
S8 Timber + concrete 50 950
S9 Timber + concrete 30 850
S10 Void – 554
S11 Void – 625
S12 Void – 521
S13 Concrete – 854
S14 Concrete – 935
Figure 6. Test setup.

63
Figure  7(a). This is similar to the failure mode
of SHS stub columns tested by other researchers
(Zhao et al. 2016).
The samples fully filled with concrete failed by
the yielding of the steel and crashing of concrete.
While the concrete inside the tube prevented inward
buckling of the steel webs, outward bulges were
formed as shown in Figure 8.
The samples filled with concrete and a hard-
wood timber core of different diameters showed
similar failure mode to that of concrete filled tubes
with outward bulges being formed. Figure  9(a)
shows the typical failure mode of the samples. The
outward bulge failure mode is also similar to that
of concrete filled softwood cored circular steel
stub columns tested in Ghazijahani, et al. (2017) as
shown in Figure 9(b). The red arrows illustrate the
timber core sprang out from the end surface after
testing that was not observed in current tests.
3.4 Compressive capacity of stub columns
The section slenderness of the SHS tube was calcu-
lated in accordance with AS4100 (SAA 1998) using
Equation 1. A yield stress of 760 MPa was used and
a section slenderness of 54.6 was obtained. The sec-
tion was not fully effective. Local buckling occurred
Figure 7. Failure mode of void SHS stub column. (a)
samples in this study (b) a sample tested by (Zhao et al.
2016).
Figure  8. Failure mode of samples fully filled with
concrete.
64
Figure 9. Failure mode of samples filled with concrete
and timber.
during compression. A theoretical section capacity
of 655 kN was obtained. The average capacity of
the three void SHS samples was 567  kN which is
lower than the theoretical capacity. This may be due
to the fact that slender section tubes subject to axial
compression are sensitive to the end condition.
Although effort was made by the authors to make
both ends of each sample parallel, it was found that
the ends were not 100% evenly contact with the
loading head of the testing machine.
f
b y
λ= (1)
t 250
An average compressive capacity of 895 kN was
obtained from the two samples fully filled with
concrete. A theoretical compressive capacity of the
composite stub column was calculated as the sum-
mary of the capacities of the materials in a col-
umn, i.e., steel, concrete and timber in Equation 2,
where kf is the form factor of the SHS section; As,
Ac and At refer to the cross sectional area of steel,
concrete and timber.
P = k f As f y c Ac + σ t At (2)
theory
A comparison of the theoretical capacity (Ptheory)
and the experimental capacity (Pexperiment) is shown
in Table 3.
The ratio of Pexperiment/Ptheory is illustrated in Fig-
ure 10. It can be seen from Figure 10 that the com-
pressive capacities of the samples obtained from the
experiment are between 80% and 100% of the theo-
Table 3. Comparison of the test results.

Label Pexperiment (mm) Ptheory (kN) Pexperiment/Ptheory

S1 930 1140 0.82

S2 950 1107 0.86
S3 975 1079 0.90
S4 875 1055 0.83
S5 890 1035 0.86
S6 1013 1019 0.99
S7 925 1107 0.84
S8 950 1055 0.90
S9 850 1019 0.83 Figure 11. Ratios of the experimental capacity of sam-
S10 554 655 0.85 ples with a timber infill to the average capacity of the
S11 625 655 0.95 SHS void samples.
S12 521 655 0.80
S13 854 1000 0.85
S14 935 1000 0.94

Figure 12. Ratios of the experimental capacity of sam-

ples with a timber infill to the average capacity of the
fully concrete filled samples.

Figure  10. Ratios of the experimental capacity to the

theoretical capacity of the samples.

retical capacities calculated from Equation 2. This is

similar to the results reported in Ghazijahani et al.
(2017). The decrease of the load carrying capacity
comparing with the theoretical values may be due to
the boundary condition as mentioned before.
A comparison was made between the compres-
sive capacities of the stub columns with a timber
infill and those of void SHS tubes as well as those
of fully concrete filled tubes. Figure 11 and 12 show
Figure  13. Ratios of the experimental capacity to the
the ratios of the capacity of the timber filled sam-
sample self-weight versus the diameter of timber infill.
ples to the average capacity of the void SHS samples
and fully concrete filled tubes respectively. It can be
seen that the compressive capacity was increased by capacity per unit weight of the samples is linearly
60% compared to SHS tubes without any infill. It increasing with the increase of the diameter of the
can be seen from Figure 12 that the stub columns timber infills.
with a timber infill has a capacity equivalent to that
of the fully concrete filled tubes.
While the capacities of the stub columns with a 4 CONCLUSIONS
timber infill are similar to those of fully concrete
filled tubes, the timber infill helped in reducing Compressive tests were conducted on the stub col-
member self-weight. The ratios of the maximum umns of high strength SHS tubes filled with con-
load to the weight of each sample are shown in crete and a timber core. The following conclusions
Figure  13. It can be seen that the load carrying are drawn based on the limited test results:

65
• The capacity of the stub columns filled with
concrete was about 80 to 100% of the theoreti-
cal values calculated from the summary of the
capacity of the materials involved.
• The reduction of the experimental capacity may
be due to the boundary conditions.
• The compressive capacity of the stub columns
with a timber infill increased about 60% of the
SHS void stub columns and was equivalent to
those of fully concrete filled tubes.
• The timber infill reduced member self-weight.
The load carrying capacity per unit weight of
the samples linearly increased with the increase
of the diameter of the timber infill.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful for the support from
SSAB in providing the testing materials.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Eccentric compressive behavior of concrete-filled double skin steel tubes

with dodecagonal section

J. Wang & J. Chen

Department of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hang Zhou, P.R. China

F. Xu
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, P.R. China

ABSTRACT: This paper aims to study the eccentric compressive behaviour of Concrete-Filled Double
Skin steel Tubes (CFDST) with dodecagonal section. Totally seven specimens with the length of 2000-mm
were tested. The mechanical behaviour of these composite columns such as the load-vertical displace-
ment, load-strain, load-lateral displacement and distribution of lateral displacement were investigated.
The parameter study with respect to diameter to thickness ratio was conducted by finite element analysis.
Finally, the ultimate strengths for the circular section CFDSTs under eccentric compressive load were cal-
culated by current design equations such as Han’s method and AISC standard 360–10 and were compared
with the test results. The comparison shows the predicted results proposed by Han is larger than the test
results, while the design equations proposed based on AISC standard 360–10 is conservative.

1 INTRODUCTION a series of tests on CFDST stub columns and

The use of concrete-filled steel tubes (CFST) is
growing because of their superior performance.
A creative innovation of composite construction
is known as concrete-filled double skin steel tubes
(CFDST) were introduced and have been studied
by many researchers (Han 2010). CFDST columns
are composite members which consist of an inner
and outer steel skin with the annulus between the
skins filled with concrete (Huang 2010). CFDST
columns also hold the characteristics of concrete-
filled steel tubes (CFST), and have been recognized
to have a series of advantages, such as high strength
and bending stiffness, good seismic and fire per-
formance (Han 2011). The common form of cross
section of CFDST columns are shown in Figure 1.
Many studies have been carried out on concrete
filled double skin tubular (CFDST) columns. Han
et  al. (Tao & Han 2004, Han 2006) conducted
beam-columns with the section of Figure  1(a),
Figure  1(d) and Figure  1(e), and corresponding
models are derived to predict the load-carrying
capacities of these composite members with differ-
ent parameters. Zhao et al. (2002) studied the axial
compression behaviour of CFDST stub columns
with the section of Figure 1(b) and Figure 1(c).
This paper is devoted to investigate the behaviour
of thin-walled dodecagonal section concrete-filled
double skin steel tubular beam-columns. Special
attention was placed on the measured strength and
strain in order to discuss the behaviour of dode-
cagonal section CFDST beam columns. Finite ele-
ment analysis was conducted to further investigate
the failure mode and the ultimate bearing capacity
of tested specimens. Parametric analysis were car-
ried out using the developed finite element model.
The suitability of current design methods for cir-
cular section CFDST columns was evaluated.

Figure 1. Typical sections of concrete-filled double-skin steel tubes.

67
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION • The following digit “15” is the eccentric distance
in mm.
2.1 Test specimens • The last character “A” refers to the repeated test
specimen.
The test specimens were fabricated by molding a flat
steel plate into a dodecagonal shape, and then the
ends of the steel tubes were cut to specified length 2.2 Test setup
of 2000  mm. The outside surface of inner steel
Displacement control was used to drive the hydrau-
tubes and insides surface of the outer steel tubes
lic actuator at a constant speed of 1.0 mm/min for
were brushed to remove any rust and loose debris
all test specimens. The usage of displacement con-
present. Both the outer and inner steel tubes were
trol allowed the tests to be continued to the post-
placed centric. The self-compacting concrete was
ultimate stage. A data acquisition system was used
cured without any vibration. During curing, a very
to record the applied load and the readings of the
small amount of longitudinal shrinkage occurred at
transducers at regular intervals during the tests.
the top of the column. High strength cement was
When the load of specimens reduced about 20% of
used to fill this longitudinal gap before the welding
the ultimate capacity, tests stopped.
of the top steel end plate. Two 20  mm thick steel
Altogether fourteen strain gauges were attached
plates were welded to both ends of the specimens to
on a column specimen at the mid-height which
ensure full contact between specimens and end bear-
distributed around half of the outer tube cross
ing. There are seven dodecagon columns designed
in this test. The geometric size of the tested speci-
mens is shown in Table 1, and the geometric size is
defined by the labels shows in Figure 2.
For the specimens, they were labeled such that the
type of the specimens, outer diameter of outer steel
tube, nominal thickness of outer steel tube, outer
diameter of inner steel tube and eccentric distance
that can be identified from the label. All of the inner
steel tubes of the test specimens have the thickness
of 3 mm. For example, the label “DCS400-4-240-
15 A” defines the specimen as follow:
• The three letters indicate that the type of the
specimen, where the prefix letter “DCS” refers
to dodecagonal section double skin concrete-
filled steel tubes.
• The following three digits “400” indicate the
outer diameter of the outer tube in mm.
• The following digit “4” is the nominal thickness Figure 2. Size sketch diagram and serial number of the
of the outer steel tube in mm. strain gauges of specimen.
• The following three digits “240” indicate the
outer diameter of the inner tube in mm.

Table 1. Geometric size of the tested specimens.

Eccentricity
Geometric size ratio

L Do to Di ti χ

Specimen mm mm mm mm mm

DCS400-3-240-0 2000 400 3 240 3 0

DCS400-3-240-15A 2000 400 3 240 3 0.078
DCS400-3-240-15 2000 400 3 240 3 0.078
DCS400-3-240-45 2000 400 3 240 3 0.233
DCS400-4-240-0 2000 400 4 240 3 0
DCS400-4-240-15 2000 400 4 240 3 0.078
DCS400-4-240-45 2000 400 4 240 3 0.233 Figure 3. Distribution of test apparatus and implement
way of eccentricity.

68
Table 2. Steel material properties.

Nominal thickness E fy fu

mm MPa MPa MPa

3.0 201000 366 530

4.0 199500 452 542

section, half of the gauges were attached on the

corner of the dodecagonal section while the others
were attached on the flat portion of the dodecago-
nal section. The serial number and arrangement
of strain gauges is shown in Figure  2. To meas-
ure the lateral deflection during loading, four dial
indicators were arranged at the height of L/4, L/2
and 3 L/4 of a tested specimen. Two LVDTs were Figure  4. Load-vertical displacement of tested
used to measure the vertical displacement of tested columns.
specimens. The distribution of the dial indicators
and the LVDTs are shown in Figure 3.
The desired eccentricity was achieved by shift-
ing the center of the specimen cross section from
the loading point, as shown in Figure 3. The axial
load was applied through a very stiff top platen
with a ball hinge, which also allowed specimen
rotation to simulate pin-ended supports. Both the
ball hinge and the top platen were made of very
hard and very high-strength steel.

3 MATERIAL PROPERTIES

The values of Young’s modulus Es, yield stress fy,

ultimate tensile strength fu of the steel tube are
shown in Table  2. The compressive strength fcu
and elastic modulus Ec of the concrete cubes were
35 MPa and 33560 MPa, respectively.
4 TEST RESULTS
4.1 Load-vertical displacement curve
Curves of load against axial displacement for the
test specimens are shown in Figure  4. It can be
seen from Figure 4 that all specimens have similar
load-vertical displacement curves except for speci-
men DCS400-3-240-45. The difference may be due
to the local buckling of outer steel tube of speci-
men DCS400-3-240-45. Compared with to = 4 mm
specimens, those with to = 3 mm exhibited less ini-
tial stiffness and ultimate strength, even though the
final vertical deformations were similar. All speci-
mens failed in a ductile manner.
4.2 Load-lateral displacement curve
Curves of load against mid-height lateral dis-
placement for the tested specimens are shown in
Figure 5. Load-lateral displacement of tested columns.
Figure 5. In Figure 5, the positive value represents
the protrude displacement while the negative value
represents the concave displacement. It is shown
that the positive curves and negative curves are
almost identical except for specimen DCS400-3-
240-45, which means there is no obvious deforma-
tion at the mid-height cross section. For specimen
DCS400-3-240-45, the difference between positive
curve and negative curve means the deformation
of local bucking at the mid-height cross section.
4.3 Load-strain curve
Typical load-strain curves and corresponding ini-
tial part of specimen DCS400-3-240-45 are shown
in Figure 6, respectively. The number 1 to 14 cor-
responds to the number of strain gauges shown in
Figure 2. It is obvious that axial compressive col-
umn didn’t occur local bucking at the initial stage
even before its ultimate capacity. For the eccentric
columns, larger eccentricity will cause the meas-
ured strain have large discrepancy at the initial

69
Figure 6. Load-strain curve and initial load-strain curve of DCS400-3-240-45.

Figure 7. Distribution of lateral deflection of tested specimens.

stage because of the bending moment caused by

the lateral deflection at middle height started to
the eccentricity, it is notable that strain gauges 13
increase significantly. It can be seen that the lateral
and 14 of specimen DCS400-3-240-45 appear ten-
deflection of specimens with eccentricity of 15 mm
sion after ultimate capacity, this is because larger
showed a sudden increase of after its peak load,
bending moment caused by the eccentricity of
while specimens with eccentricity of 45 mm showed
specimen DCS400-3-240-45.
a gradually increase of lateral deformation.

4.4 Distribution of lateral deflection

Figure 7(a) to Figure 7(b) revealed the distribution
of lateral deflection at different loading stage of
specimens DCS400-4-240-15 and DCS400-4-240-
45. The horizontal coordinates (f) on behalf of the
lateral deflection of a column at different locations
during the process of loading whereas the vertical
coordinates (H) represent the distance from the
test points to the bottom of a column. The symbol
n is the ratio of load at different stages against the
ultimate bearing capacity Nu.
When the load was small, the lateral deflection of
the specimen at middle height was small and approx-
imately proportional to the applied load. When the
load reached about 60–70% of the maximum load,
5 FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS
5.1 Finite element model
Finite element method was used to further study
the test specimen and provide more data in this
study. According to the Han’s study (2004) the
core concrete under the confined state of the
double skin concrete-filled tubes are the same
as the concrete-filled steel tubes when the hol-
low section ratio smaller than 0.8. Therefore, the
confined concrete material model proposed by
Han (2007) was used in this study. The measured
material properties were used in the finite element
model.

70
 The inner and outer steel tubes are modeled by 5.2 Verification
reduced-integration shell elements (S4R), while the
The ultimate bearing capacity obtained from the
concrete and the end plates are modeled by 8-node
finite element analysis are compared with the test
brick elements (C3D8R). The two end plates were
results as shown in Table 3. From Table 3, it can be
tied with the inner and outer steel tube and they were
seen that the mean values of the load capacity ratio
contacted with the core concrete. The interactions
(Nu-F/Nu-E) are 1.04 with the corresponding coeffi-
that the inner and outer steel tubes with the core
cients of variation (COV) of 0.056. The compari-
concrete could be modeled by contact interaction as
son indicates that the load capacity predicted by
described in Huang et al. (2010) and Han et al. (2007).
FEA is generally accurate. Figure 9 shows a good
The developed finite element model is shown in
agreement of the load-axial displacement curves
Figure 8. The bearing plates at both ends of the beam-
obtained from the test and FEA predictions. The
columns are modeled as rigid body and the load was
failure modes obtained from the test results and
applied at the reference point of the loaded end.
FEA for several specimens are also compared in
Figure 10 and Figure 11.

5.3 Parametric study

The parameters considered include: eccentricity,
diameter-to-thickness ratio of the inner and outer
steel tubes. The geometric size and the ultimate
bearing capacity results of the modeled specimens
were presented in

Figure 8. The developed finite element model.

Table  3. Comparison of ultimate strength obtained

from test results and FEA results.

Test FEA
Nue Nu-F
Comparison
Specimen kN kN Nu-F/Nue

DCS400-3-240-0 3265.4 3560.8 1.090

DCS400-3-240-15A 3022.7 3198.6 1.058
DCS400-3-240-15 2872.8 3198.6 1.113
DCS400-3-240-45 2657.3 2563.6 0.965
DCS400-4-240-0 4234.4 4516.8 1.067
DCS400-4-240-15 3865.1 3992.0 1.033
DCS400-4-240-45 3483.5 3294.1 0.946
Mean 1.04
Figure  10. Comparison of failure mode of specimen
COV 0.056 DCS400-4-240-0.

Figure 9. Comparison of load-axial displacement between FEA and EXP of tested specimens.

71
 Table  4. From the results we can see that the
diameter-to-thickness ratio of outer steel tubes has
significant influence on the ultimate strength, how-
ever, the diameter-to-thickness ratio of inner steel
tubes has relatively small influence on the ultimate
strength, and the ultimate strength of specimens
decreases when the diameter-to-thickness ratio of
the outer steel tube increases.

6 DESIGN EQUATIONS

Design methods proposed by Han (2004) and

Figure  11. Comparison of failure mode of the inner
steel tube specimen DCS400-4-240-0.
design equations specified in current AISC stand-
ard (AISC Committee 2010) were used to predict
the ultimate capacity of tested specimens. It should
be noted that design method proposed by Han

Table 4. Comparison of ultimate strength obtained from FEA results and proposed methods.

Proposed
Eccentricity FEM methods Comparison

Specimens e/mm Nu-F/kN Nu-H/kN Nu-AkN Nu-H/Nu-F Nu-A/Nu-F

CS300-3-150-3 15 2080.5 2257.5 1586.1 1.085 0.762

DCS300-3-150-3 45 1611.4 1818.0 1134.8 1.128 0.704
DCS300-3-150-3 100 1102.5 1344.1 751.9 1.219 0.682
DCS300-4-150-3 15 2736.8 2793.7 2172.3 1.021 0.794
DCS300-4-150-3 45 2139.8 2198.6 1617.9 1.027 0.756
DCS300-4-150-3 100 1516.5 1584.8 1107.0 1.045 0.730
DCS300-3-180-3 15 2016.4 2144.5 1487.1 1.064 0.738
DCS300-3-180-3 45 1572.9 1714.8 1082.2 1.090 0.688
DCS300-3-180-3 100 1096.6 1256.1 728.5 1.145 0.664
DCS300-4-180-3 15 2661.5 2669.7 2067.0 1.003 0.777
DCS300-4-180-3 45 2087.6 2098.0 1557.8 1.005 0.746
DCS300-4-180-3 100 1496.2 1509.4 1078.6 1.009 0.721
DCS400-3-200-3 15 3364.7 3781.6 2455.2 1.124 0.730
DCS400-3-200-3 45 2758.4 3225.3 1805.5 1.169 0.655
DCS400-3-200-3 100 2033.8 2547.2 1222.2 1.252 0.601
DCS400-4-200-3 15 4288.0 4435.3 3254.7 1.034 0.759
DCS400-4-200-3 45 3547.9 3710.1 2512.8 1.046 0.708
DCS400-4-200-3 100 2684.2 2856.3 1777.2 1.064 0.662
DCS500-3-250-3 15 4721.0 5308.7 3479.0 1.124 0.737
DCS500-3-250-3 45 3965.6 4620.4 2611.4 1.165 0.659
DCS500-3-250-3 100 3057.4 3736.1 1797.8 1.222 0.588
DCS500-4-250-3 15 5886.4 6244.1 4473.9 1.061 0.760
DCS500-4-250-3 45 4963.4 5423.0 3543.9 1.093 0.714
DCS500-4-250-3 100 3860.9 4373.9 2570.2 1.133 0.666
DCS500-3-300-3 15 4513.0 4911.3 3195.3 1.088 0.708
DCS500-3-300-3 45 3807.4 4243.6 2447.7 1.115 0.643
DCS500-3-300-3 100 2958.5 3400.0 1717.0 1.149 0.580
DCS500-4-300-3 15 5666.8 5771.5 4169.8 1.018 0.736
DCS500-4-300-3 45 4795.7 4988.3 3349.1 1.040 0.698
DCS500-4-300-3 100 3746.8 3997.4 2464.6 1.067 0.658
Mean 1.09 0.70
Cov 0.062 0.078

72
(2004) is for circular concrete-filled double skin steel Pn is the axial compression bearing capacity;
columns. The design equations specified in current Po is the combination axial compression bearing
AISC standard (AISC Committee 2010) doesn’t capacity of outer tube and the core concrete;
have provisions for concrete-filled double skin steel Pi is the axial compression bearing capacity of
columns. Therefore, a new method was proposed the inner steel tube;
based on the AISC standard design method for Pe is the elastic critical buckling load;
concrete-filled steel tubes and steel tubes. In this fyo is the yield stress of outer steel tube;
proposed method, the ultimate strength was consid- Aso is the area of the outer steel section;
ered as the summary strengths of outer steel tube f’c is the specified compressive strength of
plus concrete (Po) and inner steel tube (Pi), as shown concrete;
in Eq. (1). The suitability of the two design methods Ac is the area of concrete;
for dodecagonal section concrete-filled double skin Do is the diameter of the outer steel tube;
steel columns was evaluated in this study. to is the thickness of the outer steel tube;
Es is modulus of elasticity of steel;
Ec is modulus of elasticity of concrete, in which,
6.1 AISC method Ec 0 043wc1 5 fc′;
Specification of AISC (AISC Committee 2010)
Iso is moment of inertia of outer steel shape
that evaluate the ultimate capacity subjected to
about the elastic neutral axis of the compos-
axial and eccentric compression of a circular DCS
ite section;
column is as follows:
Ic is moment of inertia of the concrete section
about the elastic neutral axis of the composite
Pn Po + Pi (1)
section;
⎧ ⎡ Pno
⎤ Pno C3 is coefficient for calculation of effective rigid-
⎪Pno ⎢0.658 Pe
⎥ ≤ 2.25 ity of filled composite compression member,
⎪ Pe
Po = ⎨ ⎣ ⎦ (2) in which,
⎪0.877 P Pno
> 2.25
⎪⎩ e
Pe ⎛ Aso ⎞
C3 = 0.6
6+2 0.9 (7)
⎝ Aso Ac ⎠
For Pno, according to AISC specification (AISC
Committee 2010), for circular solid concrete filled KL is the effective length of member;
steel tube, if the diameter-to-thickness ratio λ is less wc is the weight of concrete per unit volume,
than λp = 0.15E/fyo, we call it compact section and do take 2500 kg/m3.
not need to consider the local stability; if the diam- For the axial compressive capacity the inner
eter-to-thickness ratio is between λp  =  0.15E/fyo tube, formula proposed by AISC (AISC Com-
and λr = 0.19E/fyo, we call it non-compact section; mittee 2010) specification can be expressed as
otherwise we call it slender section. In this paper, follows:
according to Table 1 and Table 2, we can know that
all of these tested specimens are defined as slender Pi Fcr Asi (8)
section.
For slender section,
where, Asi is cross-sectional area of the inner steel
section.
Pno Fcr Aso fc ′ Ac (3) Fcr is the critical stress, and determined by the
0.72 f yo diameter-to-thickness ratio λ of the inner steel
Fcr = 0.2
(4) tube, in this paper, the diameter-to-thickness ratio
⎛ ⎛ Do ⎞ f yo ⎞ of inner steel tube Di/ti is 80, which is larger than
⎜ ⎝⎜ t ⎠⎟ E ⎟ 0.11E/fyi and hence called slender section. So Fcr
⎝ o s ⎠
can be determined as follows:
For Pe, can be determined as follows:
⎧ ⎡ Qff yi
⎤ KL Es
⎪Q ⎢ F
⎥ f yi ≤ 4.71
π EII efff
2
⎪
Fcr = ⎨ ⎢⎣
Pe = (5) ⎥⎦ r Qff yi
(9)
( KL )2 ⎪0.877 F KL Es
> 4.71
EII efff = E s I so + C3 Ec I c (6) ⎪ e
r Qff yi
⎩

where, where Fe is the elastic buckling stress, in which:

73
 π 2 Es the bending strength of the inner steel tube can be
Fe = 2
(10) expressed as follows:
⎛ KL ⎞
⎝ r ⎠ ⎧ 0.021Es ⎫
M ni = ⎨ + f yi ⎬ S (15)
where, r is the radius of gyration of inner steel ⎩ Di / ti ⎭
tube; fyi is the yield stress of inner steel tube and Q
is the net reduction factor accounting for all slen- where, S is the Elastic moment of inertia of section.
der compression elements.
In this paper, the diameter-to-thickness ratio 6.2 Comparison results
of inner steel tube Di/ti is 80, which is larger than
1.03 E s / f yi , so the factor Q can be expressed as Design equations of Han’s method and AISC
follows: method were used to calculate the ultimate bearing
capacity of the modeled specimens, the calculated
0.69E s results were compared with the modeled results
Q= (11) acquired from FEA. The comparison results were
f yi Di / ti )2 shown in Table 4. From Table 4 it can be seen that
the predicted results for the ultimate capacity pro-
Specification of AISC (AISC Committee 2010) posed by Han (2004) are larger than the modeled
that evaluate the ultimate capacity of a column results, and the mean value of Nu-H/Nu-F is 1.09,
which is subjected to combination of flexure and with the corresponding COV of 0.062. Predic-
compression is as follows: tions of design equations proposed based on AISC
standard (AISC Committee 2010) are conserva-
⎧ P 8M P tive, which the mean value of Nu-A/Nue is 0.70 and
⎪⎪ φ P + 9φ M ≤ 1 φc Pn
≥ 0.2
the corresponding COV is 0.078.
⎨ c Pn b
M
n
P
(12)
⎪ + ≤1 < 0.2
⎪⎩ 2φc Pn φb M n φc Pn
7 CONCLUSIONS
where, φc is resistance factor for compression; φb
is resistance factor for flexure; P is required axial Dodecagonal section of concrete-filled double skin
strength; M is required flexural strength; Pn is steel tubular columns were studied in this paper.
nominal compressive strength; Mn is nominal flex- The test results prove that all of the specimens have
ure strength. similar process during loading, the loading proc-
For Mn, when we compute the combination ess of specimens can be divided into four stages:
bending strength of the outer steel tube and the elastic stage, elastic-plastic stage, plastic stage and
core concrete, considering the contribution of the descent stage.
concrete, it can be expressed as follows: Lateral deflection of specimens with eccentric-
ity of 15 mm began to increase significantly after
M no Z
Zff yo (13) its ultimate bearing capacity. For specimens with
eccentricity of 45 mm, the lateral deflection devel-
oped uniformly no matter before or after its ulti-
where, Z is the plastic bending modulus of steel mate bearing capacity.
section, for a circular tube, in which: All of the outer steel tubes appeared local buck-
ing near the middle height. For the columns subject
Do3 Do − 2to )3 to axial compression and eccentric compression
Z= (14)
6 with the eccentricity of 15  mm, columns failed
mainly due to local bucking that after the ultimate
when we compute the bending strength of the outer capacity, at the same time the inner tubes appeared
steel tube, different diameter-to-thickness ratio total cross-section compression.
usually have different computing methods, accord- The diameter-to-thickness ratio of outer steel
ing to the definition of AISC specification, if the tubes has significant influence on the ultimate
diameter-to-thickness ratio λ  =  Di/ti of steel tube strength, the ultimate strength of specimens
is less than λp  =  0.09E/fy, we call it compact sec- decreases when the diameter-to-thickness ratio
tion; however, if λ is between λp and λr = 0.31E/fy, of the outer steel tube increases. However, the
we call it non-compact section; whereas, we call it diameter-to-thickness ratio of inner steel tubes
slender section. According this definition, all of has relatively small influence on the ultimate
the inner steel tubes are all compact section, so strength.

74
 The predicted results shows that Han’s method
(2004) are larger than the modeld results, while
AISC standard (AISC Committee 2010) are rela-
tively conservative.
REFERENCES
AISC Committee. 2010. Specification for Structural Steel
Buildings (ANSI/AISC 360-10). American Institute
of Steel Construction: Chicago-Illinois.
Elchalakani, M., Zhao, X.L. & Grzebieta, R. 2002. Tests
on concrete filled double-skin (CHS outer and SHS
inner) composite short columns under axial compres-
sion. Thin-walled structures, 40(5): 415–441.
Han, L.H. (2007). Theory and practice of concrete filled
steel tubular structure. Science Press: Beijing (China).
Han, L.H., Li, Y.J. & Liao, F.Y. 2011. Concrete-Filled
Double Skin Steel Tubular (CFDST) columns sub-
jected to long-term sustained loading. Thin-walled
structures, 49(12): 1534–1543.
Han, L.H., Tao, Z., Huang, H. & Zhao, X.L. 2004.
Concrete-filled double skin (SHS outer and CHS
inner) steel tubular beam-columns. Thin-walled struc-
tures, 42(9): 1329–1355.
Han, L.H., Yao, G.H. & Tao, Z. 2007. Performance of
concrete-filled thin-walled steel tubes under pure tor-
sion. Thin-Walled Structures, 45(1): 24–36.
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Han, T.H., Stallings, J.M., & Kang, Y.J. 2010. Nonlinear
concrete model for double-skinned composite tubular
columns. Construction and Building Materials, 24(12):
2542–2553.
Huang, H., Han, L.H., Tao, Z. & Zhao, X.L. 2010. Ana-
lytical behaviour of concrete-filled double skin steel
tubular (CFDST) stub columns. Journal of Construc-
tional Steel Research, 66(4): 542–555.
Tao, Z. & Han, L.H. 2006. Behaviour of concrete-filled
double skin rectangular steel tubular beam–columns.
Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 62(7):
631–646.
Tao, Z., Han, L.H. & Zhao, X.L. 2004. Behaviour of
concrete-filled double skin (CHS inner and CHS
outer) steel tubular stub columns and beam-columns.
Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 60(8):
1129–1158.
Zhao, X.L. & Grzebieta, R. 2002. Strength and duc-
tility of concrete filled double skin (SHS inner and
SHS outer) tubes. Thin-walled structures, 40(2):
199–213.
Zhao, X.L., Han, B. & Grzebieta, R.H. 2002. Plastic
mechanism analysis of concrete-filled double-skin
(SHS inner and SHS outer) stub columns. Thin-
Walled Structures, 40(10): 815–833.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Rubberised concrete-filled double-skin circular tubes under

axial compression

M. Elchalakani & A. Hosseini

School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

ABSTRACT: This experimental investigation involves testing and analysis of compressive strength, ten-
sile strength, hoop and axial strains, and compressive load-deflection curves. A total of 31 specimens were
examined to ascertain the varying properties of single-skin, double-skin, confined, unconfined, standard
and rubberised concrete. Recycled rubber particles ranging from two to seven millimetres in size were
used to replace 15% and 30% of the fine and coarse concrete aggregate by weight. The rubber particles
were treated with sodium hydroxide solution resulting in increased bonding strength to the concrete.
Circular Hollow Section (CHS) configurations of differing internal and external dimensions were also
analysed to further understand the mechanics of double-skin confinement. Given the exceptional ductil-
ity, energy dissipation and improve strength of RuCFDST, this investigation shows the potential viability
of RuCFDST as structural columns particularly in areas that are prone to seismic activity.

1 INTRODUCTION Efforts have been since been made to improve

The need for environmentally sustainable and eco-
nomical construction materials has been growing
rapidly in recent years. There has been a heavy focus
on creating new composite materials that can utilise
the advantages of different mechanical properties,
optimise construction costs and minimise environ-
mental pollution (Najim & Hall 2010). As a direct
result, rubberised concrete (RuC) has been rapidly
gaining popularity. Disposal of scrap tyres are a
major environmental issue around the world with
approximately 50 million end-of-life tyres being
discarded each year in Australia alone (Nepc.gov.
au 2017). Disposal of rubber tyres can cause major
environmental issues such as creating an ideal
breeding environment for rats and pests in addition
to posing potential fire hazards (Elchalakani 2015).
The adverse environmental impact of rubber
has consequently sparked interest in the use of
rubber particles from waste tyres as replacement
aggregate in concrete. This solution not only pro-
motes the recycling of scrap tyres but also reduces
the need for further natural aggregate extraction.
Extensive research shows improved ductility,
dynamic energy absorption and post-failure com-
pressive loading for rubberised concrete. Unfor-
tunately, these unique characteristics come with a
major drawback: a significant reduction in com-
pressive strength. Loss in strength can be as much
as 80% compared to standard concrete depending
on the percentage replacement and size of the rub-
ber aggregate (Eldin & Senouci, 1994).
the strength of rubberised concrete by enhancing
the mixture by using additives and pretreatment
of the rubber particles to improve rubber-concrete
bonding. Although results have shown improve-
ments in compressive strength, the percentage
increase in strength to date has not been sufficient
to justify the use of RuC in structural members.
This investigation will consider the use of steel
confinement to overcome rubberised concrete’s
strength deficiencies. Naka & Kato first introduced
the concept of concrete-filled steel tubes (CFST)
to improve compressive members used in power
transmission towers (Naka & Kato 1964). Investi-
gation on CFSTs provided significantly improved
compressive strength and ductility properties com-
pared to steel and reinforcement concrete (Morino
& Tsuda). These improved mechanical properties
were found to be due to the restraint provided by
concrete to delay local buckling of steel, and the
increase of concrete strength due to confinement
effects.
Since the introduction of CFSTs, further
research has been made on alternative concrete
confinement systems which has shaped the idea of
concrete-filled double-skin tubes (CFDST). CFD-
STs is the basis of this experimental investigation,
with an aim to improve rubberised concrete com-
pressive strength by introducing double-skin con-
finement. The confinement consists of two circular
hollow sections (CHS), one on the inside and one
on the outside, with the annulus being filled with
rubberised concrete as shown in Figure 1.

77

Figure  1. Specimen details of CHS inner, CHS outer
CFDST.
The fundamental aim of this investigation is
to discover new techniques to improve rubberised
concrete axial compressive strength, to develop its
feasibility for use in structural members, predomi-
nately in seismic prone regions. A total of three
CFST and twelve CFDST confined rubberised
and normal concrete specimens were tested, with
crumbed rubber replacing fine and course aggre-
gate at 0, 15 and 30 percent of total aggregate
by weight. Effects on ductility and compressive
strength were assessed for each test specimen. In
addition, empty steel tubes and rubberised con-
crete specimen strength tests were also performed.
Ultimately, it is hoped that this investigation
provides a building block for further study in rub-
berised concrete strength improvement.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Mix material properties
General purpose Portland cement compliant with
AS3972 was acquired from Swan Cement and used
as the binder material in the normal and rubberised
concrete mixes. Cold-formed steel manufactured in
accordance to AS1163 was used in the construction
of the specimens, which were delivered by Metal-
corp Steel (Perth, WA). The 165.1 mm outer diam-
eter circular tubes were coated on both sides with
electro-galvanised zinc coating (also called ALL-
GAL). All other circular hollow section steel tubes
were plain black painted and were not galvanised.
The CHS are grade CL350L0 with a nominal yield
stress of 350 MPa. A summary of the dimensions
and material properties of the steel sections used
to produce the specimens can be found in Table 1.
Since the smallest specimen annulus size was
68  mm, a maximum aggregate size of 7  mm was
chosen to achieve sufficient compaction and
homogenous particle distribution. The crumbed
rubber particles were delivered by Tyrecyle (New
78
Table 1. Measured properties of CHS.
Specimen Diameter Thickness Length Yield stress
No. [mm] to[mm] [mm] σyt [MPa]
C1 42.4 2.6 400 510
C2 88.9 3.2 400 490
C3 114.3 3.2 400 415
C4 114.3 3.6 400 445
C5 165.1 3.5 400 395
South Wales), which is Australia’s leading national
tyre recycler. The delivery consisted of two sets of
rubber sizes, 2–5 mm, and 5–10 mm. The 5–10 mm
particles were put through a 6.75  mm sieve to
attain a maximum aggregate size of 7 mm.
2.2 Particle size distribution of aggregates
Sieve testing is essential for understanding the parti-
cle distribution used for aggregate replacement. This
test enables categorisation of rubber particles into
poor/well-graded types. AS3638 sieving procedures
were followed to obtain a particle size distribution
(PSD) of the concrete mixture material. All particles
except for the 5–7 mm aggregate were observed to be
well graded. The poor grading of these particles was
possibly due to the nature of sieving the 5–10 mm
aggregates to a maximum size of 7 mm.
2.3 Rubber pre-treatment
Previous experimental investigations found that
pre-treatment has a significant impact in improv-
ing the adhesion at the rubber-cement surface
interface (Li et al. 2004). It is proposed that the
low adhesion levels are due to several factors such
as: (1) waste rubber zinc stearate coating creating
a soapy layer that repels water; (2) low hydraulic
conductivity; and (3) the smooth surface interface
of rubber (Yousef et al. 2014). The most com-
monly used chemical for rubber pre-treatment is
sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution. Therefore,
this is what has been used in the present study.
NaOH pre-treatment has proven to improve com-
pressive strength by up to 25% (Mohammadi et al.
2015). This is achieved by removing the unwanted
zinc stearate layer and also creating a rougher sur-
face on the rubber particles (Youssf et al. 2016).
Prior to treatment, the rubber particles need to
be washed to remove impurities, organic matter and
dust that can weaken the bonding strength at the
rubber-cement interface (Mohammadi et al. 2015).
The rubber is then soaked in a 10% NaOH aque-
ous solution for an optimal duration of 24 hours
(Mohammadi et al. 2015). The solution is then
drained and the rubber is rinsed with water until a
pH of 7 is achieved. Finally, the rubber is semi satu-
rated through a water soaking process to increase
the specific gravity of the rubber, thereby reducing
the floating tendency of the lightweight rubber par-
ticles. This process ultimately results in a stronger
and more homogenous rubber-concrete mixture.

2.4 Mix procedure/design

The concrete mix procedure is critical to achieving
good quality concrete. Too much mixing can cause
the mixture to separate due to differences in size
and density (concrete segregation), whereas too lit-
tle mixing does not allow sufficient hydration and
mixing of the different particle sizes and densities
in the concrete. Introducing rubber particles to the
mix amplifies segregation due to its low density
compared to other concrete constituents. To reduce Figure  2. Specimen CHS-O114-42-00 prior to testing
segregation, pre-treatment is used as well as timed on the DLS500 (strain gauges not shown).
mixing techniques which have been adapted from
previous literature. Rubber’s relatively low specific
welding a 10 mm thick square steel plate to allow
gravity causes other issues such as the migration
for casting of concrete. There is a total of 3 of each
of light rubber particles to the top of the concrete
specimen configuration, filled with concrete mix-
due to the vibration processes. To minimise rubber
ture of 0%, 15% and 30% rubber replacement to
flotation and air voids, manual rodding compac-
total aggregate.
tion is used as an alternative compaction process
to minimise rubber flotation while achieving ade-
quate compaction. 3.2 CFST and CFDST testing
Three concrete mix batches were produced: 0%
A load control of 1  kN per second was used to
(control), 15% and 30% rubber replacement to
test the confined composite columns with a rate
aggregate by weight. The following steps were used
of displacement less than 0.5  mm/minute. One
to produce the optimal concrete mix: (1) mix all
trial of each specimen configuration and rubber
dry aggregate for 1 minute; (2) add 10% of the total
replacement volume was tested for axial compres-
water and mix for 1 minute (for RuC add rubber
sive strength using a 5000  kN capacity DLS 500
particles at this stage); (3) add cement and mix for
machine. The loading from the machinery was
1 minute; (4) add half of the remaining water grad-
captured using a 3000  kN NATA approved load
ually and mix for 1 minute; (5) add the remaining
cell placed on top of the specimen. Two linear wire
half and mix for another 1 minute; and (6) finally
position transducers (string pots) were attached
small amounts of superplasticiser was gradually
to the top and bottom platens at each corner to
added and mixed for 1 minute until a slump of
record axial shortening. Two strain gauges were
150–170 mm is achieved.
glued to the specimen vertically and horizontally
to measure hoop and axial strain. A data logger
was used to transfer the load, displacement and
3 TEST PROGRAM strain gauge measurements to a computer for the
duration of the testing. The specimen and the load
3.1 Specimens cell were placed concentric with the bottom and
top fixed platen to ensure centric loading. Figure 2
Two sets of testing were conducted to find the
illustrates the test setup.
compressive strength of empty steel tubes and
confined concrete (CFST and CFDST). These
tests were conducted to define the behaviour of
4 TEST RESULTS OF CFST AND CFDST
confinement in improving the overall concrete
strength compared to its standalone counterpart.
4.1 Test results of CFST and RuCFST columns
A total of ten specimens were used for empty steel
tube testing and fifteen specimens for confined C5 outer diameter (165.1  mm outer diameter and
concrete testing. All samples were cut to length for 3.5  mm thick) galvanised steel tube was tested for
each corresponding test specimen. The CFST and single-skin concrete confinement. It should be noted
CFDST specimens were capped at one end by tack that the sudden load drop in the 15% rubberised

79
concrete’s load-deflection curve is due to a loadcell
disconnection and does not represent the unloading
of the specimen. A summary of peak loads can be
found in Table 2.
The results show that the peak ultimate axial
load is significantly decreased with an increase
in rubber particle replacement. This is to be
expected as concrete compressive strength sig-
nificantly decreases with increased replacement
of rubber particles. The standard 0% concrete
presents a more pronounced peak load with a sig-
nificant drop in compressive loading post initial
buckling failure compared to the 15% and 30%
rubber replacement. This phenomenon may be
explained by analysing the Poisson’s ratio of rub-
berised concrete compared to standard concrete.
Rubberised concrete has a Poisson’s ratio closer
to that of steel than standard concrete (Yousssf
et al. 2016). Thus, the transverse elongation
matches the steel more closely and potentially
results in the buckle fold filling with concrete at a
faster rate than that of standard concrete, which
has a lower Poisson’s ratio. The filling of concrete
within the buckle fold continues until the buckled
section where the overall specimen becomes stiff
enough to withstand further loading. Standard
concrete therefore has a larger dip in carrying
load post failure, as it takes a longer duration to
fill the void created by the buckling of the steel.
It is expected that further buckles will form and
be filled with concrete as the specimen is contin-
ued to be loaded over time, creating a sinusoidal
plastic failure load-deflection curve until no fur-
ther buckles can be formed. Unfortunately, this
expected result was difficult to display as the
specimens were unloaded early due to safety pre-
cautions caused by the lateral deformation of the
specimens in the DLS500 machine.
4.2 Test results of CFDST and RuCFDST columns
A total of four different double-skin configura-
tions were tested for axial strength at 0%, 15% and
30% rubber replacement. Table  2 summarises the
peak axial force post initial buckling.
Table 2. Peak experimental load for CFDST/CFST.
Percentage rubber content
Specimen No. 0% (kN) 15% (kN) 30% (kN)
CHS-O165 1876 1291 1130
CHS-O114-3.2-I42 1073 824 742
CHS-O114-3.6-I42 1255 968 900
CHS-O165-I42 1888 1428 1245
CHS-O165-I89 1855 1561 1441
80
As expected an increase in rubber content in
the concrete resulted in a lower ultimate peak load
for all test cases. CHS-O165-I42 is seen to behave
like its single-skin counterpart CHS-O165 found
in section  4.2.1. This is due to the small inter-
nal steel core diameter skewing the specimen to
behave more as a single-skin specimen rather than
a double-skin specimen. Normal concrete holds
approximately the same axial loading in both sin-
gle-skin (CHS-O165) and double-skin configura-
tion (CHS-O165-I42 and CHS-O165-I89). This is
due to CFST providing better confinement to the
concrete whereas the internal buckling of the inner
steel in a CFDST specimen reduces the net effect
of confinement, making the strength increase
provided by the inner steel less effective. CHS-
O165-I42 specimens experienced minor flexural
buckling once the first local buckles were formed
due to the slenderness of specimens. The flexural
buckling was found to have negligible effects on
peak axial load on the specimen.
In general, the peak load for rubberised concrete
occurred at later axial shortening displacements.
This is believed to be due to the RuC forming
microcracks and pushing against the steel bound-
ary in a ductile manner causing a plateau in load-
ing. However, normal concrete failure is caused by
the formation of large crack propagating down the
concrete and it is expected that the post peak dip
in load would be greater than RuC. Unlike normal
concrete, RuC showed much improved perform-
ance in a double-skin configuration, up to 18%
more compared to its CFST counterpart.
4.3 Deformed shapes of CFSTs and CFDSTs
A family photo of pre and post deformed shapes
for each column is presented in Figures 3 and 4.
The outwards buckling generally occurred in a
non-symmetric manner with a buckle occurring
at the top of the specimen and one along the
specimen on the mirrored edge likely due to shear
Figure 3. Empty CFST and CFDST.

Figure  4. Post-failure deformation of CFST and
CFDST.
failure in the filled concrete. This could be due to
the steel sections not being absolutely 90 degrees
with the top and bottom platten of the machin-
ery, the surface finish not being absolutely flat or
the specimen’s being too long in length, causing
unwanted eccentricity. It is highly unlikely that an
uneven surface finish was the primary reason for
this mode of failure as strict quality control meas-
ures were enforced during preparation procedure
to ensure a flat top surface. There was also cor-
responding internal buckling of the inner pipes
for CFDSTs mirroring the outside buckles as well
as displaying smaller ripples along the length of
the pipe. Generally, buckles become fully formed
at a point approximately half way between sub-
sequent crests and troughs of the load-deflection
curve.
4.4 Concrete—steel bonding
The specimens have a linear elastic behaviour of
about 60–70% of the initial peak load when there
exists a full bond between the concrete and the
steel surface. Once this limit is exceeded, non-linear
behaviour becomes prominent as the steel tubes
begin to yield and concrete subsequently presses
against the inner and outer tubes non-linearly.
Micro-cracks start to emerge in the concrete dur-
ing this stage and the buckling of the inner and
outer steel tubes produce fill voids. Instead of a
brittle concrete failure, the concrete behaves in a
more ductile manner as the geometry of the steel
confines it.
As further axial shortening of the specimen
takes place, more concrete fills the initial buckle
causing it to regain some of bonding at the steel-
concrete surface due to the high pressures at the
interface. This fundamental behaviour is the one of
81
the core advantages of using CFSTs and CFDSTs,
as they can withhold incredible loads post failure.
It was seen that normal concrete had a rigid
bond at the buckled area but the 15% and 30%
rubberised concrete had a comparatively weak
bonding performance. The rubberised concrete
mixture had segregated within the composite,
becoming crumbly and easy to move around.
This failure is related to the high internal stresses
induced perpendicular to the axial load compres-
sion by the low modulus of elasticity of rubber
particles. This causes cracks to form around rub-
ber particles creating a separation of the materi-
als. The separation is further amplified from the
use of high water to cement ratio of 0.5 in the
mixing procedure.
4.5 Ductility and energy absorption
A ductility index (DI) analysis of each specimen
was conducted to quantify the ductility of each
specimen. The DI is the ratio A1/A2, where A2 is
the recoverable elastic energy at initial peak load
failure and A1 is the irrecoverable plastic energy
as seen in Figure  5 (Durate et al. 2016). Speci-
mens with larger DI values are more ductile. The
DI index of all specimens is shown graphically in
Figure 6. Specimens with 0% rubber replacement
are shown to be significantly less ductile than their
RuC counterparts. The results show that RuC
has up to 2.5 times better ductility with respect to
normal concrete CFST and CFDST. The ductil-
ity performance of 15% and 30% rubber replace-
ment are similar in most cases. It is also seen that
double-skin confinement with smaller Do/Di ratios
are generally more ductile. This may be due to the
concrete being able to push a large surface area of
both inner and outer steel sections allowing for a
more ductile progressive failure.
Figure 5. Load deflection curve of CHS-O165-I89-30.

Figure 6. Ductility index of all test specimens.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents the results of an experimen-
tal investigation on the strength and ductility of
CFST and CFDST filled with normal and rubber-
ised concrete (RuC). The main conclusions of this
study are summarised in the following points:
• RuC mixes have a lower compressive strength
than normal concrete. Concrete strength
decreased by 50% and 79% for 15% and 30%
rubber replacement by aggregate respectively.
15% rubber replacement with 25 Mpa strength
is a viable alternative for applications such as
footpaths and footings.
• NaOH rubber pre-treatment improved the
concrete rubber bonding and reduced concrete
segregation due to rubber particles. Rubber-
ised concrete mix was found to be homogenous
throughout all layers of the specimens.
• Rubberised concrete significantly improved
ductility and energy absorption of CFST and
CFDST by up to 2.5 times.
• CFST and CFDST using CHS sections signifi-
cantly improved the ultimate peak strength in RuC
and normal concrete. Additional strength through
confinement was achieved in all specimens.
• Concrete steel bond zone at the inner and outer
steel sections was seen to be promising with both
rubberised and normal concrete having ductile
behaviour due to confinement.
• With further research, RuCFDST has promis-
ing potential for applications such as structural
columns.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to deeply thank Liam
O’keefe from Tyres Stewardship Australia and
82
Adrian Jones from Tyrecycle. Thanks are given to
Andrew Sarkady and Anup Chakrabortty from
BASF for kindly donating the superplasticizer
required for all the specimens. Thanks are given
the following technicians Matt Arpin, Malcolm
Stafford, Jim Waters and Brad Rose for assist-
ing the students in performing the experiments.
Thanks are given to Cameron Marshall and Armin
Hosseini, David Pegrum and Aarin Ryan, former
students of UWA for performing the tests and
processing the test data.
REFERENCES
Duarte, A., Silva, B., Silvestre, N., de Brito, J., Júlio, E. &
Castro, J. 2016. Tests and design of short steel tubes
filled with rubberised concrete, Engineering Struc-
tures, 112: 274–286.
Elchalakani, M. 2014. A closed-form solution for elastic
buckling of thin-walled unstiffened circular cylinders
in pure flexure, Thin-Walled Structures, 80: 120–129.
Elchalakani, M. 2015. High strength rubberized concrete
containing silica fume for the construction of sustain-
able road side barriers, Structures, 1: 20–38.
Eldin, N. & Senouci, A. 1994. Measurement and predic-
tion of the strength of rubberized concrete. Cement
and Concrete Composites, 16(4): 287–298.
Li, G., Garrick, G., Eggers, J., Abadie, C., Stubblefield,
M. & Pang, S. 2004. Waste tire fiber modified concrete.
Composites Part B: Engineering, 35(4): 305–312.
Mohammadi, I., Khabbaz, H. & Vessalas, K. 2015.
Enhancing mechanical performance of rubberised
concrete pavements with sodium hydroxide treatment.
Materials and Structures, 49(3): 813–827.
Morino, S. & Tsuda K. 2003. Design and construction
of concrete-filled steel tube column system in Japan.
Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology,
4: 51–73.
Najim, K. & Hall, M. 2010. A review of the fresh/hard-
ened properties and applications for plain - (PRC) and
self-compacting rubberised concrete (SCRC), Con-
struction and Building Materials, 24(11): 2043–2051.
Naka, T., Kato, B. & Kanatani, H. 1964. Experimental
Study on welded Tubular Connections, Research Insti-
tute of Welding, University of Tokyo, Japan.
Nepc.gov.au. 2017. Stocks and fate of end-of-life
tyres – 2013–14 study | National Environment Protec-
tion Council.
Youssf, O., ElGawady, M., Mills, J. & Ma, X. 2014. An
experimental investigation of crumb rubber concrete
confined by fibre reinforced polymer tubes. Construc-
tion and Building Materials, 53: 522–532.
Youssf, O., Mills, J. & Hassanli, R. 2016. Assessment
of the mechanical performance of crumb rubber
concrete. Construction and Building Materials, 125:
175–183.
Zhao, X., Grzebieta, R. & Elchalakani, M. 2002. Tests
of concrete-filled double skin CHS composite stub
columns. Steel and Composite Structures, 2(2):
129–146.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Rubberised concrete-filled double-skin square tubes under

axial compression

M. Elchalakani, A. Hosseini & C. Marshall

School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

ABSTRACT: This study explored experimentally the use of rubberised concrete filled double skin tubes
as possible alternatives in the construction industry such as security bollards and flexible road side barri-
ers. The experimental investigation included changing the confinement of the outer and inner square hol-
low sections and exploring how confinement affected normal concrete compared to rubberised concrete.
Four variations of double skin steel tubes with a total of twelve 300 mm columns of 0%, 15%, and 30%
rubber replacement were created and tested concentrically. One single skin 300 mm long column with 0%,
15%, and 30% rubber variation was also tested and related to previous research. The compressive strength
was measured experimentally, the strains of the outer steel reinforcement were measured and the failure
mechanisms were noted. An interesting spring back phenomenon occurred where the infill rubberised
concrete moved upwards after testing due to the large confinement of the core.

1 INTRODUCTION concrete in terms of its fracture properties, ductil-

Currently, waste tyres are among the largest and
most problematic sources of waste for modern
society due to their durability and high rate of
dumping in landfills (Elchalakani 2015). In the
USA, the total amount of tyre rubber waste is
20.53 million ton/year and as large as 87% of such
amount is recycled every year. In Europe, the total
amount of tyre rubber waste is 28.92 million ton/
year and only 69% of such amount is recycled.
In Australia, 50 million tyres are wasted every
year (Elchalakani et al. 2015). Tyre landfills can
be harmful to the environment and surrounding
areas by providing a breeding ground for mos-
quitos, rats, and other animals. Additionally, if a
fire started in a tyre landfill, it becomes hard to
snuff out, and it gives rise to harmful smoke and
noxious emissions. Accordingly, waste tyre man-
agement and disposal is a major environmental
concern in many countries because waste tyres are
becoming a significant environmental, health, and
aesthetical problem that cannot be easily solved.
A disposal alternative is to incorporate tyres into
the manufacture of the so called Rubberised Con-
crete (RuC) as a way to conserve natural resources
and reduce the amount of tyres entering landfills.
RuC is a relatively new and innovative field of
research aiming at providing a sustainable way of
disposing tyres as well as complementing concrete
properties (Eldin & Senouci 1994). For example,
the partial replacements of sand and cement by
rubber enhance the mechanical characteristics of
ity, impact and seismic resistances (Ho et al. 2012).
Additionally, it was found that the ratio of flexural
strength to compressive strength of RuC increases
relative to normal concrete, indicating that the rub-
ber was better in anti-cracking performance (Liu et
al 2013). Furthermore, it was found that increasing
the rubber volume content increases the toughness
of the concrete (Liu et al. 2013). It has been found
that as the rubber content increases the com-
pressive strain capacity of the members, viscous
damping ratio and kinetic energy of the columns
increases (Hassanli et al. 2017).
Despite these advantages, RuC are character-
ised by a significant reduction in its compressive,
tensile and flexural strengths (Eldin & Senouci
1994). Senouci and Eldin showed that the lower
workability of the RuC, caused by loss of adher-
ence between the surface of rubber particles and
the cement, is one reason of such lower strengths.
Therefore, several investigations were undertaken
to improve the workability of the RuC, from which
it has been found that the NaOH pre-treatment of
rubber increases the adhesion of rubber to cement
paste and hence it improves the mechanical prop-
erties of the RuC (Pelisser et al. 2011). Another
important reason to the lower strengths of the RuC
is the Poisson’s ratio of rubber which is twice that
of concrete and the Young’s modulus which is 1/3
that of concrete (Youssf et al. 2015). According to
Youssf et al. (Youssf et al. 2015), this leads to large
relative deformations between rubber and concrete
leading to early cracking. Additionally, there are

83
high internal tensile stresses perpendicular to the
direction of the compression load attributable to
the low modulus of elasticity of the rubber parti-
cles (Youssf et al. 2015).
Youssf et al. (Youssf et al. 2015) leads to the
importance of understanding confinement of
rubber concrete as a way of reducing stress and
deformation perpendicular to the direction of the
compression load. This encouraged Duarte et al.
(Duarte et al. 2016) to conduct large scale tests on
rubberised concrete-filled steel tubes (RuCFST)
under static compression. This investigation
indicated that the decrease in axial strength with
confinement was not as large as that taking place
without confinement due to the contribution of
the steel to the columns resistance (Duarte et al.
2016). Positively, the short steel tubes with rub-
ber concrete presented a higher ductility. In con-
clusion, it has been realised that RuC with outer
confinement can be a major benefit for structures
in seismic areas where energy dissipation require-
ments are mandatory (Duarte et al. 2016).
It has been widely accepted that the central con-
crete, in the CFST columns, closing to the neutral
axis has insignificant contribution to the flexural
strength (Ho and Dong 2014). Accordingly, the
central part of the concrete core of the CFST col-
umn can effectively be replaced by another smaller
hollow steel tube with similar axial, flexural and
torsional strengths maintained. This form of col-
umn construction is known as the concrete-filled
double-skin tubular (CFDST) column, which is
available in four different combinations by using
the square and circular hollow sections (SHS and
CHS, respectively). Figure  1 provides the basic
cross-sectional form of the CFDST columns pre-
viously tested by Zhao and Grzebieta (Zhao &
Grzebieta 2002). The results of such columns (Zhao
& Grzebieta 2002) showed that the CFDST col-
umns are characterised by increased ductility and
Figure 1. Cross-section of square CFDST columns.
84
energy absorption under compression. Accord-
ingly, these CFDST columns have already been
implemented in bridge piers in Japan to reduce total
bridge weight whilst maintaining large absorption
capacity against seismic loading (Zhao & Grzebieta
2002).
This study explores experimentally the use of
rubberised concrete filled double skin tubes as
possible alternatives for security bollards and the
vertical post found in the construction of flexible
road side barriers. It is devoted to the experimen-
tal investigation of the CFDST stub columns filled
with RuC under the axial compression, with the
main aim of combining the advantages of both the
RuC and the CFDST columns into one structural
element. The current experiments involved 0, 15,
30% by total aggregate weight. This experimental
campaign focuses on the confinement mechanism
of the RuC in the CFDST columns and how it can
potentially negate the compressive strength loss
whilst maintaining positive rubber characteristics.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Mix material properties
General purpose Portland cement to AS3972 was
acquired from Swan Cement and used as the binder
material in the normal and rubberised concrete
mixes. Cold-formed steel manufactured to AS1163
was used in the construction of the specimens, which
was delivered by Midalia Steel Bibra Lake. The
100 mm × 100 mm × 5 mm square hollow sections
and 50  mm  ×  50  mm  ×  5  mm square hollow sec-
tions were painted with DuragalPlus C350LO. The
100 mm × 100 mm × 2 mm square hollow sections
and 50 mm × 50 mm × 2 mm square hollow sections
were galvanised sections and DuragalPlus C350L0.
In order to fit in the SHS annulus, a 7 mm mini-
mum aggregate was required. Rubber content of 0%,
15% and 30% by weight were chosen to show signif-
icant results, allowing for weight decreases of 7% for
the 15% replacement and a decrease of 14% for the
30%, replacement. The rubber was obtained from
Tyrecycle in New South Wales, which is a leading
national tyre recycler. The rubber was delivered in
bags consisting of sizes 2–5 mm and 5–10 mm. The
5–10 mm aggregate was sieved through a 6.75 mm
sieve to be replaced with the 7 mm aggregate.
2.2 Rubber pre-treatment
Conformed to previous investigations (Pelisser
et al. 2011, Youssf et al. 2015), the rubber used in
this investigation had to be pre-treated in order
to remove the oil and dirt from the outer surface
and to improve the overall strength of the concrete.
The oil and dirt on the surface could have created an to ensure a high replacement of aggregate to show
unwanted layer between the cement paste and rub- an opportunity for large amounts of rubber waste
ber surface, which stops a strong adhesion between to be used in RuC.
rubber aggregate and cement. The NaOH treat-
ment part of this investigation’s pre-treatment was
aligned with the previous research by Elchalakani 3 TEST PROGRAM
(Elchalakani 2015), which suggested treating the
rubber in 10% NaOH solution for 24 hours. This 3.1 Specimens
roughened the rubber surface the optimal amount,
Twelve CFDST stub columns in addition to three
allowing a stronger bond between cement paste and
CFST stub columns were tested in this investiga-
rubber. A shorter time didn’t alter the surface of the
tion. The tubes were tack welded onto a base plate
rubber and a longer time roughened the surface too
to allow the annulus to be filled and to ensure
much, allowing small air pockets to appear on the
concentricity. The specimens were prodded to
surface of the rubber. In addition to this, zinc stear-
compact the normal and rubberised concrete. The
ate is an additive which is added to tyre rubbers to
specimens were placed in a humid room for 21 days
make them more resistant to oxidation. Zinc stear-
to stop shrinkage, then removed and placed inside
ate makes rubber more hydrophobic, but is turned
and undercover for another 7 days. There were still
soluble in NaOH solution. The rubber was semi
small amounts of shrinkage in the concrete, so
saturated through a water soaking process which
the top of each specimen was grouted to achieve
allowed the now formed soluble sodium stereate to
simultaneous loading on the steel and concrete.
wash off and wash the NaOH off the rubber sur-
face. The water soaking also increased the specific
gravity of the rubber in the concrete mix, prevent- 3.2 Test procedure
ing the rubber from floating during the curing stage.
During the test, displacement was controlled to be
less than 1  mm/minute in the time before failure.
2.3 Mix procedure/design A data logger attached to the Amsler Press was used
to transfer load, displacement and strain gauge data
The mixing method of the RuC is of great impor-
to the computer. The specimen was set up concen-
tance because the rubber has a lower specific grav-
trically with the flat plates of the axial compression
ity than concrete hence due to the vibration process,
machine, an angled plate on the specimen would
the rubber migrates to the top section resulting in
cause the machine to fail a particular section of the
a nonhomogeneous mix and reduction in strength
outer SHS and not produce the composite action
(Youssf et al. 2015). Accordingly, this investigation
effect. A camera was set up capturing a photo
did not use the vibration as the method of remov-
every 30s across the duration of the test to associ-
ing air voids in concrete and instead stirred with
ate certain visual aspects of buckling with the load/
a rod so that there was limited segregation. Cur-
displacement/strain data. To assess the behaviour of
rently, the mix method followed that suggested and
the Normal/Rubberised CFDST, the four variations
utilised by Elchalakani ((Elchalakani 2015), which
of steel hollow sections must be assessed alone.
could be summarised as (1) Mix the dry aggregate
for 1 minute, (2) Add 10% of the water, mix for 1
minute, If Rubberised Concrete, add rubber with
4 TEST RESULTS OF CFST AND CFDST
the 10% water), Add cement, mix for 1 minute,
Add half water, mix for 1 minute, Add remaining
4.1 Test results for rubberised CFDST columns
water, mix for 1 minute, and Add super plasticiser,
mix for 1 minute (check slump), if the slump is less Table  1 summarises the maximum forces of the
than 150 mm then more super plasticiser is added current experimental campaign, from which a des-
until a 150 mm–175 mm slump is achieved. ignation system was used to label the specimens.
The mix design had a water cement ratio of 0.5, As can be seen, the label firstly refers to SHS as the
to be more workable so that it could fit it into the hollow section type, then denotes the outer thick-
SHS annulus 21 mm minimum gap. Given the rub- ness (O) and inner thickness (I) (since the width of
ber was partially soaked in water beforehand, it outer and inner were constant through all speci-
was required to account for the water in the rubber. mens), then the rubber content is denoted as 0%,
The difference in rubber weight before and after 15% or 30%. From the table, it can be noticed that
the full pre-treatment process was removed from the RuCFDST specimens had less axial strength
the water amount being added to the concrete mix. compared to normal CFDST specimens; this
This was chosen to keep uniformity among the was caused by the lower compressive strength
mix. The mix design also included replacing both RuC shown in the cylinder tests. The compressive
fine and coarse aggregate with rubber by weight, strength of the RuC30 was less than the RuC15 but

85
Table 1. Peak experimental load for CFDST/CFST.

Percentage rubber content

Specimen No. 0% (kN) 15% (kN) 30% (kN)

SHS-O2I2 657 483 492

SHS-O2I5 810 804 691
SHS-O5I2 1302 1190 1191
SHS-O5 1318 1143 1035
SHS-O5I5 1555 1450 1430

in most cases, they performed similarly. This could

have been due to the strength of the steel, account-
ing for a large portion of the overall strength of Figure 2. Load-displacement curves for specimens with
the CFDST column. The thinner inner column outer 2 mm and inner 5 mm (O2I5) tubes of 0%, 15% and
showed more evident failure decrease between 30% rubber replacement.
normal CFDST and RuCFDST. This was due to
the internal collapsing nature of the interior tube,
given the RuC effectively had voids inside it, the
thicker internal tubes can resist more and the con-
crete can condense before the inner tube fails.
Figure  2 presents the axial load-displacement
curves for specimens with outer 2  mm and inner
5 mm (O2I5) tubes of 0%, 15% and 30% RR, while
Figure  3 represents those for the specimens with
outer 5  mm and inner 2  mm (O5I2) tubes. From
the figures, it can generally be observed that the
CFDST specimens with a thinner outer steel tube
yielded a flatter load-displacement relationship at
the post-ultimate loading stage. The flatter curve Figure 3. Load-displacement curves for specimens with
could both skins as being fairly equal in contribut- outer 5 mm and inner 2 mm (O5I2) tubes of 0%, 15% and
ing to the axial compressive strength of the speci- 30% rubber replacement.
men. Results between the figures show that the
outer skin thickness dictated the strength. The
wave like function in the bottom figure could be
due to the strain hardening process of the outer
specimen, as the outer skin can hold a larger load
before the next deformation starts; the top graph
has quick failure in the outer skin. It can also be
seen that the rubber didn’t have much negative
effect in top graph, due to being at lower axial force
the rubber concrete can perform well and allow the
inner SHS to take the load before it undergoes
internal buckling. As internal buckling was not the
common failure mechanism of the 50 × 5 mm SHS,
the inner steel core resists the concrete for longer,
providing strength until failure occurred.

4.2 Deformed shapes of CFSTs and CFDSTs

The deformed shapes of the current columns are
illustrated in Figure  4, from which the outward
buckling of the outer steel tubes becomes obvious.
It can be noticed that the failure commonly began
slightly below the top of the specimen, and then pro-
gressively buckled down the specimen. This could Figure  4. CFDST specimens (a) before and (b) after
be due to the ability of the concrete to push the top testing.

86
of inner tube inward, leading to less confinement of
the concrete and more load on the outer steel skin.
4.3 Post stress concrete expansion
After significant displacement, the specimens
exhibited a rise in concrete above the level of the
outer and inner SHS. This Post Stress Concrete
Expansion (see Fig. 5) is obvious with the RuC30
specimen but showed only a slight expansion in
the 15% RuC specimen. The expansion occurred
because of the elastic properties of the rubber
pushing through the concrete matrix of the speci-
men. The 30% RuCFDST showed segregated sand,
aggregate and rubber around the top surface of the
specimen (Fig. 5), the concrete above the steel sur-
face appears to have little structural capacity and
can be removed with minimal force.
4.4 Concrete—steel bonding
During axial compression, the confined concrete
pushes laterally on the inner and outer tube attrib-
uting to the failure of the steel sections. The con-
crete bonded extremely well to the inside of the
outer steel and remained on the removed piece
as seen in Figure  6. The piece separated from the
rest of the concrete on a shear plane similar to the
original width of the specimen and appears to be
structural. As the concrete has nowhere else to go, it
Figure 5. Post stress rubber expansion.
Figure 6. Concrete and outer steel bonding zone of 0%
CFDST specimen (inside of CFDST left, piece removed
right).
87
behaved more ductile and instead of failing through
cracking vertically down the specimen, it elastically
conforms to the inside of the outer tube. Confine-
ment enhances the composite specimen and allows
it to maintain structural capacity after failure.
Topçu stated that high internal tensile stresses
perpendicular to axial load direction are produced
because of the low modulus of elasticity of rubber
particles (Topu, 1995). The failure mode in Figure 6
showed that confining the concrete provides rein-
forcement both laterally for the internal tensile forces
of the concrete pushing perpendicular to load direc-
tion whilst also providing strength in the direction
axial load is applied. Despite this, after opening the
steel specimen, it confirms that the concrete has seg-
regated inside the steel tube and is worse with higher
rubber replacement. The aggregate appears loose
inside the 15% and 30% RuCFDST specimens but
still morphs to the inside of the outer steel section.
4.5 Ductility and energy absorption
The energy absorbed by a specimen can be deter-
mined by the area under the Load (kN) vs. Dis-
placement (mm) curve.
The energy absorption for the RuCFDST 2 mm
outer, 5  mm inner and 15% RuCFDST was deter-
mined. The components of the composite specimen
were separately tested to determine the individual
energy absorption. The results are shown in Figure 7,
which show the difference between the composite
action member and the strength of the individual
components. The concrete strength was accounted
for using the stress from the standard 100 mm diam-
eter compressive cylinder tests, which produced the
concrete strength in the 15% RuCFDST specimen.
The absorbed energy was determined for the
specimens at the displacement of 0.75  ×  Pulti-
mate (Δy), 15  mm, 25  mm, and 60  mm. Through
dividing the energy absorption at displacements
15 mm, 25 mm, and 60 mm by the absorbed energy
at Pultimate (Δy), the Ductility Index (DI) was
determined. Analysis of the DI data yielded Fig-
ure  8. This figure shows that thinner 100  ×  2  mm
Figure  7. Composite energy absorption for 15%
RuCFDST O2I5-15.

Figure  8. Composite energy absorption for 15%
RuCFDST O2I5-15.
outer sections have higher DI than the 100 × 5 mm
specimens inclusive of the CFST specimen. The
O2I2-30 specimen indicated lower DI results than the
other thin outer section specimens. Apart from this,
Figure  8 showed the ductility index remaining con-
stant through the different rubber replacements.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents an experimental investigation
of CFDST/CFST confined and unconfined rub-
berised concrete. The results of this paper are sum-
marised in the following points:
• The Rubber pre-treatment process was success-
ful in creating vertically uniformed specimens
and avoided rubber particles clustering at the
top of the sylinders.
• Energy absorption for composite material is signif-
icantly larger than the components that make it up,
showing the positive effects of composite action
• RuCFST results align with Duarte’s (Duarte
et al. 2016) and show the similar results for con-
crete attributing to the overall strength of the
CFST specimen.
• The phenomenon of post stress concrete expan-
sion was achieved in this project and has not
been previously researched. Confinement
allows this to occur by restricting the concrete
to uncompact in one direction, in this case
upwards. This is an interesting result and further
research and consideration on the application of
this is required.
• The bonding zone of the concrete and inside
of the outer steel section was extremely prom-
ising showing the concrete behaving like a duc-
tile material. This shows clearly the significant
benefits of CFST and CFDSTs as a method of
avoiding brittle failure in structure members.
• The ductility index for thinner outer steel speci-
mens was higher than that of thicker outer steel
specimens. Analysis of the ductility index of
88
the range of specimens shows that the ductility
idndex is fairly constant across the three rubber
replacements.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to deeply thank Liam
O’keefe from Tyres Stewardship Australia and
Adrian Jones from Tyrecycle. Thanks are given to
Andrew Sarkady and Anup Chakrabortty from
BASF for kindly donating the superplasticizer
required for all the specimens. Thanks are given the
following technicians Matt Arpin, Malcolm Staf-
ford, Jim Waters and Brad Rose for assisting the
students in performing the experiments. Thanks are
given to Cameron Marshall and Armin Hosseini,
David Pegrum and Aarin Ryan, former students of
UWA for performing the tests and processing the
test data.
REFERENCES
Duarte, A., Silva, B., Silvestre, N., de Brito, J., Júlio, E. &
Castro, J. 2016. Tests and design of short steel tubes
filled with rubberised concrete, Engineering Struc-
tures, 112: 274–286.
Elchalakani, M. 2015. High strength rubberized concrete
containing silica fume for the construction of sustain-
able road side barriers, Structures, 1: 20–38.
Eldin, N. & Senouci, A. 1994. Measurement and predic-
tion of the strength of rubberized concrete, Cement
and Concrete Composites, 16(4): 287–298.
Hassanli, R., Youssf, O. & Mills, J. 2017. Experimental
investigations of reinforced rubberized concrete struc-
tural members, Journal of Building Engineering, 10:
149–165.
Ho, A., Turatsinze, A., Hameed, R. & Vu, D. 2012.
Effects of rubber aggregates from grinded used tyres
on the concrete resistance to cracking, Journal of
Cleaner Production, 23(1): 209–215.
Ho, J. & Dong, C. 2014. Improving strength, stiffness and
ductility of CFDST columns by external confinement,
Thin-Walled Structures, 75: 18–29.
Liu, F., Zheng, W., Li, L., Feng, W. & Ning, G. 2013.
Mechanical and fatigue performance of rubber
concrete, Construction and Building Materials, 47:
711–719.
Pelisser, F., Zavarise, N., Longo, T. & Bernardin, A. 2011.
Concrete made with recycled tire rubber: Effect of
alkaline activation and silica fume addition, Journal
of Cleaner Production, 19(6–7): 757–763.
Topçu, I. 1995. The properties of rubberized concretes,
Cement and Concrete Research, 25(2): 304–310.
Youssf, O., ElGawady, M. & Mills, J. 2015. Experimental
Investigation of Crumb Rubber Concrete Columns
under Seismic Loading, Structures, 3: 13–27.
Zhao, X., Grzebieta, R. & Elchalakani, M. 2002. Tests of
concrete-filled double skin CHS composite stub col-
umns, Steel and Composite Structures, 2(2): 129–146.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Effect of using steel corner tubes on the static compressive and cyclic
behavior of concrete-filled double-skin fabricated columns

M. Farahi, A. Heidarpour & X.L. Zhao

Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

R. Al-Mahaidi
Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT: The high strength of Concrete Filled Tubular (CFT) sections and Concrete-Filled
Double-Skin Tubular (CFDST) sections distinguishes these sections from other conventional structural
sections. In this study, an innovative fabrication strategy is implemented to enhance the performance of
CFDSTs. Based on this strategy, four ultra-high strength steel tubes are welded to the corners of CFDST
columns. Several specimens strengthened with this strategy are subjected to axial compressive and lateral
cyclic loading. The static compressive experiments are performed on the short column specimens with
one meter length while uniaxial and biaxial cyclic experiments are conducted on the selected three meter
long specimens. Thus, through this experimental study, the efficiency of employing corner steel tubes in
the improvement of the structural performance of CFDST sections is examined. It is proved that the
employed fabrication strategy improves the resistance and the stability of the CFDSTs under the applied
loading scenarios.

1 INTRODUCTION several columns with conventional and innovative

Concrete-filled double-skin sections are gener-
ally consisting of two steel hollow sections while
the gap between these steel skins are filled with
concrete. The structural behavior of this kind of
composite sections under compressive loading has
been investigated in several studies. Hence, different
merits and probable demerits of practical applica-
tion of these sections have been reported by various
researchers (Han et  al., 2004, Varma et  al., 2002,
Zhao et  al., 2010). As an instance, the authors of
this study have been experimentally and numerically
proved that the insufficient ductility undermines the
superior compressive resistance of the rectangular
CFDST sections (Farahi et al., 2016a, Farahi et al.,
2016b). In addition, due to the notable compressive
capacity of the intended composite sections, these
sections might be appealing to be utilized as the
columns of the high-rise buildings. This demands
for studying the behavior of the concrete-filled
composite sections under simultaneous lateral and
the axial loading. Consequently, the behavior of
large-scale CFT columns have recently been probed
under monotonic and cyclic lateral loading scenar-
ios (Perea et al., 2014, Liao et al., 2017).
This study reports the results of seven experi-
ments that have been conducted on steel-concrete
composite column specimens. In these experiments,
CFDST cross-sections were subjected to axial and
lateral loading. The promising effects of apply-
ing corner tubes on the compressive behavior of
steel hollow sections was proved in previous stud-
ies (Javidan et al., 2016). Hence, in the innovative
CFDST sections, four mild steel (MS)/ultra-high-
strength steel (UHSS) tubes were also added to the
corners of these steel-concrete composite cross-
sections. Eventually, it has been investigated how
these additional components affect the compres-
sive and cyclic behavior of CFDST columns.
2 STATIC COMPRESSIVE EXPERIMENTS
Three static compressive experiments were con-
ducted in order to investigate the effect of strength-
ening CFDST short columns with corner tubes.
Two specimens were fabricated employing corner
mild steel tubes and corner ultra-high strength
steel tubes. These specimens are named C-T-MS
and C-T-UHSS, respectively. In addition, the third
specimen (C-Ref) with a conventional CFDST
cross-section was fabricated without the corner
tubes, and it was tested under the compressive
loading as the reference sample. The cross-section
of aforementioned specimens has schematically
been depicted in Figure 1.

89
Figure 1. Schematic cross-sections of the C-T-UHSS,
C-T-MS and C-Ref specimens.

Table 1. Material properties of different components of

the specimens tested under axial loading.

Concrete
Yield stress of Yield stress of compressive
steel skins corner tubes strength
(MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
Figure 2. Experimental set-up used for conducting the
C-T-UHSS 265 1247 47.1
static compression experiments.
C-T-MS 265 305 49.8
C-Ref 265 – 47.6

The height of all the specimens under static com-

pressive experiment was chosen equal to one meter.
The material properties of the different compo-
nents of these sections have been listed in Table 1.
The inner and the outer steel skins of all specimens
were fabricated from 3 mm thick Grade 250 mild-
steel plates (Nassirnia et al., 2016). Both MS and
UHSS tubes used to fabricate the specimens had
the same nominal wall thickness of 3.2  mm and
the same nominal outer diameter of 76.1 mm. The
yield strength of the MS and UHSS tubes were
equal to 305 and 1247 MPa, respectively (Javidan
et al., 2015). In order to make it possible to fill the Figure  3. Axial force-nominal axial strain curves
obtained from the static compressive.
small gap between the inner and outer steel skins,
self-consolidating concrete (SCC) was used dur-
ing the fabrication of the specimens. The strength
2.2 Analyzing the results of the experiments
obtained for the different concrete mixes used to
fill the specimens has been reported in Table 1. The axial force resisted by all three specimens has
been plotted versus the recorded nominal axial
strain in Figure 3. The nominal axial strain has been
2.1 Experimental set-up
defined as the ratio of the overall axial deformation
The specimens were placed vertically in the loading of the specimen to its length. As Figure 3 shows, the
machine between two rigid horizontal plates. The ultimate compressive capacity of the specimen with
rigid plate at the top of the specimens was fixed, UHSS corner tubes was obtained much greater
while the bottom plate of the loading machine than that of other specimens. The significantly
was being pushed up by a hydraulic jack during larger yield stress of UHSS tubes can justify this
the test. Figure 2 shows the C-Ref specimen dur- observation.
ing the compressive experiment. Two linear vari- It has been reported in previous studies (Farahi
able differential transformers (LVDT) were used to et al., 2016a, Farahi et al., 2016b) that the linear
measure the overall axial deformation of the speci- part of the compressive behavior of the CFDST
mens, while the compressive force resisted by the sections is followed by an abrupt drop in their
specimens during the experiments was recorded by compressive strength. According to Figure  3,
the machine. such a sudden strength drop was captured in the

90
compressive behavior of the C-T-MS and C-Ref
specimens. However, the linear part of the com-
pressive behavior of the specimen strengthened
with UHSS tubes was followed with a yield-
ing plateau instead of an abrupt strength drop.
Due to the superior load bearing capacity of the
UHSS corner tubes, these tubes carried a signifi-
cant portion of the axial loading even after the
steel skins buckled locally and the concrete infill
crushed. Hence, a different compressive behavior
was observed for C-T-UHSS specimen. In con-
clusion, the employment of UHSS tubes at the
corners of CFDSTs significantly increases their
resistance against axial loading. In addition, the
conducted experiments showed that applying cor-
ner UHSS tubes improves the non-ductile com-
pressive behavior of CFDST section.
3 LARGE-SCALE LATERAL CYCLIC
EXPERIMENTS
In order to examine the behavior of CFDST col-
umns under cyclic lateral loading, four cyclic tests
were also performed on the large-scale CFDST
columns. Two different cross-sections were cho-
sen for the mentioned columns. The geometry of
these cross-sections has schematically been shown
in Figure  4. The first cross-section included two
built-up rectangular hollow sections, while the gap
between these hollow sections was filled with self-
consolidating concrete. Similar to the steel skins of
the previous specimens, the steel skins were fabri-
cated from 3 mm thick Grade 250 mild-steel plates.
Plates with the same material properties were also
used to fabricate the inner and the outer rectan-
gular sections of the second cross-section. How-
ever, the columns with the second cross-section
were consisting of UHSS tubes at their corners.
The UHSS tubes used to fabricate the specimens
in this part of the study were similar to the UHSS
tubes used to fabricate C-T-UHSS specimen where
all tubes were provided by the same manufacturer.
The columns with the first and second cross-sec-
Figure  4. Schematic cross-sections of the L-T-UHSS
and L-Ref specimens.
91
tions have been named L-Ref and L-T-UHSS,
respectively.
The same self-consolidating concrete mix was
used to fill all the large-scale columns at the same
time. The average strength for the concrete mix was
obtained equal to 48 MPa from compressive tests
conducted on the standard cylindrical samples.
The height of all four columns was chosen equal
to 3030 mm. Two end-plates with the dimensions
equal to 600 × 600 × 50 mm were welded at top and
bottom of all columns. Sixteen 80  ×  80  ×  20  mm
mild steel stiffeners were also welded to all sides
of the outer skins and the end plates at top and
bottom of the specimens. In addition, eight similar
stiffeners were welded to the tubes and end-plates
at top and bottom of the specimens with corner
UHSS tubes. Figure 5 shows two specimens with
both types of cross-sections mounted in the set-up
designed for the intended tests.
3.1 Experimental set-up
The Multi Axial Substructure Testing (MAST)
system at Swinburne University (Hashemi et al.,
2015) was used to conduct the cyclic experi-
ments. This system is capable of simulating
time-varying six-degrees-of-freedom (6-DOF)
boundary effects on large-scale experimental
specimens (Hashemi et  al., 2015). The MAST
system can be utilized to simulate any complex
loading scenarios using mixed load/deforma-
tion modes. Four vertical hydraulic jacks and
two pairs of horizontal jacks in two perpen-
dicular directions have been implemented in
the MAST system in order to transfer a rigid
crosshead in any intended direction. The col-
umn specimens were mounted between the
Figure  5. (a) L-T-UHSS specimen before staring the
bidirectional cyclic test (b) L-Ref specimen at the end of
the bidirectional cyclic test.
strong floor of the laboratory and the rigid
crosshead of the MAST system. As shown in
Figure 5, two rigid plates with dimensions equal to
1450 × 1450 × 90 mm and 1450 × 1450 × 110 mm
were also fixed to the floor and the crosshead
at the bottom and top of the specimens. These
plates were placed in the set-up in order to start
the tests with the minimum initial deformation in
the vertical jacks, which made it possible to have
enough room to continue the tests even in cases
that the column specimens underwent severe
shortening.
Two types of experiments were conducted on
the specimens under unidirectional and bidi-
rectional lateral loading cycles. The lateral dis-
placement loading cycles were chosen based on
the loading protocol suggested by FEMA 461
(2007). Figure 6 (a) shows the amplitude of the
lateral loading cycles employed in the cyclic
experiments. In bidirectional cyclic experiments,
the cross-head and consequently the top end of
the intended specimens were moved following the
pattern depicted in Figure  6 (b). In this figure,
ai represents the amplitudes of each cycle as
introduced in Figure  6(a). Based on this dis-
placement pattern, the maximum displacement
in the major direction of loading is twice of the
Figure  6. (a) The amplitudes of the lateral loading
cycles (b) loading pattern used to impose the bidirec-
tional lateral loading cycles (FEMA, 2007).
92
maximum applied displacement in the perpen-
dicular direction in each cycle of loading. In
conjunction with the lateral loading, a constant
axial force equal to 30% of the axial capacity
of the specimens was exerted on them during
all tests. Hence, the specimens with L-Ref and
L-T-UHSS cross-sections were subjected to
the axial loads equal to 750  kN and 1500  kN,
respectively, during the experiments. The axial
capacity of the specimens was calculated based
on an analytical formulation suggested by the
authors (Farahi et  al., 2017). The experiments
were continued under the introduced loading
protocol until the column specimens lost their
stability under axial loading.
The specimens were fixed to the set-up at their
bottom, and every rotations and displacements
were restrained at that end of the specimens. At
the top end of the specimens, unless the verti-
cal and lateral displacement degrees of freedom
which were needed to load the specimens, all other
degrees of freedom were restrained. Hence, it
can be concluded that the experiments were con-
ducted using fixed-fixed boundary conditions, and
the specimens were subjected to a dual-curvature
deformation along their length.
3.2 Analyzing the results of the experiments
During the tests, the lateral displacements at the top
of the specimens were recorded using a pair of string
pods in each direction of lateral loading. In addition,
the vertical displacement of the center of the cross-
head, that is equivalent to the specimens shortening,
were recorded by the MAST system. The resultant
reaction forces and bending moments at the top
end of the column specimens were also calculated
according to the force recorded by the MAST sys-
tem. Therefore, the history of the end reaction forces
and bending moments can be plotted with respect to
the lateral drift imposed to each column specimen.
The resultant bending moment at the top of the
column specimens versus the applied drift ratios is
plotted in Figure  7 for the cyclic tests conducted
on the L-Ref and L-T-UHSS specimens. As it was
expected, the lateral resistance of L-T-UHSS spec-
imen was obtained notably greater than the L-Ref
specimen due to the superior strength of UHSS
tubes. It is also apparent from these figures that
applying the corner tubes has improved the stabil-
ity of the intended CFDST column under lateral
cyclic loading as the L-T-UHSS specimen resisted
more cycles before it collapsed compared with the
L-Ref specimen. Consequently, the employment of
the corner UHSS tubes improves the energy dissi-
pation capacity of the intended composite sections
in addition to increasing notably their resistance
against lateral loading.

Figure  7. Top end bending moment-drift ratio curves
obtained for the L-Ref and L-T-UHSS during the (a) uni-
directional cyclic tests and (b) bidirectional cyclic tests.
Figure 8. The deformed shape of the bottom parts of
(a) L-ref specimen and (b) L-T-UHSS specimen at 2%
drift ratio during the bidirectional cyclic tests.
Figure 8 shows the deformed shape of the L-Ref
and L-T-UHSS specimens under the same drift
ratios during the bidirectional cyclic experiments.
Generally, more significant plastic deformations
93
Figure 9. Shortening of (a) L-ref column specimen and
(b) L-T-UHSS column specimen during the bidirectional
cyclic tests.
were captured at both ends of the L-Ref specimen
compared to the L-T-UHSS specimen at the same
drift ratios during both unidirectional and bidirec-
tional cyclic tests.
The shortening of column specimens during
the unidirectional cyclic tests has been depicted in
Figure  9. The rate of shortening was rapidly
increased after the severe local buckling evolved
along the specimens. As it can be observed in
Figure  9, the shorting became significant
under larger drift ratio cycles for the L-T-
UHSS specimen compared to the L-Ref speci-
men. This also proves the improving effect of
employing corner UHSS tubes on mitigating
the local instabilities that might be expected
for steel-concrete composite sections under
severe loading scenarios.
4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Three static compressive and four large-scale
cyclic experiments were conducted on the column
specimens with CFDST sections. According to
the experimental results, employing UHSS tubes
at the corners of CFDSTs increases the axial and
lateral load bearing capacity of the entire CFDST
section. It has also been shown that the compres-
sive behavior of short CFDST columns strength-
ened with corner tubes includes a yielding plateau
in contrast to the non-ductile behavior of gen-
eral rectangular CFDST columns. In addition, it
has been experimentally proved that the CFDST
columns consisting of corner UHSS tubes are
capable of dissipating more energy during cyclic
loading before they lose their resistance to the
gravity loading.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research work presented in this paper is
supported by the Australian Research Council
through the Discovery Project (DP150100442)
awarded to the authors. The required steel hollow
sections were fabricated by Crossline Engineering,
Pty Ltd., Melbourne, Australia. The assistance of
the technical staffs at Smart Structures Laboratory
of Swinburne University and the technical staff at
Monash University Civil Engineering Laboratory
is appreciated.
REFERENCES
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double-skin sections consisting of corrugated plates.
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Farahi, M., Heidarpour, A., Zhao, X.-L. & Al-Mahaidi,
R. 2016b. Parametric study on the static compres-
sive behaviour of concrete-filled double-skin sections
consisting of corrugated plates. Journal of thin-walled
structures, In Press.
Farahi, M., Heidarpour, A., Zhao, X.-L. & Al-Mahaidi,
R. 2017. Effect of ultra-high strength steel on mitiga-
tion of non-ductile yielding of concrete-filled double-
skin columns. Construction and Building Materials,
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Experimental investigation of concrete-filled lean duplex stainless steel

RHS stub columns

B. Xing & B. Young

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT: Experimental investigation of Concrete-filled lean Duplex Stainless Steel (LDSS) Rectangu-
lar Hollow Section (RHS) stub columns has been presented. A total of 13 stub columns, 10 concrete-filled
and 3 without concrete infill, under axial compression was conducted. The RHS had overall depth-to-width
ratio varied from 1.3 to 2.0, and overall depth-to-thickness ratio varied from 26 to 40. The nominal cylinder
strengths of concrete ranged from 30 to 110 MPa. In this study, the effect of concrete strength was investi-
gated. The stub column strengths were compared with the design strengths predicted using the American,
Australian, and European specifications. It is found that the design strengths predicted by the aforemen-
tioned specifications are generally conservative. The design strengths predicted by the American Specifica-
tion are found to be generally slightly more conservative than the Australian and European specifications.

1 INTRODUCTION to be generally conservative. A new design approach

Lean duplex stainless steel type EN 1.4062, is a rela-
tively new material, has recently gained significant
attention due to its exceptional mechanical proper-
ties, good corrosion resistance and lower cost com-
pare to its counterpart of duplex stainless steel type.
The low Nickel content in lean duplex stainless steel
(LDSS) makes it more economical, considering the
high cost of Nickel. Currently, there is no specifi-
cation covering the design of concrete-filled LDSS
tubular sections. In this study, the American Speci-
fication (ACI 2008), European Code (EC4 1994)
and Australian Standard (AS5100 2004) were used
to determine the cold-formed LDSS stub column
strengths by replacing the yield strength of carbon
steel with the 0.2% proof stress of stainless steel.
Investigations of concrete-filled stainless steel stub
columns were conducted by Young & Ellobody (2006),
Ellobody & Young (2006), Dabaon et  al. (2009a, b)
and Hassanein et al. (2013). Young & Ellobody (2006)
conducted an experimental investigation of concrete-
filled cold-formed high strength stainless steel tube
columns. The effects of the concrete strength on the
behaviour and strength of concrete-filled high strength
stainless steel tube columns were investigated. The
column strengths, load–axial strain relationships and
failure modes of the columns were presented. Based
on the test results, design recommendations were pro-
posed for concrete-filled high strength stainless steel
tube columns. Huang & Young (2012, 2014a) con-
ducted a series of stub and pin-ended column tests on
LDSS hollow sections without concrete infilled. The
existing stainless steel design specifications were found
was recommended to use stub column properties and
full cross-sectional area for calculating compression
capacity for both slender and non-slender sections.
Theofanous & Gardner (2009) carried out experimen-
tal and numerical investigations into LDSS hollow
section stub columns and pin-ended columns without
concrete filled. It was suggested that the class 3 limit of
Eurocode 3 (2006) be relaxed from 30.7 to 37.0, and a
new effective width equation was proposed. It is found
that very limited test data in the literature for concrete-
filled LDSS stub columns. As mentioned earlier, the
design of concrete-filled LDSS tubular sections is not
covered in any international specification.
The purpose of this study is to present an experi-
mental investigation of concrete-filled LDSS RHS
stub columns. A series of stub column tests was con-
ducted. The stub column test strengths were compared
with the design strengths predicted using the ACI
(2008), EC4 (1994) and AS5100 (2004) for concrete,
steel and composite structures. The design strengths
were calculated using the material properties of the
fabricated RHS and the concrete cylinder strengths,
which considered the enhancement of material prop-
erties due to cold-working on the LDSS tubes.
2 TEST SPECIMENS
The LDSS type EN 1.4062 with Nickel content of
1.0% to 2.9% has been used in this investigation.
Table  1  shows the chemical composition of the test
specimens obtained from mill certificates. Three differ-
ent sizes of concrete-filled LDSS RHS stub columns

95
Table 1. Chemical composition of lean duplex stainless steel type EN 1.4062.

Chemical C Si Mn P S N Cr Mo Ni

Content (%) 0.03 1.00 2.00 0.04 0.01 0.16–0.28 21.5–24.0 0.45 1.0–2.9

were tested under fixed-ended condition. The nominal

section sizes (D × B × t) were 60 × 40 × 2, 80 × 60 × 3
and 120 × 60 × 3, where D is the overall depth, B is
the overall width and t is the plate thickness in millim-
eters. The value of three times the nominal depth was
adopted for stub column length, which is designed to
prevent the occurrence of overall buckling. Therefore,
each specimen of sections 60 × 40 × 2, 80 × 60 × 3 and
120 × 60 × 3 was wire cut to specified lengths of 180,
240 and 360  mm, respectively. The measured inner
corner radii (ri) were 2.0, 2.9 and 3.2 mm for specimens
of sections 60 × 40 × 2, 80 × 60 × 3 and 120 × 60 × 3,
respectively. The measured values of overall depth-to-
width ratio were 1.51, 1.33 and 2.01, while the values
of overall depth-to-thickness ratio were 29.9, 25.8 and
38.6 for specimens of section 60 × 40 × 2, 80 × 60 × 3
and 120 × 60 × 3, respectively. The test specimens are
labeled such that the type of tests, section size and
infilled concrete grade could be identified. For exam-
ple, the label “SC60 × 40 × 2C30R” defines the stub
column (SC) specimen had a nominal section size
(D × B × t) of 60 × 40 × 2, and the following letter
“C” indicates the grade of infilled concrete with the
nominal concrete grade in MPa (30  MPa). The let- Figure 1. Flat coupon test setup.
ter “R” indicates the repeat test. Similarly, the label
“SC80 × 60 × 3C0” defines the stub column specimen
determine the initial Young’s modulus (Eo). A cali-
had nominal section size of 80 × 60 × 3 with no con-
brated extensometer was attached to the coupon to
crete infill.
measure the elongation throughout the test. Fig-
ure 1 shows the setup of the flat coupon test. Static loads
were obtained by pausing the straining for 100 sec-
3 MATERIAL PROPERTIES
onds. The measured material properties, including
initial Young’s modulus (Eo), static 0.2% proof stress
3.1 Lean duplex stainless steel
(σ0.2), static ultimate tensile strength (σu), elongation
The material properties of both flat portion and after fracture (εf), Ramberg–Osgood parameter (n)
corner portion of each section were determined by for sections 60 × 40 × 2, 80 × 60 × 3 and 120 × 60 × 3,
tensile coupon tests. The flat coupon was taken from are summarized in Table  2. The expression for
the center of the plate at 90° from the weld in the Ramberg–Osgood parameter (n) is given by Eq. (1):
longitudinal direction, while the corner coupon was
taken from the corner in the opposite side of the weld n = ln(0.01/0.2)/ln(σ0.01/σ0.2) (1)
in the longitudinal direction of the untested speci-
mens. The flat coupon dimension conformed to the where σ0.01 is the 0.01% proof stress. Figure 2 shows
American Specification ASTM E8/E8M-16a (2016) the stress-strain curves of a flat coupon taken from
as well as Huang & Young (2014b). The coupon tests section 80 × 60 × 3.
were carried out using the same procedure as rec-
ommended by Huang & Young (2014b). The gauge
3.2 Concrete
lengths of the flat and corner coupon specimens were
50 mm and 25 mm, respectively. Two strain gauges The concrete was produced using commercially
were attached on both surfaces of the coupon in available materials with normal mixing and curing
order to measure the strains at early stage of the test. methods. In order to determine the compressive
The readings from the strain gauges were used to concrete cylinder strengths (fc), the cylinders with

96
Table 2. Measured material properties obtained from tensile coupon tests.

Section Coupon Eo σ0.2 σu εf

(D × B × t) location (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%) n σu/σ0.2

60 × 40 × 2 Flat 198.8 599.1 740.9 36.5 5.2 1.24

Corner 199.0 796.8 958.3 12.1 4.8 1.20
80 × 60 × 3 Flat 200.9 613.0 709.5 36.4 6.9 1.16
Corner 197.1 772.6 904.8 15.4 4.9 1.17
120 × 60 × 3 Flat 205.3 610.4 732.6 37.3 6.5 1.20
Corner 207.3 793.1 917.6 14.7 5.4 1.16

Figure 2. Stress-strain curves of flat coupon taken from

section 80 × 60 × 3.

a diameter of 150 mm and height of 300 mm were

cast and tested in accordance with the American
Specification ACI 318–14 (2008). The stub col-
umn tests were conducted at least 28  days after
the casting of concrete. For each concrete grade,
four cylinder tests were conducted to determine
the compressive concrete cylinder strength. The
average compressive concrete cylinder strengths
at the time of testing were measured as 31.1, 71.4
and 108.5 MPa with the corresponding coefficients
of variation (COVs) of 0.077, 0.109 and 0.112 for
nominal concrete grades of C30, C70 and C110,
respectively.
4 TEST SETUP AND PROCEDURE
A servo-controlled hydraulic testing machine was
used to apply compressive axial force to the stub col-
umn specimens. Prior to testing, a thin layer of plas-
ter was applied to the top level of the stub column
to allow an even distribution of the axial load in
both concrete core and LDSS tube during the test.
It should be noted that the bottom level of the stub
column was flat due to the fabrication of the con-
crete-filled specimen. In addition, the stub column
ends were strengthened by a steel reinforcing frame
Figure 3. Stub column test setup.
to prevent failure at the ends (“elephant foot” buck-
ling). This is to ensure that the stub column strength
would not be influenced by end effects. Pre-loading
of approximately 2 kN was applied to the specimen
in order to eliminate any possible gaps between the
upper bearing and the top surface of the specimen.
The upper bearing was then restrained against the
minor and major axis rotations in order to provide
fixed-ended support. Displacement control (1 mm/
min) was used to allow the test to be continued in
the post-ultimate range. Four LVDTs were evenly
distributed to measure the axial shortening of stub
column specimen, while the real-time axial load
was recorded by a data logger at 1 second interval.
Figure 3 shows a typical stub column test setup.
5 TEST RESULTS
In this study, 10 concrete-filled LDSS RHS stub
columns and 3  specimens without concrete infill

97
were tested. The ultimate loads and load-axial 6 COMPARISON OF TEST STRENGTHS
shortening relationships were measured and WITH DESIGN STRENGTHS
recorded for each test. Table 3 summarizes the ulti-
mate loads for each specimen. Figure 4 shows the 6.1 General
load-axial shortening curves of section 60 × 40 × 2
It is worth noting that currently there is no specifi-
for specimens with different concrete grades. It
cation covering the design of concrete-filled LDSS
can be observed that all tests were carried out
tubular sections. The suitability of existing design
into the post-ultimate range. In addition, stub
rules to concrete-filled LDSS stub columns were
columns filled with higher concrete grade led to
assessed by comparing the test strengths with the
higher ultimate load, but the axial shortening at
unfactored design strengths (nominal strengths).
ultimate load decreased. For the failure mode, it
The design strengths were calculated by replacing the
is observed that the RHS buckled outwards near
yield strength of carbon steel with the 0.2% proof
the mid-height of the stub column specimens at
stress of stainless steel. The design strengths were
ultimate loads.
calculated using the American, European and Aus-
tralian design specifications, namely the ACI (2008),
EC4 (1994) and AS5100 (2004) for concrete, steel
Table  3. Comparison of test strengths with design and composite structures. In the calculation of stub
strengths.
column strengths, the material properties and speci-
Test Comparison men dimensions were taken as the measured values.
The comparison of the test strengths with design
PExp PExp PExp strengths for all specimens is shown in Table 3.
PExp
Specimen (kN) PACI PEC4 PAS5100
6.2 American specification
SC60 × 40 × 2C0 277.6 1.22 1.22 1.22
SC60 × 40 × 2C30 370.5 1.32 1.28 1.28 The test strengths of concrete-filled LDSS RHS
SC60 × 40 × 2C30R 353.6 1.26 1.22 1.22 stub columns obtained from the experiments
SC60 × 40 × 2C70 416.7 1.19 1.12 1.12 were firstly compared with the design strengths
SC60 × 40 × 2C110 458.6 1.11 1.02 1.02 predicted by ACI (2008). The ACI (2008) ignores
SC80 × 60 × 3C0 642.3 1.30 1.30 1.30 the concrete confinement effect. The compressive
SC80 × 60 × 3C30 787.1 1.31 1.27 1.27 resistance (PACI) of a concrete-filled tubular section
SC80 × 60 × 3C70 901.1 1.22 1.16 1.16 is given in Eq. (2):
SC80 × 60 × 3C70R 889.9 1.21 1.14 1.14
SC80 × 60 × 3C110 946.3 1.10 1.02 1.02 PACI = Asfy + 0.85Acfc (2)
SC120 × 60 × 3C0 638.5 0.99 0.99 0.99
SC120 × 60 × 3C30 914.7 1.14 1.10 1.10 where As and Ac represent the cross-sectional
SC120 × 60 × 3C70 1061.4 1.05 0.98 0.98 areas of the outer steel tube and the concrete core,
respectively. The fy is yield strength of the steel tube
Mean 1.18 1.14 1.14
and taken herein as the 0.2% proof stress σ0.2 of the
COV 0.084 0.094 0.094 stainless steel tube. The fc is unconfined concrete
cylinder strength of the concrete core.
It should be noted that ACI (2008) only applies
to composite members with tube thickness not less
than the yield slenderness limit given by D(fy/3Eo)0.5.
The stub column specimens with stainless steel sec-
tion 120 × 60 × 3 do not satisfy this limit. However,
the sections 60 × 40 × 2 and 80 × 60 × 3 satisfied the
limit. It is found that the design strengths predicted
by the ACI (2008) are generally conservative. The
mean value of PExp/PACI is 1.18 with a correspond-
ing COV of 0.084.

6.3 European code

The test strengths of concrete-filled LDSS RHS
stub columns were also compared with the design
Figure  4. Load-axial shortening curves of strengths predicted by EC4 (1994). This code
section 60 × 40 × 2. considers the concrete confinement effect by the

98
steel tube. The compressive resistance (PEC4) of a
concrete-filled column is given in Eq. (6.30) of
EC4 (1994). The confinement effect has been taken
into consideration by taking the concrete coeffi-
cient as 1.0, rather than 0.85 (1994). The equation
is shown in Eq. (3):
PEC4  = Asfy + Acfc (3)
where the symbols have been previously defined.
It is worth noting that EC4 (1994) only applies to
columns with normal weight concrete of strength
classes C20/C25 to C50/C60 and steel grade from
S235 to S460. In this study, the stub column speci-
mens fall outside these ranges, where the stainless
steel tubes had the 0.2% proof stress of approximately
600 MPa. Furthermore, concrete grades of C70 and
C100 were used. For the steel tube, EC4 (1994) speci-
fies a slenderness limit (D/t) of 52(235/fy)0.5. The stub
column specimens with tube dimension 120 × 60 × 3
exceed this limit. In Table  3, it is shown that the
design strengths predicted by EC4 (1994) are gener-
ally conservative. The mean value of PExp/PEC4 is 1.14
with the corresponding COV of 0.094.
6.4 Australian standard
In AS5100 (2004), the nominal axial strength
(PAS5100) of a concrete-filled RHS is calculated
using identical equation to Eq. (3). Therefore,
the prediction values are identical as that pre-
dicted by EC4 (1994). However, the slenderness
limit in the AS5100 (2004) is different from that
in EC4 (1994). The AS5100 (2004) only applies
to members with 28-day concrete characteristic
compressive strength within the range of 25 MPa
to 65  MPa, and steel grade with yield stress not
exceeding 350 MPa. Once again, most of the stub
column specimens in this study fall outside these
ranges. In addition, AS5100 (2004) specifies a plate
element slenderness parameter (λe) defined by Eq.
(10.2.3(1)) of the standard. For cold-formed steel
tube, λe should be less than the yield slenderness
limit (40). Again, the stub column specimens with
tube dimension 120 × 60 × 3 exceed this limit, but
the sections 60 × 40 × 2 and 80 × 60 × 3 are within
this limit. It is shown that the design strengths pre-
dicted by AS5100 (2004) are generally conserva-
tive. The mean value of PExp/PAS5100 is 1.14 with the
corresponding COV of 0.094, which are identical
to those values in EC4 (1994).
Overall, the three specifications are generally
conservative for the concrete-filled LDSS RHS
stub columns. It is found that the EC4 (1994) and
AS5100 (2004) predictions are slightly less con-
servative than the ACI (2008) predictions. This is
due to the fact that EC4 (1994) and AS5100 (2004)
consider the confinement effect of the concrete.
99
7 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents an experimental investigation
of concrete-filled lean duplex stainless steel (LDSS)
RHS stub columns. The LDSS grade EN 1.4062 was
used in this study. A series of stub column tests is
reported in this paper. It should be noted that there
is no specification covering the design of concrete-
filled stainless steel tubular sections. In this study,
the American Specification (ACI 2008), European
Code (EC4 1994) and Australian Standard (AS5100
2004) were used to compute the LDSS stub column
strengths by replacing the yield strength of carbon
steel with the 0.2% proof stress of stainless steel.
The stub column test strengths were compared
with the design strengths. It is found that the design
strengths predicted by the aforementioned specifi-
cations are generally conservative. The American
Specifications ACI (2008) is found to be slightly
more conservative than European Code EC4 (1994)
and Australian Standard AS5100 (2004).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to STALA Tube Finland
for supplying the lean duplex stainless steel mate-
rial. The first author is also grateful for the support
given by the Research Grants Council of Hong
Kong for the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme.
REFERENCES
ACI 318–95: 2008. Building code requirements for struc-
tural concrete and commentary. Detroit (USA): Amer-
ican Concrete Institute.
AS 5100.6: 2004. Bridge design, part 6: steel and composite
construction. Sydney (Australia): Standards Australia.
ASTM E8/E8M-16a: 2016. Standard Test Methods for
Tension Testing of Metallic Materials. West Consho-
hocken, PA (USA): ASTM International.
Dabaon, M.A., El-Boghdadi, M.H. & Hassanein, M.F.
2009a. Experimental investigation on concrete-filled
stainless steel stiffened tubular stub columns. Engi-
neering Structures 31(2): 300–307.
Dabaon, M.A., El-Khoriby, S., El-Boghdadi, M.H. &
Hassanein, M.F. 2009b. Confinement effect of stiff-
ened and unstiffened concrete-filled stainless steel
tubular stub columns. Journal of Constructional Steel
Research 65(8): 1846–1854.
Ellobody, E. & Young, B. 2006. Design and behaviour
of concrete-filled cold-formed stainless steel tube col-
umns. Engineering Structures 28(5): 716–728.
EN 1993-1-4: 2006. Eurocode 3: Design of steel
structures—Part 1.4: General rules—Supplementary
rules for stainless steel. European Committee for
Standardization.
Eurocode 4: 1994. Design of composite steel and con-
crete structures. Part1.1, General rules and rules for
 buildings (with UK national application document),
DDENV1994-1-1. London (UK): British Standards
Institution.
Hassanein, M.F., Kharoob, O.F., & Liang, Q.Q. 2013.
Behaviour of circular concrete-filled lean duplex
stainless steel tubular short columns. Thin-Walled
Structures 68: 113–123.
Huang, Y. & Young, B. 2012. Material properties of
cold-formed lean duplex stainless steel sections. Thin-
Walled Structures 54: 72–81.
Huang, Y. & Young, B. 2014a. Structural performance of
cold-formed lean duplex stainless steel columns. Thin-
Walled Structures 83: 59–69.
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Huang, Y. & Young, B. 2014b. The art of coupon
tests. Journal of Constructional Steel Research 96:
159–175.
Theofanous M. & Gardner L. 2009. Testing and numer-
ical modelling of lean duplex stainless steel hollow
section columns. Engineering Structures 31(12):
3047–58.
Young, B. & Ellobody, E. 2006. Experimental investi-
gation of concrete-filled cold-formed high strength
stainless steel tube columns. Journal of Constructional
Steel Research 62(5): 484–492.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Thermal in-plane buckling of concrete-filled steel tubular arches

Y. Bouras, E. Torres-Don & Z. Vrcelj

College of Engineering and Science, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT: Concrete-Filled Steel Tubular (CFST) sections are widely incorporated in buildings, and
are currently surging in popularity for use in arch bridges. Due to the inherent complex nature of arches,
it is paramount that the behaviour of CFST arches under all possible mechanical and environmental envi-
ronments be thoroughly investigated. Comprehensive studies on the behaviour of CFST arches at elevated
temperatures are limited. In this paper, the pre-buckling behaviour and in-plane stability boundaries of
circular CFST arches under radial and non-uniform thermal loading are analysed numerically. Geometric
and material non-linearities are considered. The numerical simulations show that combined mechanical
and thermal loading adversely effects the symmetric buckling resistance of CFST arches. Additionally,
temperature effects may induce material failure in the confining steel tube and concrete core. Parametric
studies demonstrate the influence of arch included angle, steel tube thickness and yield strength, arch
slenderness and concrete compressive strength on failure time and mode.

1 INTRODUCTION

The use of concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST)

members in conventional structures provides many
benefits relating to both mechanical behaviour and
constructability. Advantages of the former include
increased compressive strength, reduced shrink-
age in the concrete core, concrete confinement and
improved local buckling strength of the steel tube.
Consequently, CFST sections have recently surged
in popularity for use in arch bridges, with over 400
constructed worldwide (Bradford et al. 2011).
As arches experience primarily compression,
they are prone to stability loss. Three buckling
modes exist for arches which include the in-plane
anti-symmetric, see Figure  1, in-plane symmet-
ric snap-through, see Figure  2, and out-of-plane
Figure  1. Discretization of arch for anti-symmetric
analysis and anti-symmetric buckled shape.
Figure 2. Discretization of arch for symmetric analysis
and symmetric buckled shape.
flexural-torsional modes. The problem of stabil-
ity is paramount in CFST arches as the increased
compressive strength gained with CFST sections
may result in the use of slender structures. Geo-
metrical non-linearities in shallow arches (Pi &
Trahair 1998, Pi et al. 2002) convolute the stability
analysis and reduce load carrying capacity.
The common construction of arches in building
and bridge applications makes their performance
during elevated temperatures, as caused by fire
exposure, of high importance. Commonly occur-
ring building fires represent a danger to steel arches
used in roofing applications (Bradford 2010). Vehi-
cle accidents and gasoline burning, gas pipe explo-
sions and terrorist attacks are existing possibilities
which may expose tunnel or bridge arches to high
levels of heat. The effects of thermal loading on

101
the behaviour and in-plane stability of steel arches
have been thoroughly investigated (Bradford 2006,
2010, Cai et al. 2010, 2012, Moghaddasie 2013, Pi &
Bradford 2008, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c, 2014). Upon
heating, compressive stresses are generated due to
end-restrained thermal expansion and steel arches
deflects upwards. This results in an increase in the
in-plane anti-symmetric and symmetric buckling
loads. When subjected to non-uniform tempera-
ture fields, curvature changes induce additional
bending moment and a reduction in in-plane buck-
ling loads with temperature gradient is obtained.
Shallow arches are particularly sensitive to tem-
perature effects due to geometric non-linearity.
Despite the extensive research on the stability of
steel arches at elevated temperatures, studies on
CFST arches under such conditions are yet to be
conducted.
CFST columns subjected to combined mechani-
cal and thermal loading have been theoretically,
numerically and experimentally studied (Espinos
et al. 2010, Hong & Varma 2009, Huang et al. 2007,
Lie 1994, Lie and Irwin 1995, Yin 2006, Yu et al.
2014). The temperature in the steel tube increases
rapidly causing it to expand and separate from
the concrete core. Consequently, the axial load
is primarily resisted by the steel tube as the con-
crete loses contact with the loading plate. The steel
tube supports the load until a critical temperature
is reached causing the steel to yield and contract.
As the column shortens, the stress is progressively
transferred to the concrete which becomes the
primary supporting element in the column. Even-
tually, the concrete fails as the increasing tempera-
tures reduce its strength and stiffness. In addition
to material failure, CFST columns may also expe-
rience loss of stability when subjected to heating
(Espinos et al. 2010, Hong & Varma 2009, Huang
conducted to obtain the temperature distribution
through the cross-section. This is followed by a non-
linear stress analysis which considers geometric
and material non-linearities. Both anti-symmetric
and symmetric buckling modes are examined;
the former requiring anti-symmetric geometric
imperfection, obtained via an eigenvalue buckling
analysis, to trigger bifurcation buckling at the criti-
cal time. These findings highlight geometrical and
loading configurations vulnerable to rapid thermal
buckling, and may be utilized in the design proc-
ess to increase fire resistance time in CFST arches
prone to fire exposure.
2 MATERIAL MODELS
The thermal and mechanical properties of steel and
concrete at elevated temperatures, which include
thermal strain, thermal conductivity, density, spe-
cific heat and stress-strain data, have been adopted
from the Eurocode 3 (2004) (EC3) and Eurocode
2 (2005) (EC2) respectively. All properties were
defined at 22°C and from 100°C to 1200°C at
intervals of 100°C. ANSYS employs linear inter-
polation to determine properties at intermediate
temperatures.
2.1 Steel
The stress-strain curves for steel at elevated tem-
peratures, when considering hardening, is defined
by the EC3 as
⎧ σ
⎪ES ε for ∈≤ P
⎪ ES
⎪ b 2
a − ( − ∈)
2

2007, Yu et al. 2014). A major contributor to stiff- ⎪σ P − c +

⎪ a
ness degradation in the concrete core is transient ⎪ for σ P / ES < ε < c1
thermal strain (TTS); a strain thought to originate
in the cement paste due to thermo-mechanical
( y )
⎪ σ σ ∈+ c σ − c σ
σ =⎨ u 2 y 1 u
(1)
interaction. Unique properties of TTS include its ⎪ c2 c1
irreversibility, and that it only arises in mechani- ⎪
⎪ for c1 < ε < c2 and T < 400° C
cally pre-loaded concrete upon first time heating. ⎪
The reductions in buckling strength of CFST in ⎪σ u for c2 < ∈≤ c3 and T < 400° C
fire are significantly greater when considering TTS ⎪σ for < ∈≤ and T ≥ 400° C
(Huang et al. 2007). ⎪ y 1 3
⎩
When coupling the inherent complexity of
arches with the increasing use of CFST arches
in civil construction, research into the behaviour where σ is the applied stress, ε is the total strain,
of CFST arches under all possible environmental ES is the elastic modulus of steel, σp is the pro-
conditions is necessitated. Thus, in this study, the portional limit, σy is the yield stress, σu is the
non-linear pre-buckling behaviour and in-plane ultimate stress, and T denotes temperature. Con-
stability boundaries of CFST arches subjected to stants a, b and c are related through the following
mechanical and fire loading are numerically investi- equations,
gated using Finite Element (FE) software package
ANSYS (2015). A transient thermal analysis is first a2 (c1 −
(c p (
/ ES ) c1 − p / ES c / ES ) (2)

102
b2 cE
ES (c / ES ) + c 2
p
(σ )
2
−σp
y
c=
(
ES (c1 − σ p / ES ) − 2 σ y − σ p ) fixed supporting conditions and were mechani-
The parameter c1  =  0.02 is the yield strain,
c3 = 0.04 is the limiting yield strain and c4 = 0.15 is
the ultimate strain.
The multi-linear isotropic hardening plasticity
model was employed to model the steel tube using
the MISO command.
2.2 Concrete
The EC2 stress-strain relationship for concrete at a
given elevated temperature is defined as
σ
⎣ (
3ε ff′c′,T / ⎡ ε EC 2 2 + ( ε )
3
⎤
⎦
where ff′c′,T is the temperature reduced compressive
strength and εEC2 is the peak stress strain (PSS).
The concrete-core will also be modelled using the
isotropic hardening plasticity model. A yield stress
of 0.4 ff′c′,T was selected to be accurate and practi-
cal, with the elastic modulus being determined as
the tangent to the stress strain-curve at this point.
3 FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS
Two separate analyses will be conducted for each
arch; one with anti-symmetric geometric imper-
fection, referred to as the anti-symmetric analysis,
and the second without anti-symmetric geometric
imperfection, now defined as the symmetric analy-
sis. Geometric imperfections are required to trigger
anti-symmetric bifurcation buckling upon reaching
a critical state. An imperfection size of arch length
S/1000 is adopted. The symmetric analysis is con-
ducted to obtain symmetric failure times.
The formation of a new geometry with an anti-
symmetric geometric imperfection can be con-
ducted using the UPGEOM command following
an eigenvalue buckling analysis. This is the first
component of the anti-symmetric analysis. Sub-
sequently, the transient thermal analysis is con-
ducted, followed by the non-linear stress analysis.
3.1 Geometrical configuration
Due to symmetry, only a quarter of the arch is
required to be analysed in the symmetric analysis.
To ensure continuity at the mid-span, the cross-
section of the arch was restrained from axial dis-
placements. The break of symmetry associated
(3) with anti-symmetric buckling inhibits the ability
to model only half of the arch through its length,
and thus the full length must be modelled. The
geometrical models for both analyses are shown
(4) in Figures  1 and 2. All arches featured fixed-
cally loaded with a uniformly distributed radial
load. Flexural-torsional buckling is prevented by
restraining all inside faces from lateral movement,
which still allows cross-sectional deformations.
Fully bonded contact for the steel-concrete inter-
face was assumed for all simulations.
3.2 Transient thermal analysis
Solid70 elements were employed to mesh the struc-
ture and conduct the transient thermal analysis.
These elements were selected due to their equiva-
lence with Solid186 elements, which are utilised
(5)
in the following non-linear structural analysis.
Solid70 elements feature 8 nodes per element,
with each node possessing a single degree of free-
dom; temperature. An element size of 50 mm was
adopted whilst ensuring continuity at the steel-
concrete interface, see Figures  1 and 2. This ele-
ment size was selected to provide an acceptable
balance between accuracy and computation time.
The outer steel face is subjected to radiation,
with the surface emissivity of steel taken as 0.7,
and convection, with the convection coefficient
taken as 25 W/m2 K and 50 W/m2 K for standard
ISO-834 and hydrocarbon (HC) fires respectively.
The time-temperature relationship for ISO and
HC fires are
T T0 + 345 log ( t + ) (6)
and
⎛1 − 0.325e −0.167t ⎞
T T0 + 1080 ⎜ (7)
⎝ −0.675e −2.5t ⎟⎠
respectively, where t is time in seconds and T0
denotes initial temperature assumed to be 22°C.
An analysis period of 3 hrs was adopted, with the
minimum and maximum time steps defined as 1 s
and 50 s respectively. The initial time step was also
taken as 1 s. The temperature distribution through
a CFST cross-section section of 300 mm diameter
and steel tube thickness of 12 mm at various time
intervals is shown in Figure 3.
3.3 Non-linear stress analysis
The final component of the analysis consists of the
non-linear temperature-stress analysis. The arches
were meshed using Solid186 elements which are a
103
 Table 1. Arch geometries.

H W R D tT 2Θ
I.D mm m m mm mm λ °

1 1091 6 4.670 300 12 30.30 79.94

2 1000 6 5.000 400 10 20.70 73.74
3 1000 6 5.000 400 20 20.70 73.74
4 1000 8 8.500 400 10 27.21 56.14
5 655 6 7.197 300 12 17.73 49.25
6 1091 10 12.003 300 10 29.55 49.25
7 1091 10 12.003 300 24 29.55 49.25
8 500 8 16.250 300 10 13.40 28.50
9 265 6 17.114 300 12 7.09 20.21
10 442 10 28.502 300 12 11.82 20.21

λ = RΘ 2 / rx (8)

where rx is the radius of gyration of the cross-

Figure 3. Temperature through 300 mm CFST section
with 12 mm tube thickness when subjected ISO fire.
higher-order 3D element defined by 20 nodes and
each node is free to translate in three nodal direc-
tions; x, y and z. Solid186 elements were adopted
due to their compatibility with geometrical non-
linear analyses, stress stiffening and plasticity.
Mechanical and thermal loads were applied in two
load steps, ensuring that the arch was pre-loaded
prior to heating. A non-linear static analysis is
conducted at varying time intervals throughout the
fire loading, with the initial, minimum and maxi-
mum time steps being identical to the transient
thermal analysis. Geometric non-linearity is con-
sidered by activating the large deflection option
and the existence of geometric imperfections allow
anti-symmetric bifurcation buckling to occur upon
reaching a critical state in time.
4 RESULTS
Ten arch geometrical configurations were sub-
jected to various loading parameters and analysed
in accordance with the aforementioned routine.
Table  1 lists the geometry of each arch tested,
including the arch height H, width W, radius R,
cross-section diameter D, steel tube thickness tT,
subtended angle of the arch measured at the circu-
lar center 2Θ and slenderness λ, defined as
section. All geometrical parameters are measured
to the center of the arch. The uniformly distrib-
uted radial load q, steel yield strength fy, concrete
compressive strength, ratio of maximum stress
in steel prior to heating to yield strength σM/fy,
anti-symmetric failure time tA, symmetric fail-
ure time tS and failure mode (FM) for each arch
tested are displayed in Table 2 and Table 3 when
subjected to ISO and HC fires respectively. The
FMs are denoted as M for material failure, BA for
anti-symmetric buckling and BS for symmetric
buckling.
4.1 General behaviour
The rapid temperature increase in the steel tube
typically caused the arches to deflect upwards, as
the thermal strain and temperature of the steel
exceed those in the concrete core. At this stage,
the stresses increase in the steel tube due to end
restrained thermal expansion and remain low in
the core. The steel is however quick to yield, as
its strength degrades with increasing tempera-
ture. Consequently, the stresses in the steel tube
progressively transfer to the concrete core and
the arch begins to deflect downwards. Eventually,
the stresses in the concrete reach a critical point
at which the arch loses stability or experiences
complete material failure. Examples of deflection
and stress evolution are shown in Figures  4 and
5 respectively. This behaviour is akin to that as
in CFST columns subjected to the same loading
regime; the steel tube expands upon initial heating
and supports majority of the load, which is fol-
lowed by yielding of the steel and stress transfer
to the concrete core causing shortening of the col-
umn and eventual buckling or compressive failure.

104
Table 2. Failure times and modes for standard ISO-834
fires.

q fy f’c tA tS
I.D kN/m MPa MPa σM/ fy mins mins FM

1 80 350 32 0.22 92.3 104.8 M

1 215 350 32 0.59 32.1 34.4 M
2 150 350 32 0.36 152.8 142.2 M
2 200 350 32 0.48 100.7 95.4 M
3 150 350 32 0.22 151.6 138.1 M
3 200 350 32 0.38 105.1 98.7 M
3 150 420 32 0.21 155.9 143.3 M
3 200 420 32 0.27 109.2 102.8 M
2 150 350 40 0.29 180.0 178.9 M
2 200 350 40 0.43 136.4 131.2 M
2 250 350 40 0.55 96.7 94.6 M
4 100 350 32 0.43 101.2 106.4 M Figure  4. Central deflection in arch 7 with fc′,T = 32
4 150 350 32 0.63 56.5 57.4 M MPa and q = 80 kN/m (symmetric analysis).
4 200 350 32 0.86 31.4 33.1 M
4 150 350 40 0.56 80.2 77.7 M
4 200 350 40 0.76 43.6 47.8 M
4 150 350 50 0.49 109.4 105.8 M
4 200 350 50 0.67 69.7 68.4 M
5 40 350 32 0.20 111.9 118.9 M
5 80 350 32 0.40 62.0 66.4 M
6 40 350 32 0.30 58.8 59.5 M
6 80 350 32 0.59 28.3 27.6 M
7 40 350 32 0.29 78.6 83.2 M
7 80 350 32 0.56 39.0 42.7 M
8 40 350 32 0.57 41.4 39.8 M
8 80 350 32 0.86 20.8 21.8 M
9 40 350 32 0.48 45.1 45.6 BS
9 80 350 32 0.99 24.6 24.4 BS
9 40 350 40 0.45 53.8 54.2 BS
9 60 350 40 0.68 32.0 32.1 BS
9 80 350 40 0.91 26.3 26.2 BS
9 40 350 50 0.40 62.2 62.6 BS
9 80 350 50 0.85 28.5 41.3 BS
Figure  5. Stress evolution in arch 2 at mid-span sub-
10 20 350 32 0.45 32.9 40.6 BS
jected to HC fire with fc′ = 40 MPa and q = 150 kN/m
10 40 350 32 0.93 21.1 24.4 BS
(symmetric analysis).

Table 3. Failure times and modes for HC fires. fy = 350 MPa.

reactions significantly decrease in magnitude. This
q f’c tA tS is followed by a gradual increase throughout the
I.D kN/m MPa σM/ fy mins mins FM remainder of the heating period as the stresses are
transferred to and continually increase in the con-
2 150 40 0.29 160.2 154.0 M crete core.
2 200 40 0.42 99.3 98.0 M
2 250 40 0.55 55.7 98.0 M
4 100 32 0.43 72.7 72.0 M 4.2 Buckling and material failure
4 150 32 0.63 22.4 23.0 M Material failure was found to be the dominant fail-
4 200 32 0.86 10.2 11.6 M ure mode, as only arches 7 and 8 failed by loss of
stability. The failure mode was determined by com-
paring the anti-symmetric and symmetric failure
The axial force and bending moment reactions times, and by examining the stresses in the concrete
at the end supports rapidly increase as the steel is core at the critical time. Similar symmetric and
heated, with the latter becoming positive despite anti-symmetric critical times indicates material fail-
an initial negative value. As the steel yields, both ure or symmetric instability. Thus, determination

105
of failure mode was based on the state of stress
at the critical time. Figures  6 and 7 depict the
stress levels in arches failing by symmetric buck-
ling and material failure respectively. In the case of
the former, the stress has not reached the ultimate
capacity of the concrete, whereas it has for the lat-
ter. Anti-symmetric buckling would occur if the
anti-symmetric critical time is achieved earlier than
the symmetric one. However, this was not obtained
in any case.
4.2.1 Subtended angle and slenderness
The subtended, or included, angle of the arch
proved to be the governing factor behind critical
failure time. The results show that a great increase
in failure time is obtained when increasing the
included angle. The included angle also influences
the governing buckling mode. Arches 7 and 8,
which featured included angles of 20.21°, buckled
in a symmetric snap-through mode. This result can
Figure 6. Stress in arch 8 at the critical time indicating
buckling failure, q = 40 kN/m. Deflections multiplied by 3.
Figure 7. Stress in arch 2 at the critical time indicating
material failure. q = 150 kN/m.
106
be attributed the low included angle and slender-
ness, which is consistent with the findings of Pi &
Bradford (2002) who found that only very stocky
and shallow arches are governed by symmetric
buckling.
It is interesting that all arches failed within
the 3  hrs testing period despite all featuring rela-
tively low slenderness. This result emphasizes the
sensitivity of CFST arch structures to combined
thermal-mechanical loading.
4.2.2 Strength and thickness of steel tube
The influence of the thickness and strength of
the steel tube on the failure time was analysed by
increasing these parameters while sustaining the
loading configuration. It was found that increas-
ing the steel tube thickness and strength in arches 2
and 3 only marginally increased the fire resistance.
A better result was obtained when increasing the
steel tube thickness in arch 6 from 10 mm to 24 mm
(see results for arches 6 and 7). These results can be
explained due to the rapid heating and subsequent
deterioration in strength of the steel tube, which
reduces the significance of its initial properties.
4.2.3 Concrete compressive strength
Greater gains in fire resistance were achieved by
increasing the compressive strength of the concrete.
These improvements were greater in arches with
higher included angles. This is seen when compar-
ing the failure times in arches 2, 4 and 7 at different
concrete strength values. A very small increase in
failure time is obtained when increasing the con-
crete strength from 32 to 50 MPa in arch 7, whereas
this same change doubles the fire resistance time
in arch 4. Furthermore, by increasing the concrete
strength from 32 to 40 MPa in arch 2, material fail-
ure is delayed by more then 30 minutes.
4.2.4 Fire type
Fire resistance time is significantly less when CFST
arches are exposed to HC fire than when subjected
to ISO fires, see Table 1 and 2. This result is expected
as HC fires increase in temperature at a much greater
rate than ISO fires, causing the steel tube to yield
much earlier. Thus, HC fires represent a serious
threat to CFST arches and must be carefully con-
sidered in the design process if exposure is probable.
4.2.5 Mechanical load
The lowest load levels were selected to restrict
the arches to the elastic domain prior to heating.
Subsequently, tests were performed at higher load
levels though not at values causing plastic defor-
mations in the steel tube. No influence of the uni-
formly distributed radial load level on failure mode
is evident. Increasing the mechanical load level
simply reduces the time to failure.
5 STEEL-CONCRETE INTERFACE for frictionless, frictional and fully bonded contact.
This finding is elucidated by the rapid heating and
A perfect bond between the concrete and steel has subsequent deterioration of the steel tube’s yield
hitherto been assumed. However, as the tempera- strength, making its contact status with the con-
tures and thermal strains are greater in the steel crete core post-yield insignificant. Furthermore,
tube then the concrete core, it is probable that the pre-yielding phase of the outer tube is short,
separation occurs. To investigate this, numerical and thus, any local buckling that occurs does not
simulations have been conducted whilst adopting substantially influence global behaviour and time
the classic Coulomb friction model for the steel- to failure. This finding is inconsistent with behav-
concrete interface. Three arches were tested under iour in CFST columns, which show a large dis-
various magnitudes of mechanical load and coeffi- crepancy when contact is assumed fully bonded,
cient of friction FR, including a value of zero (fric- frictionless or frictional.
tionless contact), with the resulting symmetric and
anti-symmetric failure times displayed in Table 4.
Local buckling and separation occurred in all sim- 6 CONCLUSIONS
ulations near the arch ends at the arch center, see
Figure 8. Despite the occurrence of local buckling, A numerical investigation into the effects of fire
the results show that the contact status is of little loading on the behaviour and in-plane stability of
significance as similar failure times were obtained CFST arches have been conducted. Each arch was
mechanically pre-loaded with a uniformly distrib-
uted radial load and the fire loading was assumed
to act on outer steel surface. Two simulations were
Table  4. Failure times and modes for varying coeffi-
cients of friction. conducted for each arch geometrical and loading
configuration; one incorporating anti-symmetric
q tA tS geometric imperfection, obtained via an eigenvalue
I.D FR kN/m mins mins buckling analysis, and the second without initial
deformation. The former allowing the transition
3 0.3 200 109.02 144.11 from a pre-buckled equilibrium configuration to
4 0 100 112.40 109.80 an adjacent anti-symmetric buckled equilibrium
4 0.1 100 111.64 107.66 state upon reaching a critical time during thermal
4 0.3 100 111.62 106.18 loading, with the results from the latter used to
4 0.5 100 111.64 106.39 analyse general behaviour and to obtain symmetric
4 1 100 111.73 106.69 failure times. Results show that material failure is
4 0.3 150 56.08 57.92 the governing failure mode for CFST arches sub-
4 0.3 200 42.89 31.88 jected to combined mechanical and thermal load-
7 0 40 43.99 44.34 ing, with only a few cases displaying stability loss.
7 0.3 40 44.59 44.85 Parametric investigations have been conducted to
7 1 40 45.27 45.55
identify geometrical configurations susceptible to
7 0 80 24.78 24.59
thermally induced failure.
7 0.3 80 24.83 24.61
7 1 80 24.89 24.7
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The first author acknowledges Victoria Univer-

sity for the financial support provided through the
Vice Chancellor’s Graduate Research Scholarship
award.

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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Experimental investigation of concrete-filled cold-formed

steel elliptical stub columns

S. Yi & B. Young
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an experimental investigation of axially loaded concrete-filled cold-
formed steel elliptical sections. Currently, limited test data are available on concrete-filled cold-formed
steel elliptical stub columns. In this study, a total of 13 concrete-filled stub column tests was conducted on
cold-formed steel elliptical sections. The nominal aspect ratio of the elliptical sections ranged from 1.65
to 2.77. Tensile coupon tests and concrete cylinder tests were conducted to obtain the material properties
of the steel and concrete, respectively. The nominal infilled concrete strength ranged from 40 to 100 MPa.
The test strengths obtained from this study were compared with the nominal strengths calculated from
the European Code and American Specification. The column strengths predicted by these specifications
are conservative.

1 INTRODUCTION

Concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) sections are

getting more popular in construction, which have
large deformability and good toughness due to
the effect of the confinement stresses between the
steel tube and the infilled concrete. Concrete-filled
steel tubular columns are being increasingly used
in modern buildings attributing to their excellent
axial load carrying capacity and ductility without
large increases in cost (Dai and Lam, 2010). Figure 1. Definition of symbols for concrete-filled steel
CFST elliptical section has not been widely used elliptical stub column specimens.
as structural members. However, elliptical sections
are being used increasingly due to their aesthetic
paper. A series of tests was conducted on ellipti-
profiles comparing to the traditional sections,
cal sections with concrete of three different grades,
such as square, rectangular and circular sections.
namely C40, C70 and C100. The test specimens
The mono-symmetrical characteristic of elliptical
were subjected to uniform axial compression. The
section may also improve the utilization efficiency
test results obtained from this study were compared
under certain circumstances. Up-to-date, studies
with the nominal strengths calculated using the gen-
of concrete-filled cold-formed steel elliptical stub
eral design rules for concrete-filled members speci-
columns are rather limited.
fied in the European Code (EN 1994-1-1 2004) and
It is observed that previous investigations on
American Specification (ANSI/AISC 360 2016).
elliptical sections were focused on aspect ratios of
It should be noted that the aforementioned design
around 2. To be more specific, Yang et al. (2008),
specifications for composite structures do not cover
Zhao and Packer (2009) and Jamaluddin et al. (2013)
the design of CFST elliptical sections.
focused on sections with aspect ratio of exactly 2,
while Dai and Lam (2010) examined elliptical sec-
tions with aspect ratio ranged from 1.54–1.99 and
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
Lam et  al. (2010) ranged from 1.48–1.59. Uenaka
(2014) studied a larger range of aspect ratio from
2.1 Test specimens
1.48–2.52. In this study, the aspect ratio of elliptical
sections ranged from 1.65 to 2.77. A total of 13 CFST elliptical stub column tests
The performance of concrete-filled cold-formed was conducted in this study. The concrete-filled
steel elliptical stub columns was investigated in this elliptical tubes were constructed using 4  series of

109
 Table 1. Summary of research work on CFST elliptical stub columns.

Steel grade, Aspect Concrete

Reference fy (MPa) ratio strength, fc (MPa)

Yang et al. (2008) 369–401 2 30, 60, 100

Zhao and Packer (2009) 358–421 2 48.2, 69.2
Dai and Lam (2010) 339–420 1.54–1.99 30, 60, 100
Lam et al. (2010) 339–420 1.48–1.59 30, 100
Jamaluddin et al. (2013) 348–431 2 30, 60, 100
Uenaka (2014) 207–341 1.48–2.52 25.0–27.3
Yi and Young (2017)* 363–530 1.65–2.77 40, 70, 100

* Investigated in this study.

Table 2. Measured dimensions of elliptical stub column specimens.

2a 2b t L
Specimen (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)

Series I CE140 × 85 × 3-C40 141.1 87.3 2.94 354

CE140 × 85 × 3-C70 141.2 86.3 2.94 354
CE140 × 85 × 3-C100 141.0 87.6 2.92 354
CE140 × 85 × 3-C100R 141.2 87.1 2.95 354
Series II CE150 × 50 × 5-C40 149.8 52.3 5.08 371
CE150 × 50 × 5-C70 150.7 51.0 5.02 371
CE150 × 50 × 5-C100 149.8 52.6 5.04 371
Series III CE150 × 70 × 3-C40 147.8 72.6 2.85 375
CE150 × 70 × 3-C70 148.1 71.8 2.72 375
CE150 × 70 × 3-C100 147.8 72.2 2.92 375
Series IV CE180 × 65 × 5-C40 177.1 65.4 4.83 440
CE180 × 65 × 5-C70 176.5 65.5 4.93 440
CE180 × 65 × 5-C100 176.4 66.0 4.80 440

commercially available elliptical steel hollow sec-

tions. For Series I and Series III sections, the steel
tubes were cold-formed to elliptical shape from
cold-rolled circular tubes. For the other two sec-
tions in Series II and Series IV, the steel tubes were
cold-formed from hot-extruded circular seamless
tubes. The length of stub column was taken as
approximately 2.5 times the major outer diameter
(2a) to make sure that these specimens would not
fail by overall buckling. The steel tubes were wire
cut at both ends to ensure the specimens loaded Figure 2. The locations of tensile coupon specimens in
uniformly. Concrete of different grades were then cross-section.
cast into the tubes in separate batches and vibrator
was also used in the casting process. The nominal specimen: the first two letters refer to concrete-
concrete cylinder strengths adopted were 40, 70 filled elliptical section, followed by the nominal
and 100  MPa. The measured dimensions of the cross-sectional dimensions (2a  ×  2b  ×  t) of the
elliptical steel tubes are summarized in Table 2. steel tube. The term after the hyphen defines the
The CFST test specimens were labeled accord- grade of infilled concrete, which indicate the value
ing to their section sizes and nominal concrete of the nominal concrete cylinder strength in MPa
strengths for easy identification. For example, (100  MPa). The letter R indicates that it was a
CE140  ×  85  ×  3-C100R stands for the following specimen for the repeated test.

110
2.2 Material properties of steel tubes
To measure the material properties of the carbon
steel tubes, eight tensile coupon tests were car-
ried out for four series of CFST elliptical sections.
The tensile coupon specimens were extracted from
the flattest and curviest locations, as shown in
Figure 2. A gauge length of 25 mm was adopted
for all the coupons. Two strain gauges, attached on
both surfaces of the specimen at mid-length, and
a MTS extensometer of 25 mm gauge length with
standard knife edges were used to measure the
strain and elongation, respectively. The tests were
carried out according to the testing procedure sug-
gested by Huang and Young (2014). The tensile
coupons were loaded through two pins by a 50 kN
MTS testing machine. Static stress-strain curves
were obtained by pausing 100  seconds near the
0.2% proof stress and ultimate strength, as stress
relaxation took place during the pausing process.
The material properties obtained from the cou-
pon tests, including initial Young’s modulus (E),
static 0.2% proof stress (σ0.2), static tensile ultimate
strength (σu) and elongation at fracture (εf) based
on 25 mm gauge length, are shown in Table 3. It is
indicated that the material at the flattest location
had lower ultimate strength and is also much more
ductile than the material at the curviest location.
2.3 Material properties of concrete
The material properties of the concrete were deter-
mined by cylinder (150  mm diameter  ×  300  mm
height) tests. The cylinder tests were conducted
in accordance with the procedures in the ACI
318 (2014). Three grades of concrete with nomi-
nal compressive cylinder strengths of 40, 70 and
100 MPa were designed using commercially avail-
able materials. The concrete mix proportions are
shown in Table  4. For each batch of concrete, 6
cylinders were cast and cured under the same envi-
ronmental conditions. Two concrete cylinders were
tested at 28 days and the other four cylinder tests
were carried out at the beginning, middle and end
days of the stub column tests. The average values
of the measured compressive concrete cylinder

Table 3. Measured material properties obtained from tensile coupon tests.

Curviest coupon (TC1) Flattest coupon (TC2)

Section
2a × 2b × t E σ0.2 σu εf E σ0.2 σu εf
(mm) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%)

140 × 85 × 3 212.6 403.0 480.4 9 206.9 391.6 438.4 14

150 × 50 × 5 217.5 528.1 655.4 11 208.2 401.6 520.0 22
150 × 70 × 3 210.4 363.8 420.3 13 207.2 366.7 408.6 15
180 × 65 × 5 207.2 530.4 645.6 9 207.8 416.5 513.0 29

Table 4. Concrete mix design.

Nominal Fine 10 mm

concrete Cement Water aggregate aggregate CSFa SPb
strength (MPa) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) (ml/batch)

C40 390.1 219.5 651.6 977.4 0 100

C70 519.4 186.7 651.6 977.4 0 560
C100 596.5 153.8 651.6 977.4 18.5 1500
a
CSF = Condensed silica fume, bSP = Super plasticizer.

Table 5. Measured concrete cylinder strengths.

Nominal Concrete Mean value of concrete Coefficient Number of

concrete strength strength at the days of of variation concrete
strength (MPa) at 28 day (MPa) column tests (MPa) (COV) cylinder tests

C40 35.2 and 36.3 37.3 0.029 4

C70 68.6 and 68.9 70.9 0.014 4
C100 92.8 and 88.8 96.8 0.021 4

111
strengths and the number of cylinder tests are pre-
sented in Table 5.

2.4 Instrumentation
Four 50 mm range Linear Variable Displacement
Transducers (LVDTs) were utilized to monitor
the axial deformation of the test specimens, as
shown in Figure 3. They were placed between the
top and bottom plates at evenly located positions.
The axial shortening of the specimens was then
obtained from and readings of the LVDTs were
recorded by a data logger at 1  second intervals
during testing.

2.5 Test procedure

The CFST elliptical stub column test set-up is Figure 4. Steel frames with curved steel blocks used to
prevent “elephant foot” failure.
shown in Figure  3. A 5000  kN capacity servo-
controlled hydraulic testing machine was used to
apply axial compressive force to the specimens.
To prevent “elephant foot” failure, a pair of steel
frames together with curved steel blocks of 25 mm
height was used near each end of the column prior
to testing, as shown in Figures  3 and 4. The top

Figure 5. Failure mode of stub columns from Series I.

surface of the column might not be flat due to the

Figure  3. Test set-up of CFST elliptical stub column
specimens.
shrinkage of the concrete, hence, plaster mate-
rial was used to fill the small gaps between the
steel tube and infilled concrete. An initial load of
approximately 4 kN was applied to the specimens.
These procedures eliminated any possible gaps
between the specimen and the contacting surfaces
of the testing machine. Thus, the load was applied
uniformly across the whole composite cross-sec-
tion. The load was applied simultaneously to the
steel tube and infilled concrete. Displacement con-
trol was adopted to drive the actuator. Hence, the
post-peak behavior could be captured. The column
tests were performed at a constant loading rate of
0.5 mm/min, and the applied load was terminated
when it dropped by more than 15% of the maxi-
mum load.

112
Table 6. Comparison of test strengths with design strengths for CFST elliptical stub columns.

PExp PEC4 PAISC

Specimen (kN) (kN) (kN) PExp/PEC4 PExp/PAISC

CE140 × 85 × 3-C40 771 716 669 1.08 1.15

CE140 × 85 × 3-C70 1037 989 901 1.05 1.15
CE140 × 85 × 3-C100 1272 1204 1084 1.06 1.17
CE140 × 85 × 3-C100R 1272 1238 1113 1.03 1.14
CE150 × 50 × 5-C40 918 788 762 1.16 1.20
CE150 × 50 × 5-C70 1028 924 876 1.11 1.17
CE150 × 50 × 5-C100 1095 1063 996 1.03 1.10
CE150 × 70 × 3-C40 663 626 585 1.06 1.13
CE150 × 70 × 3-C70 886 865 786 1.02 1.13
CE150 × 70 × 3-C100 1129 1047 944 1.08 1.20
CE180 × 65 × 5-C40 1037 1020 978 1.02 1.06
CE180 × 65 × 5-C70 1338 1275 1196 1.05 1.12
CE180 × 65 × 5-C100 1479 1446 1339 1.02 1.11

Mean 1.06 1.14

COV 0.040 0.035

3 TEST RESULTS codes. The test results obtained in the present

3.1 Failure mode
All the CFST elliptical stub columns failed by
crushing of the infilled concrete and the steel tube
buckled outwards at some locations, as shown
in Figure  5. The concrete crushed in the flattest
regions of the elliptical sections.
3.2 Load versus strain relationship
The compressive behavior of the CFST elliptical
stub columns was observed during the tests. The
experimental ultimate loads, PExp, of the CFST
elliptical stub columns are shown in Table 6. The
applied load versus axial strain relationships were
obtained for each column specimen, where P is
the applied load recorded from the actuator and
ε is defined as the axial shortening measured by
the LVDTs and then divided by the stub column
length (L) as shown in Figure 6. One repeated test
was conducted on CE140 × 85 × 3-C100 specimen,
and the ultimate load of the repeated test was very
close to the first test result with a difference of
0.03%. The small difference indicated the reliabil-
ity of the test results. It is shown that the ductility
of the columns generally decreases as the concrete
strength increases.
4 DESIGN RULES
4.1 General
Concrete-filled elliptical hollow sections are not
explicitly covered by current international design
study were compared with the predictions calcu-
lated from the existing design rules for concrete-
filled tubes in the European Code EN 1994-1-1
(2004) and American Specification AISC 360
(2016), as shown in Table  6. In calculating the
nominal strengths (unfactored design strengths),
the material properties and specimen dimensions
were taken as their measured values, which enable
a direct comparison between the test results and
compressive strengths predicted from the design
rules. The measured concrete cylinder strengths at
the days of stub column tests were used in calculat-
ing the compressive strengths.
4.2 European code
European Code (EC4 2004) covers the design
rules for encased, partially encased and concrete-
filled columns both with and without reinforce-
ments. The general design method provided in
the EC4 (2004) is adopted in this study to check
its applicability to CFST elliptical columns. The
resistance of the cross-section was calculated
by assuming a fully plastic cross-section, the
load of which was uniformly distributed in the
cross-section.
Using the EC4 (2004), as no reinforcement was
used in this study, the resistance of CFST stub
columns was calculated in accordance with Equa-
tion (1).
PEC 4 As f y Ac fc (1)
where As and Ac are the cross-sectional areas of the
structural steel section and concrete, respectively; fy

113

Figure  6. Load versus axial strain curves for tested
CFST elliptical stub columns.
is the yield strength of steel; fc is the cylinder com-
pressive strength of concrete. In this study, the steel
tubes were cold-formed from either cold-rolled cir-
cular tubes or hot-extruded circular seamless tubes.
Therefore, the measured 0.2% proof stress was
used as the yield strength in calculating the com-
pressive strengths. Equation (1) can be applied to
114
composite CFST columns with the consideration
of the confinement effect. It should be noted that
the C70 and C100 concrete strengths are beyond
the upper limit as stated in the EN 1994-1-1 (2004),
where the compressive strengths should be within
the range from 20 MPa to 60 MPa.
4.3 American specification
The AISC 360 (2016) for the design of filled
composite members (Section I2.2) was also
adopted herein to predict the axial capacity of
the CFST elliptical stub columns. The compres-
sive strengths of axially loaded doubly sym-
metric concrete-filled composite members were
calculated according to the compactness of the
composite sections. In this study, all four ellipti-
cal sections were classified as compact sections,
since their cross-section slenderness 2(a2/b)/(tε2)
were ranged from 46.5–72.8, which is lower than
the Class 3  slenderness limit of 90 as proposed
by Chan and Gardner (2008). The ultimate axial
compressive strengths (PAISC) of CFST elliptical
stub columns can be obtained using Equation
(I2–9b) of the AISC 360 (2016), which is shown
in Equation (2).
PAISC As f y C2 Ac fc (2)
where C2 = 0.85 for rectangular sections and 0.95
for round sections. In this study, the value of 0.85
was adopted. This is due to the fact that the ellipti-
cal sections generally had a relatively large aspect
ratio.
Similar to the European Code (EC4 2004),
the C70 and C100 concrete strengths are beyond
the upper limit of the AISC 360 (2016), where the
compressive strengths should be not less than
21 MPa nor more than 69 MPa for normal weight
concrete.
5 COMPARISON
For the European Code (2004), the predictions are
conservative and also close to the test results of
CFST elliptical stub columns. The mean value of
PExp/PEC4 is 1.06 with a corresponding coefficient
of variation (COV) of 0.040. For the American
Specification (2016), the predicted design strengths
(PAISC) are also conservative. The mean value of the
test strength to design strength (PExp/PAISC) ratio
is 1.14 with the COV equals to 0.035, as shown
in Table  6. Overall, the European Code provides
slightly more accurate predictions than the Ameri-
can Specification.
6 CONCLUSIONS
An experimental program on concrete-filled cold-
formed steel elliptical stub columns has been
presented. A series of tests on concrete-filled ellip-
tical specimens was conducted. The compressive
strengths, failure mode and load-axial strain rela-
tionships were examined.
The test strengths were compared with the
design strengths predicted using the European
Code and American Specification for concrete-
filled composite structures. It should be noted
that both specifications do not have design rules
for CFST elliptical columns. Hence, the general
formulae for concrete-filled composite members
in the two specifications were used in this study.
The comparison showed that both specifications
are conservative. The European Code provides
slightly more accurate predictions than the Ameri-
can Specification for the concrete-filled cold-
formed steel elliptical stub columns. It should be
noted that the C70 and C100 concrete strengths
are beyond the upper limit as stated in both
specifications.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to Shenyang Dongyang
Special Section Tube for supplying the test speci-
mens. The research work described in this paper
was supported by a grant from the Research
Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Admin-
istrative Region, China (Project No. 17267416).
115
REFERENCES
ACI 318-14, 2014 Building code requirements for struc-
tural concrete and commentary. American Concrete
Institute, Detroit, USA.
ANSI/AISC 360 2016. Specification for Structural Steel
Buildings. American Institute of Steel Construction,
Chicago, USA.
Chan, T.M. & Gardner, L. 2008. Compressive resistance
of hot-rolled elliptical hollow sections. Engineering
Structures 30:522–532.
Dai, X.H. & Lam, D. 2010. Axial compressive behavior
of stub concrete-filled columns with elliptical stainless
steel hollow sections. Steel and Composite Structures
10:517–539.
EN 1994-1-1, 2004. Design of Composite Steel and Con-
crete Structures. Part 1.1: General Rules and Rules for
Buildings. European Committee for Standardization,
Belgium.
Huang, Y. & Young, B. 2014. The art of coupon tests.
Journal of Constructional Steel Research 96:159–175.
Jamaluddin, N., Lam, D. & Dai, X.H. 2013. An experi-
mental study on elliptical concrete filled columns
under axial compression. Journal of Constructional
Steel Research 87:6–16.
Kojiro, Uenaka. 2014. Experimental study on concrete
filled elliptical/oval steel tubular stub columns under
compression. Thin-Walled Structures 78:131–137.
Lam, D., Gardner, L. & Burdett, M. 2010. Behavior of
Axially Loaded Concrete Filled Stainless Steel Ellipti-
cal Stub Columns. Advances in Structural Engineering
13:493–500.
Yang, H., Lam, D. & Gardner, L. 2008. Testing and
analysis of concrete-filled elliptical hollow sections.
Engineering Structures 30:3771–3781.
Zhao, X.L. & Packer, J.A. 2009. Tests and design of
concrete-filled elliptical hollow section stub columns.
Thin-Walled Structures 47:617–628.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Structural performance of concrete-filled double skin tubular beams

with eccentric inner tubes

F. Wang & B. Young

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

L. Gardner
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK

ABSTRACT: Concrete-Filled Double Skin Tubular (CFDST) beams with stainless steel as the outer
tube, carbon steel as the inner tube and sandwiched concrete infill between the tubes are presented. Pre-
vious studies on CFDST beams have revealed significant enhancements in flexural capacity due to the
interaction between concrete and metal tubes. In this study, an innovative form of CFDST beam has
been proposed, whereby the inner tube is positioned in the tensile zone of the sections. Hence, the beam
sections can resist higher bending moment compared to those sections with the inner tube located at the
centroid. A series of tests was performed on CFDST beams with an eccentric inner tube. Nine three-point
major-axis bending tests were conducted. The full moment–deflection histories, moment capacities and
failure modes of the CFDST beams are presented herein. The experimental results were used to evaluate
the bending resistances predicted by the American and European Specifications.

1 INTRODUCTION tubes. The rotation capacity of square-to-square

Concrete-filled double skin tubular (CFDST) sec-
tions comprise two metal tubes, an outer and inner
tube, with concrete sandwiched between the tubes.
CFDST sections inherit high strength, stiffness and
ductility of other composite sections, but poten-
tially exhibit better damping and cyclic behaviour
(Han et al. 2006). CFDST sections may also pos-
sess good fire resistance since the inner tubes are
protected by the concrete under fire conditions
(Lu et  al. 2010). Furthermore, CFDST sections
may be lighter than those without inner tubes, and
the space inside the inner tube can be utilised for
other purposes such as for electrical cables. Addi-
tionally, the metal tubes surrounding the concrete
eliminate the need for permanent formwork and
thus save construction time. An existing applica-
tion of CFDST members in a transmission tower
is described in Li et al. (2012), while other possible
applications include offshore structures (Wei et al.
1995) and bridge piers (Nakanishi et al. 1999).
Previous investigations into the structural
response of CFDST sections have included experi-
ments to determine cross-sectional capacities,
analytical and numerical investigations of con-
finement effects, as well as examination of com-
pression, tension, shear and flexural behaviour.
Previous studies on CFDST beams have revealed
significant enhancements in flexural capacity due
to the interaction between the concrete and metal
CFDST beams (Zhao & Grzebieta 2002), com-
parisons of the strength and ductility of CFDST
beams relative to conventional concrete-filled steel
tube beams (Han et  al. 2004, Tao & Han 2006),
and confinement effect in compression and tension
regions (Uenaka et  al. 2008) have all been exam-
ined. These studies have been mainly focused on
CFDST beams comprising mild carbon steel tubes,
with either circular or square hollow sections as
well as concrete strengths below 72  MPa. In the
present study, an innovative form of CFDST beam
has been proposed, whereby the inner tube is posi-
tioned in the tensile zone of the sections. Hence,
the beam sections are able to resist higher bending
moment compared to those sections with the inner
tube located at the centroid. Therefore, materials
can be utilised more effectively to achieve more
economical and sustainable designs.
This paper is aimed at studying the flexural
response of concrete-filled double skin tubular
(CFDST) beams with eccentric inner tubes. A
series of tests was conducted on rectangular-to-
circular CFDST sections. Test specimens were
composed of identical stainless steel outer and car-
bon steel inner sections, but the inner tubes were
located at three different eccentricities, and three
nominal concrete strengths (40, 80 and 120 MPa)
were examined. The experimental data obtained
from this study were compared with the design
strengths in the current American and European

117
Specifications. It should be noted that there are no
explicit design rules for CFDST sections, so the
general design rules for concrete-filled carbon steel
members were used for the comparisons.
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
2.1 Test specimens
A laboratory testing programme was carried out to
investigate the flexural response of CFDST beams
with eccentric inner tubes in bending. A total of
9 CFDST beam tests was conducted under three-
point bending, with principle aim to investigate
the structural responses for a variety of eccentric
values and cover a range of concrete strengths. A
concrete-filled double skin tubes section is shown
in Figure  1, where a cold-formed stainless steel
Figure  1. Definition of symbols for CFDST beam
specimens.
rectangular hollow section (RHS) was selected as
the outer tube and a cold-formed carbon steel cir-
cular hollow section (CHS) was used as the inner
tube. The outer tube was cold-rolled from flat strips
of austenitic stainless steel (EN 1.4301) into RHS
with nominal dimensions of 250  ×  150  ×  5  mm
(depth × width × thickness); the RHS had a meas-
ured 0.2% proof stress of 255 MPa. The inner tube
was a cold-formed carbon steel CHS with nominal
dimensions of 60 × 3.6 mm (diameter × thickness),
and a measured 0.2% proof stress of 389 MPa. The
measured overall depth-to-thickness (Do/to) ratio
of the outer tubes was approximately 53, while that
of the inner tubes was around 17.0. The specimens
were cut to the required length using a mechani-
cal hacksaw and measurements of their geometries
were taken. Steel strips were then welded near the
ends of the specimens to fix the outer and inner
tubes in position. One end of the specimens was
wire cut flat prior to casting of concrete. The
concrete was then filled between the outer and
inner tubes, and vibrated using a poker vibrator
to ensure no voids were presented in the concrete.
Three nominal concrete cylinder strengths of 40,
80, 120  MPa were employed. Table  1  shows the
measured dimensions of the test specimens using
the nomenclature from Figure 1.
The CFDST test specimens are labelled such
that the material, shape and dimensions of the
outer and inner tubes, as well as the grade of con-
crete infill and eccentricities of the inner tube could
be identified, as shown in Table  1. For example,
the label AR250  ×  5-NC60  ×  3.6-C40-e60 defines
the following specimen. The first part of the
label “AR250  ×  5” defines an austenitic stainless
steel outer tube with a rectangular shape and the
nominal cross-section geometry (Do × Bo × to) of
250 × 150 × 5 mm; the notation “NC60 × 3.6” refers
to the inner tube where the letter “N” represents nor-
mal strength carbon steel, the letter “C” indicates

Table 1. Measured test specimen dimensions.

Outer tube Inner tube Eccen-

Length dimensions dimensions tricity

Specimen (mm) Do (mm) Bo(mm) to (mm) Do/to Di (mm) ti (mm) Di/ti e (mm)

AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C40-e0 820 250.3 150.0 4.72 53.0 60.3 3.57 16.9 0.3
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C80-e0 820 250.4 149.9 4.74 52.8 60.2 3.56 16.9 0.5
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C120-e0 820 250.5 149.9 4.74 52.8 60.3 3.56 16.9 0.3
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C40-e30 820 250.4 149.9 4.73 52.9 60.2 3.55 17.0 30.7
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C80-e30 820 250.5 149.9 4.73 53.0 60.3 3.55 17.0 30.4
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C120-e30 820 250.5 149.9 4.75 52.8 60.3 3.55 17.0 30.6
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C40-e60 820 250.5 150.0 4.75 52.7 60.4 3.60 16.8 60.8
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C80-e60 820 250.5 149.9 4.72 53.1 60.3 3.56 16.9 60.4
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C120-e60 820 250.5 149.9 4.76 52.6 60.3 3.57 16.9 60.8

118
the CHS followed by the nominal dimension (Di ×
ti) of 60 × 3.6 mm. The term after the second hyphen
describes the sandwiched concrete, where the let-
ter “C” designates the nominal concrete grade fol-
lowed by the value of the concrete strength in MPa
(40 MPa). The last term indicates the position of
the inner tube as a vertical off set from the centroid
of the outer tube; a nominal eccentricity of 60 mm
(e60) is shown in the example.
2.2 Material properties of tubes
The material properties of the outer and inner tubes
were obtained by longitudinal tensile coupon tests.
Both tensile flat and corner coupon tests were
conducted for the outer tube, while a tensile curved
coupon test was conducted for the inner tube.
Tensile flat and curved coupon specimens were
extracted from the quarter positions around the
cross-section relative to the welds, and the corner
coupon was extracted from the corner portion,
as shown in Figure  2(a). The flat coupons had a
12.5 mm width with a 50 mm gauge length, while
the corner and curved coupon had a 4 mm width
with a gauge length of 25 mm. The coupon tests
were conducted following the testing procedures
detailed in Huang & Young (2014). The material
properties determined from the tensile coupon
tests are summarised in Table  2, where the sym-
bols σ0.2, σu, E, εf and n refer to the static 0.2%
proof stress, static ultimate tensile stress, Young’s
modulus, strain at fracture, and Ramberg-Osgood
strain-hardening parameter, respectively. The com-
plete stress-strain curves obtained from the tensile
coupon tests for the austenitic stainless steel outer
tube and the carbon steel inner tube are shown
in Figure  2(b). The results highlight the different
material properties of the outer and inner tubes.
Figure  2. (a) Locations of tensile flat, corner and curved coupons in the cross-sections (b) stress–strain curves
obtained from tensile coupon tests.
119
2.3 Material properties of concrete
Standard concrete cylinders (150  mm diam-
eter  ×  300  mm height) were cast and tested to
determine the compressive strength (fc) and the
elastic modulus (Ec) of the concrete. Three grades
of concrete with nominal compressive cylinder
strengths of 40, 80, and 120 MPa were produced
using commercially available materials with nor-
mal mixing and curing techniques; the three mix
designs are shown in Table 3. To ensure the homo-
geneity, a maximum size of 10 mm aggregate was
chosen to fill between the tubes. For the very high
strength concrete (120  MPa), condensed silica
fume was added. For each batch of concrete, at
least five cylinders were cast and cured under
the same environmental conditions. Concrete
cylinders were tested at 28 days after the casting
and also at the time when the respective beam
tests were carried out. The average compressive
strengths and the number of cylinder tests in each
series are given in Table 4.
2.4 Test setup and procedure
The bending tests were conducted to assess the
flexural resistance of the CFDST cross-sections.
A total of 9 three-point bending tests was performed.
Table  2. Measured material properties obtained from
tensile coupon tests.
σ0.2 σu E εf
Section (MPa) (MPa) (GPa) (%) n σu/σ0.2
AR250 × 5F 255 661 203 70.2 7.1 2.59
AR250 × 5C 534 783 191 55.3 3.8 1.47
NC60 × 3.6 389 449 206 19.4 6.9 1.14
The photograph of the test setup is shown in Figure 3(a). were employed at the roller supports, in order to pre-
The specimens were placed such that the welds of the vent the outer tubes buckling outwards due to the
outer and inner tubes are located at the bottom of the load concentration, as depicted in Figure 3(b). Two
sections. The beams were simply supported between 100  mm LVDTs were arranged at each end of the
rollers with a span of 720 mm. Steel bearing plates beams to determine their end rotations, while two
were placed at the roller supports and the half round additional 25  mm LVDTs were placed at mid-span
at the mid-span of the beams for the purpose of to measure the mid-span vertical deflection, as shown
spreading the concentrated loads uniformly. Profiled in Figures  3(b) and 3(c), respectively. An approxi-
circular wooden blocks with a thickness of 60  mm mate 2 kN preload was applied to the specimens to
were inserted in both ends of the inner tubes to avoid seat a special bearing, eliminating any possible gaps
local bearing failure of the inner tubes. Stiffening between the beam and the half round at mid-span.
steel plates of 90  mm width and 15  mm thickness Prior to testing, four wedges were used to restrain
the special bearing from rotation. A servo-controlled
Table 3. Concrete mix design. hydraulic testing machine was used to apply compres-
sive force. Displacement control was utilised in order
Mix proportions (relative to weight of to capture the full load-deformation response, includ-
Nominal cement) ing the post-ultimate region. All tests were conducted
concrete at a constant rate of 1.0 mm/min. The applied loads
strength Fine 10 mm and the readings from the LVDTs were recorded by
(MPa) CMT H2O AGG AGG CSF SP a data logger at one-second intervals during the tests.
C40 1.0 0.56 1.67 2.51 0.00 0.004
C80 1.0 0.32 1.25 1.88 0.00 0.020
C120 1.0 0.21 1.02 1.53 0.09 0.053
3 TEST RESULTS

Note: CMT = Cement; AGG = Aggregates; CSF = Con- All nine specimens failed at the mid-span, featuring
densed silica fume; SP = Super plasticizer. outwards local buckling of the stainless steel outer
tube in the web and near the top flange region, as
Table 4. Measured concrete cylinder strengths. well as crushing of the sandwiched concrete and the
bending of the inner tube. It is observed that the
At the time of beam specimens with the normal strength concrete (C40)
Nominal 28 days tests failed earlier with more obvious local buckling of the
concrete webs at mid-span compared to those with C80 and
strength Mean Mean C120 concrete. The experimental ultimate moments
(MPa) (MPa) COV No. (MPa) COV No. (Mexp) of the CFDST beams are summarised in
Table  5. The moment (M) versus mid-span defec-
C40 37.0 0.021 4 42.4 0.045 10
tion (δ) histories of each series of tests are plotted
C80 80.9 0.024 4 85.8 0.041 7
in Figure 4, where the moments were determined by
C120 107.8 0.029 4 115.7 0.031 7
multiplying half of the applied load by the length

Figure 3. Three-point bending tests.

120
of the shear span, and the deflection at mid-span
of the beams is obtained from the subtracting the
average LVDTs readings at the ends from the mid-
span measurements. It can be seen that the flexural
bending resistance and ductility of the specimens
increased as the eccentricity of the inner tube was
increased. The maximum enhancement could
reach up to 18.1%, as shown in the third column of
Table 5. It should be noted that concrete strengths
affected both the moment capacity and ductility
of the CFDST beams significantly. The moment
capacity was increased by up to about 40% by
changing the concrete strength from C40 to C120,
as given in the fourth column of Table 5. It is shown
that the ductility of CFDST beams also increased
with increasing concrete strength, as shown in
Figures  4(a) and 4(c). Overall, the CFDST beams
exhibited high ductility, especially for the beams

Table 5. Test strengths and design strengths of CFDST beams.

Strength enhancement

Mexp Compare to Compare to

Specimen (kNm) e0 series C40 series Mexp/MEC4 Mexp/MAISC

AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C40e0 170.32 — — 1.56 1.61

AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C40e30 169.87 −0.3% — 1.46 1.49
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C40e60 201.14 18.1% — 1.61 1.65
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C80e0 215.85 — 27% 1.79 1.83
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C80e30 235.51 9.8% 22% 1.84 1.88
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C80e60 254.17 17.8% 26% 1.88 1.91
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C120e0 240.62 — 41% 1.93 1.96
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C120e30 254.82 5.6% 32% 1.92 1.96
AR250 × 5-NC60 × 3.6-C120e60 271.11 12.7% 35% 1.93 1.96
Mean 1.77 1.80
COV 0.101 0.098

Figure 4. Moment versus mid-span deflection curves for the tested CFDST beams.

121
with high strength concrete and large inner tube
eccentricity.
4 DESIGN RULES
4.1 General
Concrete-filled double skin tubular (CFDST) sec-
tions with either carbon steel or stainless steel tubes
are not explicitly covered by current design codes.
The test results obtained in the present study are
therefore compared with the predictions calcu-
lated from the existing design rules for concrete-
filled carbon steel tubes in the European Code
EN 1994-1-1 (CEN 2005) and American Specifi-
cation ANSI/AISC 360-16 (CEN 2005), as shown
in Table 5. The measured material properties and
specimen dimensions were used in the calculations
and all partial safety factors and resistance factors
were set equal to unity; this enables a direct com-
parison between the test strengths and the resist-
ance predictions.
4.2 European code
The flexural strength of concrete-filled carbon
steel sections (MEC4) is obtained by considering the
stress distribution in the steel and concrete com-
ponents, as detailed in Figure 6.19 of EC4 (CEN
2005). In this study, stainless steel was used in place
of carbon steel for the outer tube. Therefore, the
yield stress was taken as the 0.2% proof stress of
the stainless steel. Account is taken of the increased
strength of the concrete due to the confinement
effect by allowing the concrete coefficient of 0.85
to be replaced by 1.0 (CEN 2005). Hence, com-
parisons are made between the test results and the
predictions of MEC4 using a modified plastic stress
distribution accounting for the aforementioned
Figure 6. Plastic stress blocks for calculating flexural strengths of CFDST beams with eccentric inner tubes.
122
effects, as shown in Figure 5, where σ0.2,o and σ0.2,i
are the 0.2% proof stresses of the austenitic stain-
less steel outer tube and carbon steel inner tube,
respectively, while fc is the average measured cyl-
inder compressive strength of the concrete at the
days of the beam tests.
4.3 American specification
The ANSI/AISC 360-16 (AISC 2016) Specifica-
tion for the design of filled composite members
with carbon steel outer tubes (Section I2.4 of the
Specification), is also adopted herein to predict
the flexural strengths of the CFDST beams in this
study. The flexural strengths (MAISC) are computed
assuming that the steel components have reached
a stress of fy (taken as the 0.2% proof stress for
both outer and inner tubes) in either tension or
compression, and the concrete components in
compression due to flexure have reached a stress
of 0.85fc. It should be noted that the effects of con-
crete confinement are not considered in concrete
filled rectangular sections. Furthermore, the flexu-
ral strengths (MAISC) of concrete filled composite
sections are determined with respect to the outer
tube slenderness. In this study, all of the composite
sections are classified as compact sections, since
the b/t values of the flanges and webs of the outer
tube (250 × 150 × 5) are less than the correspond-
ing limiting values of 2.26(Eo/σ0.2,o)0.5 and 3.00(Eo/
σ0.2,o)0.5, as detailed in Table I1.1B of the ANSI/
AISC 360-16 (AISC 2016) Specification. A full
plastic stress distribution is allowed to develop for
compact sections in flexure. Therefore, the flexural
strengths (MAISC) of CFDST beams can be deter-
mined using a plastic stress distribution over the
composite cross-section, as given in Figure 5.
It should be noted that the C80 and C120 con-
crete strengths are beyond the limits of ANSI/
AISC 360-16 (AISC 2016), where it is stated in
the specification that the compressive strength for
normal weight concrete should be not less than
21  MPa nor more than 70  MPa. Meanwhile, the
specified yield stress of the steel should not exceed
525 MPa.
4.4 Comparison of test strengths with design
strengths
The comparisons between the test strengths (Mexp)
and the predicted strengths (MEC4 and MAISC) for
CFDST beams with eccentric inner tubes are
shown in Table 5. It is observed that EC4 provides
very conservative predictions, with a mean Mexp/
MEC4 ratio equal to 1.77 and a corresponding COV
of 0.101. The American Specification also leads
to very conservative but less scattered results with
a mean Mexp/MAISC ratio equal to 1.80 and a cor-
responding COV of 0.098. It should be noted that
confinement effects are not considered in concrete
filled rectangular sections in the ANSI/AISC 360-
16, which leads to slightly more conservative pre-
dictions compared to EC4. However, even though
EC4 considers an enhanced concrete contribution,
the strength predictions are still very conservative.
The conservatism in both design rules is attributed,
at least in part, to the lack of consideration of strain
hardening in stainless steel outer tube and carbon
steel inner tube, as well as the insufficient strength
enhancement due to confinement effects applied
to the concrete infill. It is also found that both the
European code and the American Specification
yield less conservative predictions for specimens
with normal strength concrete (C40) than specimens
with C80 and C120 concrete. Overall, the compari-
sons reveal that the design models originally devel-
oped for concrete-filled carbon steel tubular beams
exhibit rather conservative strength predictions for
CFDST beams with eccentric inner tubes.
5 CONCLUSIONS
A study of concrete-filled double skin tubular
(CFDST) beams with eccentric inner tubes has been
presented. A series of three-point bending tests was
carried out on CFDST specimens with cold-formed
rectangular austenitic stainless steel outer tubes and
circular carbon steel inner tubes as well as different
infill concrete strengths. The experimental results,
together with the material and geometric properties
of the test specimens, have been reported. It is found
that both the flexural bending resistance and duc-
tility of the members benefit from the eccentricity
of the inner tube. The test strengths were compared
with the design strengths calculated from the current
European Code and American Specification for
123
concrete-filled carbon steel tubes. It was found that
the existing design rules provide very conservative
strength predictions for CFDST beams with eccen-
tric inner tubes. The conservatism in both design
rules is attributed, at least in part, to the lack of con-
sideration of strain hardening in stainless steel outer
tube and carbon steel inner tube, as well as the insuf-
ficient strength enhancement due to confinement
effects applied to the concrete infill.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to STALA Tube Finland
for providing the stainless steel test specimens.
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ity of concrete filled double skin (SHS inner and SHS
outer) tubes. Thin-Walled structures, 40(2): 199–213.
Connections
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

A three-parameter power model for blind bolted connection with

a concrete-filled steel tube

M.A. Bradford, A. Ataei & H.R. Valipour

Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW
Sydney, NSW, Australia

ABSTRACT: A three-parameter power model is developed for quantifying the moment-rotation

characteristics of a blind bolted flush end plate joint system that connects a composite beam to a
Concrete-Filled Steel Tube (CFST) column in a steel framed building structure. A detailed 3-D non-linear
continuum-based finite element model of the connection region including the composite beam, flush end
plate, blind bolts and the CFST is developed, which can capture the pertinent physical, geometrical and
contact non-linearities. The model is validated against test results, and is used to provide valuable empiri-
cal modelling in the computer design of framed structures within a paradigm of “advanced analysis”.

1 INTRODUCTION concrete slab and the steel beam is typically pro-

Traditional flush end plate semi-rigid (FEPSR)
composite joints exhibit excellent structural per-
formance and provide for ease of construction,
and are economical connections compared to
rigid connections. Moreover, the rigidity and duc-
tility of FEPSR connections allows for adequate
moment redistribution in steel frames subjected to
overload and extreme loading scenarios. FEPSR
composite connections have higher initial stiff-
nesses and moment capacities as well as greater
rotational ductilities compared to bare steel con-
nections, owing to the beneficial effect of the steel
reinforcing bars placed in the slab.
The use of concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST)
columns can reduce construction time by eliminat-
ing formwork and the need for tying of reinforcing
steel cages. Furthermore, the application of CFST
members can improve the seismic performance of
framed structures by retarding local buckling of
the walls of the steel tubes and they possess high
strength, ductility and energy absorbing capac-
ity (Wang et al. 2004, Chen et al. 2014). Accord-
ingly, CFST members have found increased usage
over the past few decades and using FEPSR com-
posite joints in conjunction with CFST columns
appears to be a superior structural system that
requires further in-depth investigation (Han et al.
2008, Wang et al. 2009). However, within the cur-
rent paradigms of lowering carbon emissions and
enhancing the possibly of material recycling in the
construction industry, traditional steel–concrete
composite floors are problematic on several fronts.
Firstly, composite action between the conventional
vided by stud shear connectors welded to the top
flange of the steel beam, but demolition of such
composite members requires considerable amount
of time and energy and it is also associated with
much construction waste as well as dust, noise
and the like. Secondly, the construction of conven-
tional steel–concrete composites is labour inten-
sive, time consuming and costly, because slabs
are typically cast in situ and reinforced with steel
bars and/or mesh placed on the formwork on site.
Thirdly, existing composite systems mostly utilise
conventional concrete made from ordinary Port-
land cement, whose production is attributed to a
large portion of carbon emissions worldwide.
To circumvent these shortfalls, precast concrete
slabs manufactured from “Green Concrete” (GC)
associated with reduced cement content (Boral
2013) can be used. Friction-grip bolted shear con-
nectors can be installed through bolt holes placed
in these precast slabs and pre-drilled in the flange
of the steel beam. These bolted shear connectors
provide efficient composite action between the pre-
cast slab and the steel beam by friction and bearing
mechanisms. Furthermore, composite floors that
take advantage of post-installed friction-grip bolted
shear connectors (PFBSCs) can be deconstructed
easily at the end of the service life of structure and
this, in turn, can minimise wastage of the construc-
tion materials (associated with the demolition of
the structure) and maximise the possibility for
future recycling of the structural component (Ataei
2016). Another advantage of this novel composite
construction is that the precast GC units as well as
the steel frames can be fabricated off site and this

127
reduces the construction time and improves the
accuracy and quality of the construction.
This paper presents the development of a three-
dimensional finite element (FE) model to investi-
gate the structural behaviour of beam-to-column
composite semi-rigid joints with deconstructable
PFBSCs and Grade S690 steel flush end plates.
Tests on full-scale FEPSR beam-to-column joints
made up of grade S690 end plates are reported and
the numerical modelling is validated against the
experimental results. The model simulates a com-
posite beam-to-column connection under hog-
ging moment and it includes both geometrical and
material non-linearities as well as non-linearity of
the contacts and interfaces. It is shown that the FE
representation developed can adequately capture
the local and global behaviour of deconstructable
HSS composite joints with PFBSCs. Accordingly,
the proposed FE models are used for conducting
a comprehensive parametric study in which the
effects of the reinforcement ratio, thickness of the
precast concrete slab, degree of shear connection,
number of deconstructable bolted shear connec-
tors, size of the bolts in the connection zone, size
of the steel beam and the thickness of the flush end
plate on the structural behaviour of deconstructa-
ble HSS semi-rigid composite joints with PFBSCs
are investigated. Finally, a simple analytical model
is proposed to predict the moment capacity and
rotation capacity of this type of composite joint.
2 FE MODEL
ABAQUS was used to develop a three-dimensional
FE model to investigate the structural behaviour of
HSS semi-rigid composite beam-to-column joints
with PFBSCs. The accuracy and reliability of the
FE representations depend on the material models
adopted in the analysis, the mesh type and size, as
well as the boundary conditions including contact
and interface areas that are discussed in the follow-
ing sections.
2.1 Material constitutive relationships
A precast reinforced concrete slab is one of the core
components of deconstructable composite beam-
to-column joints. In the FE models, the concrete in
compression and tension was represented using a
damaged-plasticity model that takes advantage of
an isotropic damage model in conjunction with an
isotropic plasticity-based model that can capture
the concrete cracking and crushing under tensile
and compressive stress states.
For concrete under uniaxial compression, the
relationship proposed by Carreira and Chu (1985)
was adopted as (Fig. 1(a)).
128
Figure  1. Normalised stress/strain curve for concrete
under: (a) compression; (b) tension.
⎧E ε σ c ≤ 0 35 fc
σ c = ⎨ fcγ (ε ε )
⎪
(1)
⎪ γ 1 + (ε ε )γ σ c > 0 35 fc ,
⎩
where ε0 = 0.002 and γ = (fc/32.4)3 + 1.55 is a fac-
tor that controls the curvature of the stress–strain
curve, ε the strain and fc the mean compressive
strength of the concrete (in MPa) obtained from
standard cylinder tests. The ultimate strain of the
concrete in compression at failure is assumed to be
0.01. For concrete in tension, a linear–elastic rep-
resentation followed by a linear softening branch
was adopted as shown in Figure 1(b).
The actual stress–strain diagrams for the steel
beams, steel hollow section (SHS), HSS flush end
plates, reinforcing bars, blind bolts and standard
bolts were obtained from direct uniaxial tensile
tests reported elsewhere (Ataei et al. 2015), with
idealised piecewise linear representations of the
experimental uniaxial stress–strain diagrams being
adopted in the FE code. Based on tensile tests, the
ultimate strains of the longitudinal reinforcing
bars, standard bolts and HSS flush end plates at
the failure were assumed to be 0.15, 0.1 and 0.07
respectively.
2.2 Element type and mesh
Only half of the composite joint was modelled
because of the symmetry of the specimens. Except
for the reinforcing bars, all components were
meshed by the 8-node solid elements (C3D8R)
with a reduced integration scheme to prevent shear
locking, to reduce the computational cost and
to provide the required level of accuracy. Three-
dimensional truss elements (T3D2) with a linear
approximation of the displacement, two nodes and
three translational degrees of freedom were used
for meshing the steel reinforcement. A mesh sensi-
tivity analysis was carried out to ensure that a good
compromise between accuracy and computational
efficiency can be achieved and the FE models
developed can capture global and local response of
the structural components including local buckling

Figure 2. FE mesh for composite joint (without show-
ing core).
Figure 3. FE meshes: (a) blind bolt; (b) HS bolt; (c) 6
and (d) 4 holes in flush end plate.
of compressive flanges and all distinctive modes of
failure observed in the experiments. It is notewor-
thy that the adequacy of using only one element
over flange thickness of steel girders has been dem-
onstrated in the previous FE studies.
The FE mesh for the whole composite joint,
bolts and flush end plates are outlined in Figures 2
and 3.
2.3 Contact modelling
The contact interaction between various compo-
nents in the composite connections can signifi-
cantly affect the FE results. To simulate the contact
interaction between different components, the sur-
face-to-surface contact interaction using a penalty
contact method was used, in which one surface was
considered as master and the other as slave surface.
The HARD and PENALTY options available in
the ABAQUS software were employed for con-
tact modelling in directions normal and parallel
to the interface plane respectively. Friction coeffi-
cients of 0.45 and 0.25 were adopted for the inter-
face between the concrete and steel component,
and between two steel components, respectively.
129
Figure 4. Experimental representation for (a) M20 and
(b) M16 bolt shear connectors.
The reinforcing bars were embedded in the concrete
slab, with the slab being a host region and the bars
being an embedded region. The technique provides
for perfect bond between the reinforcing steel bars
and concrete. As the flush end plate and the stiffen-
ers were welded to the steel beam, the TIE option
was used for connecting these components.
Representing the shear interaction between the
concrete slabs and steel girders through mechani-
cal shear connectors is one of the main challenges
in the FE modelling of composite beams and
joints. In this study, the PFBSCs were not mod-
elled explicitly. Instead, axial connectors were
used to represent the horizontal shear interaction
between the concrete slab and steel girders. These
connectors were located at the same positions as
the PFBSCs placed on the specimen. The shear-
slip characteristic of the PFBSCs was taken from
standard push tests as reported elsewhere (Ataei
et al. 2016). The actual load-slip diagrams for
two types of the bolted shear connectors and the
idealised piecewise linear representations of these
experimental load-slip diagrams, adopted in the
FE models, are shown in Figure  4. According to
the push-out test results (Ataei et al. 2015), frac-
ture of the bolted shear connectors was assumed
to be occurred at the ultimate slip of 13  mm for
M16 bolted shear connector and at 18  mm for
M20 bolted shear connector.
2.4 Boundary and loading conditions
Proper representations of the boundary conditions
have an essential role in the accuracy of the FE
predictions and a small variation in these can sig-
nificantly affect the FE results. Accordingly, every
attempt was made to model the boundary condi-
tions in the FE models as close as possible to the
test setup. Since only half of the composite joint
was simulated, all nodes along the middle of the
column web, the column stiffeners, concrete slab
and longitudinal bars (surface 1) were restrained
from moving in the X direction and from rotating
in the Y and Z directions due to symmetry (Fig. 2).
In addition, following the experimental set-up

Figure  5. Stress distribution in flush end plate at first
stage of loading.
described subsequently, all nodes at the bottom
surface of the column (surface 2) were restrained
from moving and rotating in X, Y and X directions.
The connections were loaded in two stages in the
numerical study. Firstly, the pretension was applied
to the bolts located in the connection zone and,
subsequently, the external loads were applied on the
connection under a displacement-control regime.
To prevent a stress concentration, a rigid plate was
placed at the location where point load was applied.
The distribution of the von Mises’ stresses in the
bolts and flush end–plate after the first stage of load-
ing (the bolt pretension) for specimen CJ1 is shown
in Figure  5, which demonstrates the adequacy of
loading procedure adopted in the FE models.
3 EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
The beam-to-column joints tested physically were
part of a novel deconstructable and sustainable
structural system with composite steel-precast con-
crete slabs manufactured a proprietary concrete hav-
ing a reduced amount of ordinary Portland cement
(Boral 2013). In these specimens, composite action
between the steel girders and precast concrete slabs
was provided by PFBSCs. All beam-to-column joint
specimens were designed and constructed according
to the provisions of EC3 and EC4 to simulate the
behaviour of an internal joint in a semi-rigid frame.
The experimental programme was intended to pro-
vide benchmark results for validation of numerical
models and development of design procedures.
The experimental study comprised of two full-
scale composite beam-to-column joints with HSS
Grade S690 flush end plates (AS 3597, 2008), and
concrete-filled tubular steel 250 × 250 × 12.5 mm
columns. The details of the testing are given in
Ataei et al. (2016).
The steel beams were connected to the column
by means of friction grip Grade 8.8 bolts post-ten-
sioned using an electrical wrench in conjunction
with squirter direct tension indicating washers. For
the steel tubes, 33  mm diameter holes drilled in
the flush end plate were used to install M20 blind
bolts. The blind bolts were tightened to a torque
of 300 N m in accordance with the manufacturer
using a manual torque wrench. To install the PFB-
SCs, 22  mm diameter holes were drilled through
the top flange of the steel beam using a portable
electric magnetic drill. The precast concrete panels
were attached to the steel beam by means of Grade
8.8 structural bolts installed through prefabricated
holes in the precast concrete slabs and the pre-
drilled holes in the steel beams. The PFBSCs were
tightened using an electrical wrench and the mini-
mum pretension force induced in the PFBSCs was
confirmed by using the indicating washers.
The loading arrangement and test set-up
for the experimental program are illustrated in
Figure 6. The end of the column was fixed to the
floor and two vertical static loads were applied at
both ends of the composite beams. All specimens
were loaded under a regime of displacement-con-
trol. For the first stage of the loading, the set-up
and performance of the components and instru-
mentation was checked by applying a small load
(about 10%) of the predicted ultimate capacity
of the specimens. Following this first stage, the
specimens were unloaded and reloaded, and the
deformation was increased monotonically until no
further load could be sustained by the specimen
(being defined as failure of the specimens). During
the loading regime, three displacement rates, viz.
0.3, 0.6 and 1.2 mm/min, were used consecutively
and application of the displacements was stopped
when the load dropped dramatically.
Figure 6. (a) Loading arrangement and (b) setup.

130
 5 PARAMETRIC STUDY

To investigate the influences of the relevant param-

eters on the structural behaviour and to better
understand the structural performance of a com-
posite joint, the FE model validated against the
test results has been used for conducting a para-
metric study. The different parameters and their
range considered for the FE analysis are shown in
Table  1. The most influential parameters on the
behaviour of deconstructable beam-to-column
composite joints with PFBSCs were considered in
this parametric study. The initial stiffness, rotation
capacity, ultimate moment capacity, the final slip at
the end of the composite beam as well as the fail-
ure mode of all composite joints were also obtained
Figure 7. Results for CJ1. from the FE models of deconstructable composite
joints with PFBSCs. The initial stiffness, rotation
capacity and ultimate moment capacity of the
composite joint were obtained from the moment-
rotation curve for each model. The initial stiffness
of the joint was measured at 2/3 of the maximum
moment capacity (as in EC3). The ultimate rotation
capacity and the final slip are defined as the rota-
tion achieved by the connection at the point of the
maximum moment capacity (EC3) and the slip at
the free end of the composite beams at the ultimate
stage respectively. Based on the parametric studies
conducted herein, preliminary recommendations
and design provisions for FEPSR composite joint
to CFST columns using blind bolts are provided.

5.1 Effect of reinforcement ratio

The influence of the reinforcement ratio on the
moment-rotation curves for the deconstructable
Figure 8. Results for CJ2. composite joints is shown in Figure  9. The main
parameters of the composite joints including initial
stiffness, rotation capacity, ultimate moment capac-
4 VALIDATION OF FEM ity, failure mode of the specimen as well as the final
slip at the end of the composite beam obtained
The first and the most important step towards from the FE models are also summarised in Table 2.
application of the FE model for parametric stud-
ies is the validation of the FE predictions against Table 1. Variables for parametric study.
physical tests. Because of this, the bending moment
versus rotation curves, load-strain plots in the top Variable Range of values
and bottom flanges of the steel girders at sec-
tions 120 mm and 400 mm from the face of the col- Shear conn. 34 54 67 108 101 162
umn and load-strain plots for the reinforcing bars (%) 2M16 2M20 4M16 4M20 6M16 6M20
at the mid-span predicted by the FE models are Spacing 1100 1100 1100 1100 550 550
(mm)
compared with the experimental results of the com-
Reinforc. 0.36 0.51 0.70 0.91 1.16 1.43
posite beam-to-column joints in Figures 7 and 8. ratio (%) 6N10 6N12 6N14 6N16 6N18 6N20
The FE results correlate well with the experimental Slab (mm) 80 120 160 200 280
data and the numerical model developed is able to Hollo bolt M12 M16 M20
accurately predict the local and global responses as End plate 5 10 15 20 25 30
well as failure (associated with a significant drop (mm)
in the load) of the deconstructable composite joint
with a HSS flush end plate and PFBSCs. Note: Bold values chosen for standard joint.

131
 ratio fails due to the fracture of bolted shear con-
nectors. Therefore, it is concluded that the minimum
shear connectors should be provided commensurate
with the reinforcement ratio in the precast concrete
slab and that increasing the reinforcement ratio
beyond a certain value will not increase the moment
capacity of the composite joints.

5.2 Effect of degree of shear connection

To investigate the influence of the degree of shear
connection on the moment-rotation curves, six
degrees of shear connection were considered, i.e.
34%, 54%, 67%, 108%, 101% and 162% corre-
Figure 9. Effect of reinforcement ratio. sponding to 2M16, 2M20, 4M16, 4M20, 6M16
and 6M20 bolted shear connectors. The first three
Table 2. FE results for different reinforcement ratios. values represent partial shear connection and the
second three values represent full shear connec-
Rein. End Initial Rotation Moment tion. Table 3 and Figure 10 show the comparison
Ratio slip stiffness capacity capacity of the moment-rotation response with different
Failure degrees of shear connection. The main parameters
kNm/
Model % mm mrad mrad kNm mode of the composite joints including initial stiffness,
rotation capacity, ultimate moment capacity, fail-
6N10 0.36 0.7 88 39 341 RBF ure mode of the specimen as well as the final slip at
6N12 0.51 3.9 91 49 400 RBF the end of the composite beam obtained from the
6N14 0.70 6.2 93 52 503 RBF FE models are also summarised in Table 3.
6N16 0.91 6.6 95 60 590 RBF Figure 10 and Table 3 show that the initial stiff-
6N18 1.16 13.0 96 27 571 BSCF ness of the composite joints is influenced by the
6N20 1.43 13.0 97 27 580 BSCF degree of shear connection. It is seen that the
Notes: RBF = reinforcing bar fracture, BSCF = bolted
shear connector fracture. Table  3. FE results for different degrees of shear
connection.

Different reinforcement configurations, i.e. 6N10, Shear Slip s Ki θj Mj

6N12, 6N14, 6N16, 6N18 and 6N20 corresponding Con. % mm Nm/rad rad Nm Mode
to the reinforcement ratios of 0.36%, 0.51%, 0.70%,
34 13.0 47 22 382 BSCF
0.91%, 1.16%, 1.43% were considered in the para-
54 11.4 64 63 515 RBF
metric study. It can be observed that the initial stiff-
67 6.2 94 52 502 RBF
ness of the composite joints increases slightly as the
101 4.0 116 47 494 RBF
reinforcement ratio increases.
108 5.2 96 50 497 RBF
Figure 9 also shows that the reinforcement ratio
162 1.3 120 41 485 RBF
has a significant effect on the moment capacity of
the composite joints. An increase in the area of the
reinforcement (up to about 1%) leads to a significant
increase in the moment capacity of the compos-
ite joints (Fig. 10). However, when the amount of
reinforcement exceeds 1%, the strength of the joint
does not increase as shown in Figure 9. The reason
for this is that as the reinforcement ratio increases
beyond a certain value (i.e. 1%), the shear strength
of the bolted shear connector has more influence
on the behaviour of the joint. In other words, when
the slip between the precast concrete slab and steel
beam exceeds the maximum slip capacity of the
bolted shear connector (13 mm for M16 PFBSCs)
fracture of the bolted shear connectors becomes
influential and dominates the failure mode. Table 2
shows that the model with a 1.43% reinforcement Figure 10. Effect of degree of shear connection.

132
initial stiffness of the joint increases gradually by
increasing the degree of shear connection. It is also
observed that decreasing the degree of the shear
connection causes a significant decrease in the
secant stiffness of the joints.
Based on the numerical results, it can be concluded
that if the minimum degree of shear connection is
provided to prevent the fracture of the bolted shear
connector and to mobilise the plastic strain in the
longitudinal reinforcing bars, the rotation capacity
of the joints increases as the degree of shear connec-
tion decreases. However, when the degree of shear
connection is less than about 50%, this parameter
decreases significantly. It is therefore concluded that
if a very low level of shear connection (< 50%) is used
for the composite beams as demonstrated for the
model with 2M16 connectors (Fig.  10), the bolted
connectors fracture before the reinforcing bars yield.
The slip between the precast concrete slab and
steel beam decreases significantly with the increase
of the degree of shear connection; this in turn can
lead to an increase of the stress in the reinforc-
ing bars and which may fracture them. Moreover,
the use of very high levels of shear connection
between the precast slab and steel beam reduces
significantly the final slip at the end of the com-
posite beam that in turn can reduce the ductility
and rotation capacity of the joint as observed for
the model with 6M20 connectors.
deconstructable composite joints, five flush end
plate thicknesses 4  mm, 8  mm, 12  mm, 16  mm
and 20  mm corresponding to a flush end plate
thickness to bolt diameter ratio tep/db from 0.17 to
0.83 were modelled respectively in the parametric
study.
Figure  11 and Table  4 show the comparison
results for the models with different flush end
plate thicknesses. The initial stiffness, the moment
capacity, the rotation capacity, failure mode of the
specimen and the final slip at the end of the com-
posite beam obtained from the FE models are also
summarised in Table 4. The modelling results show
that tep/db has a considerable influence on the initial
stiffness of the joints. For example, the initial stiff-
ness of the joint with a ratio tep/db of 1.5 (30 mm
flush end plate) is 323% greater than that of a joint
with a ratio tep/db of 0.5 (10 mm flush end plate).
The moment capacity of the composite
joints also increases significantly as the ratio
tep/db increases to unity. However, when this ratio
exceeds unity, the influence of it on the moment
capacity of the joints is not significant as shown
in Table 4. This may be because the failure mode
changes from being fracture of the reinforcing bars
to fracture of the top bolt located in the connec-
tion zone. When a thicker flush end plate is used,
the deformation and bending of the end plate as

5.3 Effect of bolted shear connector spacing

The spacing of the bolted shear connectors along
the beam may be important. To better understand
the effect of the bolt spacing on the moment-rota-
tion curves, two models (i.e. 4M20 and 6M16) were
built with different bolt spacing but with almost
same degree of shear connection (i.e. 101% and
108%). The initial stiffness of the joints with 101%
(6 M16) of shear connection is higher than that with
108% (4 M20) of shear connection as shown in Fig-
ure 10. This may be because many bolted shear con-
nectors having a small bolt size are more efficient
than a small number of large-size bolted connec-
Figure 11. Effect of end plate thickness.
tors in transferring shear force between the precast
concrete slab and steel beam. Because of this, it is
recommended to use a smaller bolt size and increase Table 4. FE results for different end plate thicknesses.
the number of bolts (smaller bolted shear connector
spacing) instead of reducing the bolt number and Slip s Ki θj Mj
tep/db mm Nm/rad rad kNm Mode
increasing the bolt size. The model results also show
that there is little difference for the moment capacity 0.25 7.5 52 41 391 FEPF
and rotation capacity of the joint for these two mod- 0.5 7.3 94 52 503 RBF
els, as can be seen in Figure 10 and Table 3. 0.75 5.4 181 31 566 BF
1.0 4.9 276 20 594 BF
5.4 Effect of flush end plate thickness 1.25 4.7 342 16 596 BF
1.5 4.6 398 16 602 BF
In order to investigate the effect of the flush
end plate thickness on the performance of the Note: FEPF = flush end plate fracture.

133
well as the tensile force in the longitudinal reinforc-
ing bars decrease; however, the tensile forces in the
two top bolts increase that in turn leads to fracture
of the top bolts before sufficient elongation takes
place in the longitudinal bars.
5.5 Effect of precast slab thickness
Figure  12 shows the moment-rotation curves for
the joints with different slab thicknesses. The initial
stiffness, the moment capacity, the rotation capac-
ity, failure mode of the specimen and the final slip
at the end of the composite beam obtained from
the FE models are summarised in Table  5. Com-
parison of the results shows that the initial stiff-
ness increases significantly as the thickness of
the slab or the ratio hs/hb increases. For example,
as shown in Figure 12 and Table 5, increasing the
thickness of the slab from 120 mm to 240 mm and
to 280 mm increases the initial stiffness by around
62% and 85%, respectively. Figure 12 and Table 5
also show that as the depth of precast concrete
slab increases, the ultimate moment capacity of the
joints increases significantly owing to the increase
of the lever arm of the section. However, when the
depth of the precast concrete slab or the ratio hs/hb
increases, the rotation capacity and ductility of the
composite joints as well as the final slip at the end
of the composite beam decrease sharply.
5.6 Effect of blind bolt size
Three models with different Hollo-bolts having
diameters of 12  mm, 16  mm and 20  mm corre-
sponding to the flush end plate thickness to bolt
diameter ratio tep/db of 0.83 to 0.50, were carried
out. These three sizes of the bolts were chosen
because they are available on the market. The char-
acteristics of the Hollo-bolts were derived as best
as possible from the available guidelines.
6 ANALYTICAL MODEL
The moment capacity can be written as
Mj Frb drb Fbl Dbl (2)
if Frb ≤ 1.5 Fbsc, and as
Mj Fbsc drb Fbl Dbl (3)

otherwise, where Frb = ultimate tensile strength of

bars, Fbl  = ultimate tensile force at top row of bolts,
Fbc = bolted shear connector capacity, drb  = distance
between centroids of bars and beam, and dbl = dis-
tance between bolts and steel bottom flange.
The rotation capacity can be written as

θj δ drb
rb s Db , (4)

where s is the final slip and δ the elongation of the

reinforcement, taken as

δ ε yr ( + + ) (5)

if Frb ≤ 1.5 Fbsc, and as 0 otherwise, where εyr = yield

strain of reinforcing bars, Dcl = depth of column,
Db = depth of beam, d1 = distance between column
Figure 12. Effect of precast slab depth. face and first row of shear connectors and d2 = dis-
tance between first and second rows of shear
Table 5. FE results for different slab depths. connectors.
The results of the analysis model may then be
Slip s Ki θj Mj used in the power law proposed by Richard and
hs/hb mm Nm/rad mrad kNm Mode Abbott (1975) as
0.17 7.3 53 59 444 RBF K iθ
0.26 6.2 94 52 503 RBF M= , (6)
n 1n
0.35 5.7 111 45 530 RBF ⎡1 + ( ) ⎤
⎣ ⎦
0.43 5.5 128 42 550 RBF
0.52 5.0 152 38 568 RBF
0.61 4.9 174 35 684 RBF in which Ki = initial stiffness, θ0 = Mj/Ki and n = a
power parameter to represent the analysis results.

134
7 CONCLUSIONS
A reliable 3-D FE modelling of an innovative
deconstructable FEPSR joint to CFST columns
using high strength blind bolts has been developed
to simulate the complex structural behaviour of
this novel composite joint constructed using decon-
structable PFBSCs and precast concrete slabs. Full-
scale FEPSR beam-to-CFST column joints were
used for verification of the FE model. The failure
mode of the composite joints can also be predicted
reasonably. The influences of the reinforcement
ratio, thickness of the precast concrete slab, degree
of shear connection, number of deconstructable
PFBSCs, size of the blind bolts in the connection
zone, size of the steel beam and thickness of the
flush end plate on the behaviour of this innovative
composite joints have been studied. A simple equa-
tion to predict the moment capacity and rotation
capacity of the deconstructable FEPSR composite
joints to CFST columns was proposed, that can be
used in a three-parameter model.
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UNSW Sydney.
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Ataei, A., Bradford, M.A. & Valipour, H.R. 2015.
Experimental study of flush end plate beam-to-CFST
column composite joints with deconstructable bolted
shear connectors. Engineering Structures 99:616–630.
Boral Australia. 2013. http://www.boral.com.au/concrete/
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tionship for plain concrete. ACI Structural Journal
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Chen, Q.J., Cai, J., Bradford, M.A., Liu, X. & Zuo, Z.L.
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tion between concrete-filled steel tubular columns
and reinforced concrete beams. Engineering Structures
80:24–39.
Han, L.-H., Wang, W.-D. & Zhao, X.-L. 2008. Behaviour
of steel beam to concrete-filled SHS column frames:
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Wang, J.F., Han, L.-H. & Uy, B. 2009. Hysteretic behav-
ior of flush end plate joints to concrete filled steel
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Tests of concrete-filled high strength steel tubular X-joints under

compression

H.T. Li & B. Young

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a test program of concrete-filled high strength steel tubular X-joints.
The high strength steel tubes were cold-formed into square and rectangular hollow sections with nominal
steel grades of 700 and 900 MPa. The cold-formed high strength steel tubes were infilled with normal
and high strength concrete with nominal concrete grades of 35 and 100  MPa, respectively. A total of
15 tests was carried out covering chord sidewall slenderness ratios ranged from 12.6 to 40.6. In order to
avoid failure of brace members and reveal the true capacity of the X-joint specimens, steel bearing plates
were used to simulate the brace members. The test strengths were compared with the nominal strengths
calculated using CIDECT design provisions. Overall, the nominal strengths predicted by the CIDECT
design provisions are quite conservative for the concrete-filled high strength steel square and rectangular
hollow section X-joints.

1 INTRODUCTION concrete cylinder strength of 60  MPa. Concrete-

Concrete-filled steel tubular structures have been
used in civil engineering applications due to their
attractive structural performance in terms of
high strength and fire resistances as well as large
energy absorption capacities and favourable duc-
tility (Han et al. 2014). Extensive investigations
have been conducted to study the behaviour of
concrete-filled tubular members subjected to com-
pression, bending and combined compression and
bending. The studies on concrete-filled tubular
joints are rather limited.
Packer and Fear (1991) investigated the behav-
iour of concrete-filled tubular X-joints. Fourteen
rectangular hollow section X-joint specimens were
tested under transverse compression by means of
bearing plates to avoid the failure of brace mem-
bers. The tested concrete-filled specimens had
the measured yield stress of 330 MPa in the steel
tubes and measured compressive concrete cylin-
der strength of 43.3 MPa. A further investigation
on a variety of concrete-filled T-, X- and K-joints
was investigated by Packer (1995), resulting in
the design recommendations for concrete-filled
rectangular hollow section joints in the Comité
International pour Ie Développement et l’Étude
de la Construction Tubulaire (CIDECT) design
guide (Packer et al. 2009). Transverse bearing
capacities of concrete-filled rectangular hollow
sections were also studied by Zhao (1999). The
tested specimens had the measured yield stresses
ranged from 430 to 455 MPa, and the compressive
filled stainless steel square and rectangular hollow
section joints were experimentally investigated by
Feng and Young (2008, 2009). Hou et al. (2013)
and Yang et al. (2014) carried out test programs on
concrete-filled circular and square hollow sections
subjected to concentrated bearing loads, respec-
tively. The concrete-filled specimens investigated
by Hou et al. (2013) and Yang et al. (2014) had the
measured yield stresses of the steel tubes ranged
from 344.6 to 441.1  MPa and the compressive
concrete cube strengths at 28 days of 51.2  MPa.
Up-to-date, research on concrete-filled high
strength steel tubular joints with nominal steel
grade of 700  MPa and above as well as nominal
concrete grade of 100 MPa has not been studied.
In this study, a test program on concrete-filled
high strength steel tubular joints is presented. A
total of 15 X-joint specimens was investigated.
The high strength steel tubes were cold-formed
into square and rectangular hollow sections with
nominal 0.2% proof stresses of 700 and 900 MPa.
The cold-formed high strength steel tubes were
infilled with normal and high strength concrete
with nominal concrete cylinder strengths of 35
and 100 MPa, respectively. The chord members of
the concrete-filled square and rectangular hollow
section joints were subjected to transverse com-
pression. Steel bearing plates were used to simu-
late the brace members of the concrete-filled joint
specimens. The test strengths were compared with
the nominal strengths predicted by the CIDECT
(Packer et al. 2009) design provisions.

137
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
2.1 Test specimens
Figure 1 shows the definition of symbols for the spec-
imens. The high strength steel chord members were
cold-formed from flat strips into five different tubular
sections. The sections had the measured overall chord
depth (h0) ranged from 50.0 to 200.5  mm, overall
chord width (b0) ranged from 80.2 to 120.8 mm, chord
thickness (t0) ranged from 3.91 to 4.94 mm and exter-
nal corner radius (R0) ranged from 8.4 to 13.4 mm.
To avoid failure of brace members and reveal the true
capacity of the concrete-filled X-joints, steel bear-
ing plates were used to simulate the brace members.
This method has also been employed by Packer and
Fear (1991) and Packer (1995), based on which the
CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009) design provisions for
concrete-filled rectangular hollow section X-joints
were developed. The steel bearing plates that simu-
lated the brace members had the measured overall
depth (h1) ranged from 39.7 to 119.9 mm and overall
width (b1) ranged from 39.7 to 100.0 mm. For all the
bearing plates, the measured corner radius (R1) and
height (L1) were 8 and 40 mm, respectively.
The lengths of the chord members (L0) were
designed in a way that the clear distance from the
end of the chord member to the edge of the steel
bearing plate was 2.5h0. The tubular chord mem-
bers were infilled with normal and high strength
concrete along their full length. Table 1 shows the

Figure 1. Definition of symbols.

Table 1. Measured dimensions of concrete-filled high strength steel X-joint specimens.

Chord member Bearing plate

h0 b0 t0 R0 L0 h1 b1 R1 L1
Specimen (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)

X-H100 × 100 × 4–40 × 40-C35 100.2 100.4 3.93 8.4 540 40.0 39.7 8.0 40

X-H100 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C35 100.3 100.3 3.93 8.4 539 39.7 79.9 8.0 40
X-H100 × 100 × 4–100 × 80-C35 100.2 100.4 3.92 8.4 599 100.0 79.9 8.0 40
X-H120 × 120 × 4–40 × 40-C35 120.7 120.8 3.92 8.4 640 40.0 39.7 8.0 40
X-H120 × 120 × 4–40 × 40-C100 120.6 120.7 3.92 8.4 640 40.0 39.7 8.0 40
X-H120 × 120 × 4–80 × 100-C35 120.6 120.7 3.91 8.4 679 79.9 100.0 8.0 40
X-H120 × 120 × 4–80 × 100-C100 120.7 120.8 3.91 8.4 680 79.9 100.0 8.0 40
X-H50 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C35 50.1 100.4 3.97 8.9 289 39.7 79.9 8.0 40
X-H50 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C35-R 50.0 100.4 3.96 8.9 290 39.7 79.9 8.0 40
X-H50 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C100 50.1 100.3 3.95 8.9 290 39.7 79.9 8.0 40
X-H50 × 100 × 4–100 × 80-C100 50.1 100.3 3.95 8.9 351 100.0 79.9 8.0 40
X-H200 × 120 × 5–120 × 80-C35 200.5 119.9 4.94 13.4 1122 119.9 79.9 8.0 40
X-V80 × 80 × 4–40 × 40-C35 80.0 80.3 3.94 9.6 439 40.0 39.7 8.0 40
X-V80 × 80 × 4–40 × 40-C100 80.0 80.3 3.95 9.6 439 40.0 39.7 8.0 40
X-V80 × 80 × 4–80 × 40-C35 80.0 80.2 3.95 9.6 479 79.9 39.7 8.0 40

138
measured dimensions of the concrete-filled high
strength steel tubular X-joint specimens. The con-
crete-filled tubular joints had the brace to chord
width ratio (b1/b0) ranged from 0.33 to 0.83, chord
width to thickness ratio (b0/t0) ranged from 20.3 to
30.9, chord sidewall slenderness ratio (h0/t0) ranged
from 12.6 to 40.6 and chord aspect ratio (h0/b0)
ranged from 0.5 to 1.7.
2.2 Material properties
2.2.1 High strength steel tubes
Tensile coupon tests were conducted to obtain
the material properties of the cold-formed high
strength steel tubes. The coupons were taken from
the centrelines of the faces at 90° angles from the
welded faces in the longitudinal direction. The ten-
sile coupon specimens were prepared in accordance
with the ASTM (2016) using 12.5  mm wide cou-
pon with 50 mm gauge length. Two strain gauges
and an MTS extensometer of 50 mm gauge length
were used to measure the strains of the coupons.
The coupon test procedures are detailed in Li and
Young (2017). The material properties obtained
from the longitudinal tensile flat coupon tests,
namely, the elastic modulus, 0.2% proof stress and
tensile strength are reported in Table 2.
2.2.2 Infilled concrete
The high strength steel tubes were filled with nor-
mal and high strength concrete with nominal con-
crete grades of 35 and 100 MPa, respectively. The
measured material properties of the infilled con-
crete were determined from concrete cylinder tests.
Standard concrete cylinders of size 150 × 300 mm
were cast and tested to determine the compressive
strength fc′ of the infilled concrete. Three cylin-
der tests were conducted at 28 days after casting
and another three cylinder tests were carried out at
the beginning, middle and end days of the X-joint
tests. The average measured cylinder compressive
strengths of the specimens are reported in Table 3.
2.3 Specimen labelling
The specimens are labelled in a way that the joint
configuration, nominal steel grade and cross-
Table  2. Material properties of cold-formed high
strength steel tubes.
Section (h0 × b0 × t0) E0 (GPa) fy0 (MPa) fu0 (MPa)
H100 × 100 × 4 215 715 808
H120 × 120 × 4 215 721 814
H50 × 100 × 4 211 679 820
H200 × 120 × 5 202 747 828
V80 × 80 × 4 214 997 1198
139
Table 3. Material properties of infilled concrete.
′
fc,28d fc′
Concrete No. of
grade cylinders (MPa) (MPa)
C35 3 35.4 (0.021) 36.4 (0.021)
C100 3 95.7 (0.011) 95.7 (0.013)
Note: Values in the brackets are the corresponding coef-
ficients of variation.
sectional dimensions of the chord member, nomi-
nal dimensions of the steel bearing plate (brace
member) and the nominal concrete grade of the
infilled concrete can be identified, as shown in
Table 1.
For example, the labels “X-H50 × 100 × 4–40 ×
80-C35-R” and “X-V80  ×  80  ×  4–40  ×  40-C100”
define the following specimens. The first letter
of the labels indicates the joint configuration of
X-joint. The second letter shows the material of
the chords, where letters “H” and “V” indicate
the nominal steel grades of 700 and 900  MPa,
respectively. The following notations are the
nominal chord and bearing plate dimensions
h0 × b0 × t0–h1 × b1 in millimetres. The notations C35
and C100 indicate the nominal concrete grades of
35 and 100 MPa, respectively. The letter “R” indi-
cates the repeated test.
2.4 Test setup
The test setup of the concrete-filled high strength
steel tubular X-joint tests is shown in Figure 2. The
chord member of the specimen was positioned
symmetrically between the top and bottom bear-
ing plates. A ball bearing that initially free to rotate
in any direction was used in the test setup and a
small alignment load of 5 kN was applied to elimi-
nate any possible gap between the specimen and
the supports. The ball bearing was then restrained
against rotation by using three wedges prior to
testing. Hence, it became a fixed-ended support
during testing and axial transverse compression
force was applied to the chord member thereafter.
Chord face indentations of the specimens were
measured through the readings of four linear vari-
able displacement transducers (LVDTs). Chord
sidewall deformations of the specimens were also
measured by the average readings of two LVDTs
with flat plastic plates. The plastic plates were rig-
idly connected to the end of the LVDTs. Hence,
the maximum chord sidewall deformations of the
specimens can be obtained.
An INSTRON 5000  kN servo-controlled
hydraulic testing machine was used to apply
transverse compressive forces to the specimens.
Displacement control was used to drive the
Figure 2. Test setup.
Figure 3. Load versus chord face indentation curves of
X-H100 × 100 × 4 series.
testing machine at a constant speed of 0.3  mm/
min. A data acquisition system was used to record
the loads and readings of the LVDTs at regular
intervals.

2.5 Test results

The load-chord face indentation curves of the
specimens in X-H100 × 100 × 4, X-H120 × 120 × 4,
X-H50  ×  100  ×  4, X-H200  ×  120  ×  5 and
X-V80  ×  80  ×  4 series are shown in Figures  3–7,
respectively. In general, it is observed that the
load-chord face indentation curves shown pro-
nounced peak loads except for the specimens in
X-H50 × 100 × 4 and X-V80 × 80 × 4 series. This is
due to the fact that the sections of these specimens
are relatively stocky. Figure 4. Load versus chord face indentation curves of
The maximum test load (Nmax) for the speci- X-H120 × 120 × 4 series.
mens that shown pronounced peak loads was
taken as the first peak load. In the cases of the test
loads continually increased without pronounced
peak loads, then the maximum test loads for such
specimens are not reported. For the specimens
that do not show pronounced peak loads, a defor-
mation criterion is required to determine the
ultimate strengths of the tested concrete-filled
tubular joints. The ultimate deformation limit, a
chord face indentation of 3% of the overall chord
width (0.03b0), that suggested by the CIDECT
(Packer et al. 2009) was employed in this study.
In this study, the ultimate strength (Nu) is defined
as the first peak load or the load at the ultimate
deformation limit of 0.03b0 (N0.03b0), whichever
occurs earlier in the load-chord face indentation
curve. For the specimens do not have peak loads,
the ultimate deformation limit of 0.03b0 was used Figure 5. Load versus chord face indentation curves of
to determine the Nu. The dash vertical lines at X-H50 × 100 × 4 series.
0.03b0 in Figures 3–7 show the ultimate deforma-
tion limits. The Nu for the tested concrete-filled The enhancement of ultimate strengths Nu
high strength steel tubular X-joints are reported ranged from 7.8% to 71.0% by filling with C100
in Table 4. concrete instead of C35 concrete for the tested

140
 specimens. These enhancements of ulti-
mate strengths are less substantial for the
stocky specimens. It should be noted that
the difference of Nu between the speci-
mens X-H50  ×  100  ×  4–40  ×  80-C35 and
X-H50 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C100 is 7.8% only. Over-
all, the enhancement decreases as the chord side-
wall slenderness ratio (h0/t0) decreases.

3 CIDECT DESIGN PROVISIONS

The CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009) provides design

Figure 6. Load versus chord face indentation curve of
X-H200 × 120 × 5 series.
provisions for concrete-filled rectangular hol-
low section joints, which were developed based
on the investigations performed by Packer and
Fear (1991) and Packer (1995). The direct con-
tribution of the steel tubes in the calculation of
the concrete-filled joint strengths is ignored in
the CIDECT design formulae. For concrete-filled
uniplanar tubular X-joints subjected to transverse
compression, the nominal strengths predicted by
the CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009) can be illustrated
as follows,

NCIDECT A1 fc A2 A1 (1)

in which fc′ is the compressive concrete cylinder

Figure 7. Load versus chord face indentation curves of
X-V80 × 80 × 4 series.
strength; A1 = b1h1 is the bearing area over which
the transverse load applied; A2  =  b1hd is the dis-
persed bearing area determined by dispersion of
the bearing load at a slope of 2:1 longitudinally
along the chord member; hd  =  h1+2h0 is the dis-
persed bearing length.

Table 4. Comparison of test strengths with nominal design strengths for concrete-filled X-joint specimens.

Nmax N3% b0 Nu Nu
Specimen b1/b0 b0/t0 h0/t0 h0/b0 (kN) (kN) (kN) NCIDECT

X-H100 × 100 × 4–40 × 40-C35 0.39 25.6 25.5 1.0 — 289.5 289.5 2.04
X-H100 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C35 0.80 25.5 25.5 1.0 398.4 390.7 398.4 1.40
X-H100 × 100 × 4–100 × 80-C35 0.80 25.6 25.6 1.0 746.5 679.4 746.5 1.48
X-H120 × 120 × 4–40 × 40-C35 0.33 30.8 30.8 1.0 305.2 303.6 305.2 1.99
X-H120 × 120 × 4–40 × 40-C100 0.33 30.8 30.7 1.0 431.3 333.7 431.3 1.07
X-H120 × 120 × 4–80 × 100-C35 0.83 30.9 30.8 1.0 686.8 639.0 686.8 1.18
X-H120 × 120 × 4–80 × 100-C100 0.83 30.9 30.8 1.0 1174.1 744.2 1174.1 0.77
X-H50 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C35 0.80 25.3 12.6 0.5 — 910.0 910.0 4.20
X-H50 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C35-R 0.80 25.3 12.6 0.5 — 892.2 892.2 4.12
X-H50 × 100 × 4–40 × 80-C100 0.80 25.4 12.7 0.5 — 981.2 981.2 1.72
X-H50 × 100 × 4–100 × 80-C100 0.80 25.4 12.7 0.5 — 4138.2 4138.2 3.83
X-H200 × 120 × 5–120 × 80-C35 0.67 24.2 40.6 1.7 721.9 620.1 721.9 0.99
X-V80 × 80 × 4–40 × 40-C35 0.49 20.4 20.3 1.0 — 338.5 338.5 2.62
X-V80 × 80 × 4–40 × 40-C100 0.49 20.3 20.3 1.0 464.0 462.7 464.0 1.37
X-V80 × 80 × 4–80 × 40-C35 0.50 20.3 20.3 1.0 — 569.2 569.2 2.84
Mean 2.11
COV 0.549

141
 The dispersed bearing area A2 may be limited by
the length of infilled concrete, and an upper limit
of 3.3 is specified for the (A2/A1)0.5. In the CIDECT
(Packer et al. 2009), the application of the design
provisions is recommended for chord aspect ratio
h0/b0 no greater than 1.4, which is the maximum
chord aspect ratio of the concrete-filled tubular
X-joint specimens that tested by Packer and Fear
(1991) and Packer (1995).
It was reported that the CIDECT design provi-
sions may apply to concrete-filled rectangular hollow
section joints with h0/b0 ratio up to 3 and h0/t0 ratio up
to 75 (Zhao 1999; Hou et al. 2013; Yang et al. 2014).
It should be noted that this extension of the valid-
ity limits was based on the comparison with factored
design strengths using a resistance factor of 0.6.
4 COMPARISON OF TEST STRENGTHS
WITH CIDECT DESIGN STRENGTHS
The ultimate strengths Nu obtained from the tests
were compared with the nominal strengths NCIDECT
predicted using the design provisions given in the
CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009). The nominal strengths
NCIDECT were computed using the measured speci-
men dimensions and measured material properties.
The concrete cylinder strengths at the time of test-
ing were employed in the calculation. Table 4 shows
the comparison of the Nu with the NCIDECT for the
concrete-filled high strength steel tubular X-joints.
Figure  8 shows the test strengths to the predicted
strengths ratio Nu/NCIDECT for the specimens.
The design provisions in the CIDECT (Packer
et al. 2009) are able to provide conservative
strength predictions for the tested concrete-
filled tubular X-joint specimens, except for the
specimens X-H200  ×  120  ×  5–120  ×  80-C35 and
Figure  8. Comparison of test results with design pre-
dictions for concrete-filled X-joint specimens.
142
X-H120  ×  120  ×  4–80  ×  100-C100. The compari-
sons, as shown in Figure 8, exhibit significant scat-
ter, which may be due to the fact that the CIDECT
(Packer et al. 2009) design provisions ignore the
direct contribution of the steel tubes.
The mean value of the test strengths to the
predicted strengths ratio Nu/NCIDECT is 2.11 with
the corresponding coefficient of variation (COV)
of 0.549. It is found that the Nu/NCIDECT values
for the specimens filled with concrete grade C35
are greater than their C100 counterparts. The
Nu/NCIDECT ratio for specimens X-H120
×  120  ×  4–40  × 40-C35, X-H120 ×  120  ×  4–80  ×
100-C35, X-H50 ×  100  ×  4–40  × 80-C35 and
X-V80 ×  80  ×  4–40  × 40-C35 are 1.99, 1.18, 4.20
and 2.62, respectively, whilst the Nu/NCIDECT
ratio are 1.07, 0.77, 1.72 and 1.37, respectively,
for their C100 counterparts. It is noteworthy
that the Nu/NCIDECT ratio is 0.77 for the specimen
X-H120 × 120 × 4–80 × 100-C100, indicating that
the CIDECT design guide could be unconservative
for concrete-filled high strength steel tubular joints
subjected to transverse compression.
On the other hand, as the chord sidewall slender-
ness ratio (h0/t0) increases, the CIDECT design pro-
visions become increasingly less conservative (the
Nu/NCIDECT ratio generally decreases as the h0/t0 ratio
increases), as shown in Figure 8. For the specimen
X-H200 × 120 × 5–120 × 80-C35, which had an h0/t0
ratio of 40.6, the Nu/NCIDECT ratio is 0.99.
It is noteworthy that the CIDECT (Packer et al.
2009) design provisions, as illustrated in Eq. (1),
were developed based on 11 concrete-filled rectan-
gular hollow section joint tests that had the h0/t0
ratio ranged from 26.9 to 37.4 and h0/b0 ratio up
to 1.4. The infilled concrete of these 11 joint tests,
carried out by Packer and Fear (1991) and Packer
(1995), had concrete cylinder strengths of 43.3
MPa. It seems that the design provisions given in
the CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009) design guide may
provide unconservative predictions for concrete-
filled tubular joints with h0/t0 ratio beyond 40.
5 CONCLUSIONS
An experimental investigation of concrete-filled
high strength steel tubular X-joints was conducted.
The high strength steel tubes were cold-formed
into square and rectangular hollow sections with
the measured 0.2% proof stresses ranged from
679 to 997 MPa. The steel tubes were infilled with
normal and high strength concrete with nominal
concrete cylinder strengths of 35 and 100  MPa,
respectively. A total of 15 tubular X-joint tests
was conducted. The chord members of the con-
crete-filled high strength steel tubular joints were
subjected to transverse compression and steel
bearing plates were used to simulate the brace
members. The test strengths were compared with
the nominal strengths calculated using the design
provisions in the CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009).
Overall, the CIDECT design provisions are able
to provide conservative predictions for the tested
concrete-filled high strength steel tubular X-joints.
It is shown that the nominal strengths predicted by
the CIDECT design provisions are generally very
conservative for the specimens filled with C35 con-
crete and less conservative for specimens filled with
C100 concrete. This conservatism may due to the
fact that the CIDECT design provisions did not
consider the direct contribution of the steel tubes.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to Rautaruukki Corpora-
tion for providing the test specimens. The research
work described in this paper was supported by a
grant from the Research Grants Council of the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China
(Project No. 17209614).
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Behavior of extended endplate connections between RHS column

and H beam using slip-critical blind bolts

W. Wang, M.X. Li & Y.Y. Chen

College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

X.G. Jian
College of Mechanical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an experimental investigation on beam-to-column blind bolted end-
plate connections using blind bolts. Two full-scale specimens were tested under quasi-static cyclic loading.
Two kinds of failure modes were observed in the test. The connections with blind bolts demonstrated
good performance and were suitable for fabricated construction in seismic design.

1 INTRODUCTION outer side of the column, offer a convenient way

Hollow section columns have become an attractive
choice for steel and composite building construc-
tion, owing to several advantages over open sec-
tions. A square or rectangular hollow section (SHS
or RHS) column is a typical kind of tubular column
which presents the advantage of good bending and
torsional resistance, due to its much larger flexural
and torsional modulus than open sections. Besides,
the column wall can provide constraints for filled
concrete (if any), a case which increases the com-
pressive capacity of the concrete. Moreover, the
surface painting becomes much easier for tubular
structures and the appearance is more elegant from
an architectural point of view. Meanwhile, RHS/
SHS columns can be connected with H-beam more
easily than circular hollow section (CHS) columns.
Despite the advantages described above, tradi-
tional bolting is not readily applicable to the con-
nections between H-beams and RHS/SHS columns
due to the inaccessibility of the internal space of the
tube. Nowadays, welding is still the main method
employed for such connections, where using inte-
rior diaphragms, through diaphragms, and exter-
nal diaphragms are typical solutions. These kinds
of connections usually have large initial stiffness,
and thus they can be considered as rigid connec-
tions according to Eurocode 3 (BS EN. 2005).
However, compared with the bolting solution,
welding is more demanding in terms of construc-
tion effort and may cause quality issues, recalling
that a large number of welded connections were
severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge and 1995
Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake. Alternatively, blind
bolts, which can be installed and fastened from the
for connecting H-beams to tubular columns. Sev-
eral types of blind bolts have been developed over
the past several decades, including BOM, HSBB
and Ultra-Twist from the US, Flowdrill technol-
ogy from Netherland, Hollo-bolt, RMH and EHB
from the UK and Ajax Oneside from Australia.
However, it is found that almost none of them
can achieve slip-critical bolted connections except
Ajax-Oneside from Australia.
Mourad (Mourad et al. 1995) conducted experi-
ments on connections using HSBB (High Strength
Blind Bolt) under cyclic loading, but the sleeves
were peeled off, leading to decreased preloading
level of the bolts. Mourad (Mourad et al. 1996) pro-
posed a design method for extended endplate con-
nections using Ultra-Twist (a new blind bolt in the
USA), and some constructional requirements were
also given. Harada (Harada et al. 2002) found that
TCBB (Torque-control high-strength Blind Bolt,
the same as Ultra-Twist) experienced unexpected
pulling out failure of the blind bolt. Yeomans (Yeo-
mans. 1998) tested several endplate connections with
hollo-bolts (published by the British Steel Tubes &
Pipes) and also found that the bolts were pulled out,
which indicated low pre-tightening forces of the
blind bolts. Elghazouli (Elghazouli et al. 2009) stud-
ied the monotonic and hysteretic behavior of hollo-
bolt connections, and good ductility was exhibited.
A theoretical model for the initial stiffness and
bearing capacity of the hollo-bolt connections
was proposed by Málaga-Chuquitaype (Málaga-
Chuquitaype. 2010). Tizani (Tizani et al. 2013)
reported an investigation into the cyclic behaviour
of endplate connections to concrete filled tubular
columns using the EHB. The results showed that

145
the performance of the blind bolted connections
was mainly influenced by the failure modes, and
connections with relatively weak columns could
exhibit higher energy dissipation and ductility. Lee
(Lee et al. 2010) reported an experimental pro-
gram investigation on blind bolted connections to
unfilled hollow section columns using Ajax Oneside
(Oneside brochure. 2002) from Australia.
To further explore the potential of blind bolts
for H-beam to RHS/SHS columns, an innovative
Slip-Critical Blind Bolt (SCBB) is presented in this
paper. The component parts, pre-tightening mech-
anism, installing procedures and the performances
of SCBB are discussed in detail. A novel split-type
spacer, allowing almost the same pre-tightening
mechanism as traditional high strength bolt, was
introduced into the blind bolt. This special detail-
ing provides possibility for SCBB to possess suffi-
cient pre-tightening force recommended by major
codes and makes the blind bolt slip-critical. Exper-
iments were conducted to investigate the connect-
ing performances of the bolts and the hysteretic
behaviour of the connections using SCBB with
various types of stiffening measure, and the failure
modes, strength capacity, ductility, initial stiffness,
and energy dissipation are fully examined.
2 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
2.1 Test specimens
Eight full-scale beam-to-column cruciform
extended endplate connections using the SCBB
were tested under cyclic loading. The specimens
are summarized in Table  1. For ease of identifi-
cation, each specimen was assigned with a short
name, which starts with the thickness of column
wall, followed by the strengthening strategies,
bolt types or other special characteristics. For
example, C6DA5 represents the connection with
6 mm column wall, inner diaphragms and axial
load ratio 0.5 for the column. The nomenclature
used for other specimens follows the same format,
in which CF stands for the concrete filled in the
column, HB stands for hollo-bolt, and SB stands
for strong beam. Three types of stiffening strate-
gies, namely, inner diaphragms, thickened column
wall and concrete filled columns, were adopted to
strengthen the SHS columns, and the connection
detailing is shown in Figure 1. The SHS columns
used in the tests were all cold-formed, with the
thickness (tc) varying between 6 and 12 mm. The
beams for specimens S1 through S7 were H-shaped
(250 × 125 × 3.2 × 4.5) built-up sections and were
fabricated by welding. A hot rolled H-shaped steel
beam with a larger section (300 × 150 × 6 × 8 mm)
was employed for specimen C6SB. Four rows of
M24 SCBB (except C6HB) were used to connect
the endplate (550 × 200 × 24 mm) to the column,
and stiffeners were used between the beams and the
extended parts of the endplates. For the parameter
matrix among the eight specimens, specimen C6 did
not have any stiffening measures. Inner diaphragms
were added into the SHS columns of specimens
C6D and C6DA5, with a column axial load ratio
of 0.2 and 0.5, respectively. The local wall thick-
ness (at the connection zone only) of the column
of C12 was twice the thickness of C6, such that the
stiffness of the column panel zone was increased.
C6CF and C12CF were designed to study the influ-
ence of concrete filled columns, in comparison to
C6 and C12, respectively. Hollo-bolt (designed
by Lindapter, UK) was used in C6HB, designed

Table 1. Overview of the eight specimens.

Axial load
No. Specimen Column/mm Beam/mm ratio

S1 C6 250 × 6
S2 C6D 250 × 6 0.2
S3 C6DA5 250 × 6 0.5
250 × 125 × 
S4 C12 250 × 6∼12 3.2 × 4.5
S5 C6CF 250 × 6
S6 C12CF 250 × 6∼12 0.2
S7 C6HB 250 × 6
S8 C6SB 250 × 6 300 × 150 × 
6 × 8
Figure 1. Configuration of the connections.

146
to check the differences between the two types of
blind bolts. Beams of larger sectional dimensions
were adopted in C6SB, thus making C6SB a typical
specimen of column failure.
The material properties of the specimens are
shown in Table 2. Tensile coupon tests conforming
to Chinese code (GB/T228.1. 2010) were carried
out to obtain the yield strength, ultimate strength
and elongation at fracture of the varying parts of
the steel specimens. The compressive strength of
the 150 mm concrete cubes were tested soon after
the experiment, with an average fc,cube value of
35 MPa.

2.2 Test set-up

The general test set-up is shown in Figure  2 and Figure 3. Test set-up on site.
Figure  3. The effective length of the column is
3180 mm, and the beam span is 1800 mm. Both
far ends of the beams were pinned in plane, and
spherical hinges were set at the top and bottom
of the columns, respectively. To resist the hori-
zontal reaction load, a bracing with a pipe section
was placed between the top of the column and
the reaction frame. Two actuators were vertically
positioned at the east and west ends of the beams.
Both beams were laterally supported by universal
ball joints, avoiding out-of-plane stability prob-
lems. Besides, to study the influence of the axial

Table 2. Material properties.

Figure  4. Illustration of AISC cyclic loading
Elongation
procedure.
Steel type fy (MPa) fu (MPa) at fracture

Thin column 313 461 35%

Thick column 411 568 23%
load ratio, a constant axial load was applied to the
Beam (except C6SB) 350 466 33%
column through a jack at the top.
Beam (C6SB) 418 584 29%
Endplate 351 527 30% 2.3 Loading procedure
Quasi-static cyclic loading procedure based on
AISC 341-10 (AISC. 2010) was adopted, as illus-
trated in Figure  4, in which the whole procedure
is displacement-controlled. The two actuators were
connected to the same pump, and the loads at both
beam ends were applied synchronously.

3 FAILURE MODES AND OBSERVATIONS

The end-plate was designed according to Chinese

code (CECS102. 2002), thus it is relatively strong
in comparison to the H-beams and SHS columns.
Therefore, the failure modes were mainly influ-
enced by the beams and columns, and the typi-
cal failure modes of the connections are shown in
Figure 5. Two types of failure modes were gener-
Figure 2. Schematic of test set-up. ally identified which are described as follows:

147

Figure 5. Representative failure of the connections.
Failure mode I: severe inelastic buckling of
beam sections. The beams of this failure mode were
relatively weaker than the column and the connec-
tion zone, thus buckling occurred to the beam sec-
tions after its initiation of section yielding. C12CF
(shown in Figure 5(a)) is a typical specimen exhib-
iting failure mode I, where the column and the
connection zone generally stayed elastic.
Failure mode II: excessive plastic deformation of
column walls. The strength of the column wall was
relatively small, and the column acted as the pri-
mary source of deformation. Due to the pulling-out
tendency of the bolts, gaps were developed between
the end-plates and the column walls, and were kept
broadening with the increasing of the inter-story
drift angle. Test C6SB is taken as representative of
failure mode II, as shown in Figure 5(b).
More detailed description of the specimen
behaviour is provided as follows.
3.1 Specimens C6 & C6CF
For specimen C6, at the beginning of the loading
process, the tensile action of the blind bolts caused
148
local bending deformation of the column front
walls accompanied by out-of-plane deformation
of the column side walls. Soon afterwards, the col-
umn entered into the inelastic deformation stage.
Due to the relatively thin column wall, a gap, with
a maximum value of 22 mm, between the endplate
and the column front wall was evidently formed.
The steel beams experienced evident local buck-
ling when the inter-story drift (θ ) approached 7%
and the load carrying capacity began to fall. Frac-
tures occurred to the welds connecting the web
and flange of the east beam (θ = 9%), leading to a
sharp drop (more than 50%) of the load carrying
capacity.
The filled concrete in specimen C6CF restricted
the concave deformation of the column wall, but
the gap between the end-plate and the column
front wall was still visible, although narrower than
that of C6. The white wash applied over the panel
showed that initial yielding started at 0.375% drift.
Yielding of the beam was first recorded at 1.5%
drift. The beams started to buckle at 3% drift and
fractured at 6% drift, and afterwards the load car-
rying capacity started to decrease. For these two
connections, failure mode II appeared first, but
they finally failed by mode I (inelastic buckling of
the beams).
3.2 Specimens C6D & C6DA5 with diaphragms
For specimen C6D, the diaphragm restricted the
deformation of the column wall to some extent,
thus reducing the aforementioned gap. At 1.5%
drift, a gap developed between the endplate and
the column at the height where the diaphragms
located. The load reached its peak value at 4% drift,
and then dropped very quickly upon buckling of
the beam flanges and webs. It is recalled that the
ductility of specimen C6D was lower than that of
specimen C6. However, much higher initial stiffness
was obtained in specimen C6D, and this phenom-
enon will be discussed in detail in section 4.2.
The observed failure mode of specimen C6DA5
(axial load ratio r = 0.5) was similar to that of C6D.
Due to the larger axial load ratio, the column in
C6DA5 yielded earlier, and its initial stiffness was
therefore slightly lower than C6D.
3.3 Specimens C12 & C12CF with
thickened walls
Due to the increased strength and stiffness of the
panel zone, severe buckling occurred to the beams
very early and led to a rapid fall of the load car-
rying capacity of specimens C12 and C12CF.
Only a very small gap could be seen between the
endplate and the column wall at 1.5% while the
beam section experienced full yielding. The beams
started to buckle at θ = 2%, a drift level which is 4 MOMENT-ROTATION RESPONSES
much smaller than that observed in the previously AND FURTHER DISCUSSIONS
discussed specimens. The column of specimen
C12 almost remained elastic and the gap at the 4.1 Moment-rotation curves
endplate was very small. The initial stiffness was
The moment-rotation curves of the specimens are
greatly improved due to the thickened column wall,
shown in Figure 6.
but the ductility of the connection was lower than
Figure 6 a and e show the hysteretic curves of
specimen C6 and this was attributed to the early
specimens C6 and C6CF, both undergoing mode
buckling of the H-shaped beams.
II but finally failed in mode I. The curves exhibited
The column of specimen C12CF was further
pinching effect at the beginning due to the excessive
strengthened by the presence of the filled concrete,
out-of-plane deformation of the column side walls
and it almost stayed elastic during the entire test
and the gap between the column wall and the end-
procedure. The load reached its peak value at only
plate. After the column experienced yielding, the
1.5% drift and the plastic hinges were observed at
stiffness of the column became much smaller, which
the sections where the stiffeners and beams inter-
led to the pinching hysteretic curves of the speci-
sected. Beams buckled earlier compared with
mens. The curves experienced sharp drops when
specimen C12.The loading capacity fell by 75% at
severe welding fracture occurred in the last two
5% drift due to the fracture of the welding. White
or three cycles, and some minor decrease of load
wash peeled off from the beam surface in a large
took place due to beam buckling and micro-cracks
area of the plastic hinge. The above test observa-
tions clearly indicate that the two specimens (C12
and C12CF) fail by failure mode I.

3.4 Specimen C6HB with hollo-bolts

Hollo-bolts were used in specimen C6HB to exam-
ine the influence of bolt types on the connection
behavior. In a previous tensile test on hollo-bolts
conducted by the authors, it was found that the
hollo-bolt is susceptible to shear failure of the sleeves,
leading to decreased tensile capacity when compared
with the traditional high strength bolt. This explains
the large difference between specimen C6HB (hollo-
bolt) and C6 (SCBB) which was that the column
wall and the endplate in specimen C6HB became
separate where the bolts located when encountering
tensile forces, indicating low pre-tightening forces of
the hollo-bolts. Some bolts even slacked at 8% drift
with a tendency of being pulled out, after which the
hollo-bolts almost quitted working. Beams remained
elastic while the columns experienced excessive plas-
ticity. This connection exhibited failure mode II
accompanied with bolt failure.

3.5 Specimen C6SB with stronger beams

The beams in specimen C6SB were relatively
strong, leading to a ‘strong beam, weak column’
connection. The column demonstrated very large
out-of-plane deformation and huge gaps were
observed between the endplate and column wall.
The load carrying capacity was higher than that
of the other specimens because of the larger beam
sections. Some of the bolt holes began to crack
at 8% drift, resulting in relaxation of the SCBB.
Severe concave deformation occurred to the col-
umn wall and the connection finally failed by mode
II coupled with cracking of bolt holes. Figure 6. Moment-rotation curves of each specimen.

149
of welds. The hysteretic curve of specimen C6CF
demonstrated lower ultimate displacement due to
the filled concrete which restricted the deforma-
tion of column and hence causing earlier buckling
of the beams.
Figure 6 b,c,d and f show the hysteretic curves
of specimens C6D, C6DA5, C12 and C12CF that
failed by mode I (inelastic buckling of beams). The
hysteretic curves dropped very early compared
with specimens C6 and C6CF due to the existence
of inner diaphragms or thickened column walls,
leading to early buckling of the beams.
Figure 7. Comparison of M-θ envelope curves.
Figure 6 g and h show the hysteretic curves of
specimens C6HB and C6SB that failed by mode
II (column failure). These curves exhibited signifi-
Table 3. Initial stiffness and connection classification.
cant pinching effect and the beams did not buckle
during the whole test. The load carrying capacity Sini
of C6SB fell slowly with the cracking of the bolt Specimen (109N·mm/rad) By stiffness By strength
holes. The beams in specimen C6SB were stronger,
and the ultimate load is significantly below the one C6 3.894 Semi-rigid
causing yielding of the beam section. C6D 9.895
C6DA5 8.993 Rigid (non- Full-
C12 13.974 sway) strength
4.2 Initial stiffness and connection classification
C6CF 12.528
The connections can be classified by their initial C12CF 33.414 Rigid (sway)
stiffness (Sini) and strength according to Eurocode C6HB 1.650 Partial-
3. A connection may be classified as rigid when Siniis C6SB 4.649 Semi-rigid strength
no less than kbEIb/Lb (kb equals 8 and 25 for non-
sway and sway frames, respectively; E and Ib are the
elastic modulus and moment of inertia of the beam;
Lb is the span of the beam, taken as 4 m in this it can be classified as rigid in sway frames. The
paper), or nominally pinned when Sini is no greater result above also reveals that the initial stiffness
than 0.5EIb/Lb. A semi-rigid connection is that with of the considered specimens is mainly influenced
Sini between kbEIb/Lb and 0.5EIb/Lb. From a strength by the column panel zone. Larger stiffness can
point of view, a connection may be classified as full- be obtained in the connections with stronger col-
strength when its design moment resistance (MRd) is umns. Specimens S1 through S6 all failed in mode
no less than either the design plastic moment of the I finally, so they exhibited full-strength behavior.
beam (Mb,pl,Rd) or the column (Mc,pl,Rd), or nominally The remaining two connections which failed in col-
pinned when MRd is no greater than a quarter of the umn or blind bolt are partial-strength connections.
minimum value of Mb,pl,Rd and Mc,pl,Rd, and again, a
partial-strength connection is that with the moment
resistance in between. 5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
It should be noted that when calculating the
connection stiffness, some sources of deforma- An innovative slip-critical blind bolt was presented
tion, including beam elastic bending, column in this paper, and its working principles, component
elastic bending and the rigid-body rotation of the parts, pre-tightening mechanism, and installing
column, should be excluded. The connection clas- procedures, were discussed in detail. Eight full-
sification result is shown in Figure 7 and Table 3. scale beam-to-column cruciform extended endplate
Connection C6 without any stiffening measures is connections using SCBB have been tested under
classified as semi-rigid with relatively low initial cyclic loading. Three types of stiffening strategies,
stiffness. Specimens S2 through S5 all have very namely, inner diaphragms, thickened column wall,
large stiffness and can be classified as rigid (non- and filled concrete, were adopted for the SHS col-
sway), which indicates that the inner diaphragms, umns. The load carrying capacity, ductility, initial
the thickened column wall, or the filled concrete stiffness, connection classification, stiffness deg-
can greatly increase the initial stiffness of the con- radation and energy dissipation of the specimens
nections. Specimen C12CF has a further increased were discussed in this paper. Confidence was gained
stiffness due to the existences of both the thick- from the experimental study towards future appli-
ened column wall and the filled concrete, and thus cation of the considered beam-to-column blind

150
bolted connections against seismic action. The
main conclusions can be summarized as follows:
1. Two types of failure modes were observed, i.e.
plastic beam buckling failure (mode I) and col-
umn failure (mode II). The connections with
failure mode II exhibited pinching effect in their
moment-rotation curves compared with the
specimens with failure mode I.
2. The inner diaphragms, thickened column wall,
or the concrete filled column can greatly improve
the initial stiffness of the connection, allow-
ing a rigid connection behavior to be exhibited
according to Eurocode 3. The strength of the
connections is influenced by the failure mode,
and is further affected by the relative strong-
weak relations of each element.
3. The SCBB and the corresponding connections
have been proved to achieve the basic stand-
ard of field weld-free construction of steel and
composite buildings in high seismic regions.
The potential application of such connections is
envisaged in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research presented in this paper was spon-
sored by the National “Twelfth Five-Year” Plan for
Science & Technology Support Program through
Grant No. 2015BAL03B01-2.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

An experimental and numerical study of flange plate reinforcements

on a square hollow section T joint in compression

L.C.B. Guerrieiro
PGECIV, Civil Engineering Post-Graduate Program, UERJ, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

L.R.O. de Lima, P.C.G. da S. Vellasco & A.T. da Silva

Structural Engineering Department, UERJ, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

L.F. Costa-Neves
INESCC, Civil Engineering Department, University of Coimbra, Portugal

ABSTRACT: This paper presents experimental and numerical results that aim to understand the effect
of the plate reinforcement on the joint’s ultimate capacity and general behaviour. The experimental and
numerical analysis focused on the static behaviour of axially compressed T joints reinforced with a dou-
bler plate where the reinforcement plate length and boundary conditions varied. The structural response
of reinforced joints was compared to equivalent unreinforced joints to determine the corresponding
enhancement of the joint resistance. The experimental results were also compared to the design standards
of Eurocode 3, ABNT NBR 16239 and ISO 14346. These comparisons showed that the joint strength,
predicted by the analytical models, might be highly underestimated when compared to the experiments.
Finally, a preliminary approach based on modifications of Eurocode 3 and ABNT 16239 design codes is
proposed to estimate the resistance of T joints reinforced with flange plates.

1 INTRODUCTION many studies indicating that further research is still

needed, particularly for some geometries. There
The aesthetical and structural advantages of tubu- are cases where the ultimate resistance of the tubu-
lar structural elements sustained the increase in lar joints may be enhanced by using flange plates
their use worldwide. Many examples in nature as reinforcement, instead of replacing the chord
show the optimum properties of the tubular shape or braces with stronger sections—see Figure  1.
when loaded in compression, torsion and bending Bearing this scenario in mind, the Eurocode 3
in all directions. Furthermore, the section’s closed (2010) and NBR16239 (2013) covers the design of
shape without sharp corners reduces the surface
area to be protected and finished, and extends the
corrosion protection life (Wardenier et al., 2010a).
A review of the analytical approaches avail-
able for predicting the structural response of these
structures indicated the paramount importance of
an accurate assessment of the joints behaviour.
Extensive work has been carried out to address
the technological and design issues of these struc-
tures in the last decades (Rondal et al., 1992,
Wardenier, 2000). Numerous international design
codes explicitly cover the design of tubular joints
(Wardenier, 2000, EN 1993-1-8, 2010, and IIW,
2009). Wardenier et al. (2010b) and Zhao et al. (2010)
presented the tubular joint design latest standards
incorporating the IIW (2009) improvements. More
recently, two codes focusing on tubular joints design
were also updated with the recent advances in this
field (ISO14346, 2013, NBR16239, 2013).
In spite of all these advances, the joints between Figure  1. Typical tubular structures, Rio de Janeiro,
the tubular members remain a critical issue, with Brazil.

153
particular reinforced joints. This is allowed by capacity, particularly useful in resisting seismic
only by changing the chord thickness by the rein- loadings. For both unreinforced and reinforced
forcement plate thickness. This procedure leads to T-joint specimens, the inelastic deformation was
identical results for unreinforced and reinforced the main energy dissipation mechanism verified.
tubular joints when the adopted reinforcement The deformation limit proposed by Lu et al.
plate thickness is the same as of the chord section. (1994) and adopted for the IIW and ISO 14346
Aiming at better understanding the effect of this recommendations may be used in the evaluation
plate reinforcement on the joint ultimate capacity, of axial or bending loads for joints subjected to
an experimental study has been conducted, com- bending and axial forces. The joint resistance is
prising the static behaviour of T joints reinforced based on the comparison of the deformation at
with a double plate and the brace axially loaded the chord-brace intersection for two loads levels:
in compression. In the present study the reinforce- the ultimate resistance, Nu, which corresponds to
ment plate length and boundary conditions were a chord indentation of 3% b0 or a peak load (Npeak)
varied. Subsequently, a numerical model based with an associated deformation smaller than 3%
on the finite element method was developed to b0. Zhao et al. (2010) performed an evaluation
extend the field of application of flange plates in of the deformation limit criterion and concluded
SHS T-joints. Furthermore, the reinforced joints’ that a good agreement with experiments was
behaviour was compared to the response of their obtained by using the 3% b0 deformation limit.
unreinforced counterparts to determine the cor-
responding resistance increase. The experimen-
tal and numerical results were also compared to 3 DESIGN CODES
design standards from Eurocode 3, ABNT 16239
and ISO 14346. According to EN 1993-1-8 (2010), NBR16239
(2013), CIDECT Design Guide (Packer et al.,
2009) and ISO14346 (2013), several geometri-
2 REINFORCED TUBULAR JOINTS cal parameters must be verified prior to the joint
resistance evaluation. These parameters are pre-
Traditionally, design rules for hollow sections joints sented in Figure  2, where b0 and t0 and b1 and t1
are based on either plastic analysis or deformation
limit criteria. The use of plastic analysis to define
the joint ultimate limit state is based on a plastic
mechanism corresponding to the assumed yield
line pattern. Typical examples of these approaches
can be found in Packer et al. (2009), Cao et al.
(1998), Packer (1993) and Kosteski et al. (2003).
Previous studies on reinforced hollow section
joints mainly focused on the assessment of the
structural behaviour of CHS joints (Choo et al.,
2004a,b, 2005, Van der Vegte et al., 2005, Fung
et al., 1999 and Nassiraei et al. 2016.
For joints in structures composed of SHS or
RHS sections, some results related to the ultimate
capacity of reinforced joints under bending can be
found in Chen & Chen, 2016. Chang et al. (2014)
investigated the behaviour of doubler-plate rein-
forced square hollow section (DPR-SHS) T-joints
under brace compression. These authors performed
experiments and finite element analysis with rein-
forcement plates with a thickness greater than the
thickness of the chord. They concluded that the
reinforcement doubler-plate efficiency increased
with the increase of the doubler-plate width and
length, but decreased with the increase of doubler-
plate thickness and yielding strength.
Young-Bo et al. (2011) carried out experiments
and finite element analysis of reinforced and
unreinforced square tubular T-joints subjected to
quasi-static cyclic loads. In this case, all chord walls
were reinforced for an increased energy dissipation Figure 2. Tests overview.

154
Table 1. Limits for geometrical parameters—T tubular represent the width and the thickness of the chord
joints—chord yield. and the brace. These geometrical parameters limits
are presented in Table 1, for all considered design
codes, related to the chord yield failure.
Design equations for chord yield in design
codes consist of a strength function of the non-
dimensional joint parameters β and γ, and an addi-
tional function for the chord use (np), the chord
yield stress fy0 and the chord thickness t0. Table  2
summarizes the equations dealing with the chord
face failure mode for the T joints studied in this
work according to EN 1993-1-8 (2010), NBR
16239 (2013) and ISO14346 (2013). For reinforced
EN 1993-1-8 (2010) and NBR
16239 (2013) ISO14346 (2013) joints loaded by braces in compression, the same
0.25 ≤ β = b1/b0 ≤ 0.85 β ≥ 0.1 + 0.01b0/t0 but equation should be used, but changing the chord
0.25 ≤ β ≤ 0.85 thickness t0 by the reinforcement plate thickness, tp.
10 ≤ 2γ = b0/t0 ≤ 35 and 2γ = b0/t0 ≤ 40 and class For the tests considered in this work, all axial forces
class 1 or 2 1 or 2 were applied to the brace. Therefore, the param-
b1/t1 e h1/t1 ≤ 35 and b1/t1 e h1/t1 ≤ 40 and eters kn and Qf in Table  2 were equal to 1.0. At
class 1 or 2 class 1 or 2 this point it is important to clarify that ISO 14346
0.5 ≤ h0/b0 ≤ 2.0 0.5 ≤ h0/b0 ≤ 2.0 (2013) does not consider reinforced joints, and it is
0.5 ≤ h1/b1 ≤ 2.0 0.5 ≤ h1/b1 ≤ 2.0 thus only applied to unreinforced joints, leading to
– the same results of EN 1993-1-8 (2010) and NBR
h1
lp ≥ + bp ( bp − b1 ) 16239 (2013).
sin θ1

bp b0 − 2t0 –
4 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAMME
tp ≥ 2t1
The experimental programme for SHS brace to SHS
chord T joints is summarized in Table 3. It consisted
of six prototypes made of ASTM-A36 steel grade:
four reinforced using the same chord wall thickness
Table 2. Design resistances of SHS brace to SHS chord of tp = 6.35 mm flange plates and two unreinforced
T joints.
joints. This flange plate thickness is not in accordance
EN 1993-1-8 (2010) and NBR 16239 (2013) to limitation of tp ≥ 2t1 presented in Table 1. However,
this flange plate thickness was used in order to give
1 ⎛ 2η
kn f y 0t02 ⎞ a more economical design. The reinforcement plates
N1,Rd = + 4 1− β ⎟
γ M 5 (1 β ))sin θ1 ⎜⎝ sin θ1 ⎠ were cut from chord section in order to have same
material properties for them. The chords were made
04 of square hollow sections SHS 110 × 110 × 6.35 with
kn . n ≤ 1.0 if n < 0 (chord in compression) a length of 1000 mm, while the braces were square
β hollow sections SHS 60 × 60 × 6.3 with a length of
kn = 1.0 if n ≥ 0 (chord in tension) 500 mm (Fig. 3). The adopted sections relates to non-
N 0 ,Ed M 0 ,Ed dimensional parameters β = 0.54 and 2γ = 17.32. The
n= +
A0 f y 0 Wel ,0 f y 0
Table  3. Experimental programme—geometrical
ISO14346 (2013)
parameters.
f y 0t02
Fi * QuQ f Reinforcement plate
senθ1 Boundary b1/b0 b0/t0
2η 4 Test conditions lp [mm] bp [mm] [β] [2γ]
Qu = +
( − ) senθ 1 1− β 1 chord – – 0.54 17.32
2 supported 125 97.3 0.54 17.32
Qf ( n)
C1
with C1 = 0.6 − 0.5 β if n < 0 (chord in 3 along its 200 97.3 0.54 17.32
compression) and C1 = 0.10 if n ≥ 0 (chord in tension) 4 length 250 97.3 0.54 17.32
F M0 5 chord – 0.54 17.32
n= 0 +
Fpl ,0 M pl ,0 6 pinned 125 97.3 0.54 17.32

155
 7  mm measured average weld throat thickness was
considered.

5 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

5.1 Influence of the reinforcement plate length

This section presents the results of the tests 1 to 4,
where the chord was supported in its entire length,
thus avoiding beam mechanisms and guarantee-
ing the failure of the joint involving chord top face
yielding. The tests aimed to assess the influence of
the reinforcement plate length. The curves relating
the applied load to the chord face displacement are
depicted in Figure  4. For the unreinforced joint,
the resistance according to the deformation limit
criteria of 3%b0 proposed by Lu et al. (1994a) and
checked by Zhao et al. (2010) was 216.76 kN. How-
ever, using the minimum reinforcement length lp
equal to 125 mm according to Table 2, an increase

Figure 3. Tests boundary conditions.

prototypes were instrumented with strain gauges and

LVDTs to monitor the full joints’ behaviour and the
experimental measured dimensions were also verified
(Guerrieiro, 2015).
Four tests were performed with the specimen
supported on the entire length and with the pure
concentrated force applied to the chord face by the Figure  4. Load-displacement curves—influence of
brace member to avoid beam mechanisms. Two reinforcement plate length.
other tests were performed with the chord sim-
ply supported at two points being both situations
depicted in Fig.  3. For all tests, only the braces Table  4. Experimental programme—geometrical
were axially loaded in compression using a 3000 parameters.
kN Universal Lousenhausen test machine.
Reinforced
The measurement of the mean chord indenta-
joint
tion was performed with six LVDTs: four placed at Unreinforced joint resistance
the chord top face, near the brace weld (Fig. 2a); resistance [kN] [kN]
and two at the chord bottom face to compensate NEXP
the beam displacements (Fig. 2b). 3% [NEC3]R,
The properties of the carbon steel tubes were Test b0 [kN] NEC3 NISO NNBR [NNBR]R
obtained from tensile coupon tests leading to the
following average results: 367.65 MPa for the yield 1 (without lp) 216.76
stress fy0 and fyp, 439.16 MPa for the ultimate stress 2 (lp 125) 409.32
fu0 and fup, 220  GPa for the Young’s modulus (E) 3 (lp 200) 430.47
and 20.7% for the elongation at fracture based on 4 (lp 250) 419.40 123.53 123.53 123.53 123.53
a 50  mm gauge length. The tensile coupon tests 5 (without lp) 214.82
are detailed in Guerrieiro (2015). In all the tests a 6 (lp 125) 393.99

156
in the joint resistance was observed, This load value
reached 409.32 kN and corresponded to a 88% gain
when compared to its equivalent unreinforced joint
test. In the other two tests with lp equal to 200 and
250 mm, the joints’ resistances were 430.47 kN and
419.40 kN, corresponding to an increase of 98% and
93.4%, respectively. It may be concluded that the
adoption of a minimum reinforcement length con-
siderably increases the joint resistance. A summary

Figure 7. Load versus displacement curves—influence

of reinforcement plate length.

of the experimental and analytical results is pre-

sented in Table 4, where the predicted resistances for
the reinforced and for the unreinforced joints proved
to be similar, since the adopted chord and reinforce-
ment plate thickness were the same.
It is worth noting that in the first test, when the
applied load reached 257  kN, the free ends of the
chord started moving up as depicted in Figure 5. An
extra LVDT was therefore installed at this location
in the subsequent tests in order to monitor this dis-
placement. The resulting load-displacement curves
are portrayed in Figure 6, showing that the displace-
ment at this point started for a high level of the load
applied on the brace due to the large deformation
that occurred on the chord top face joint area.

5.2 Influence of the boundary conditions

This section illustrates the influence of the bound-
ary conditions on the joints’ behaviour for the tests
Figure 5. Unexpected deformation of the free chord end. 1, 2 (continuously supported) and 5, 6 (supported
at two points), as shown in Figure 2. The resulting
load-displacement curves are plotted in Figure  7
for an easier comparison.
For the unreinforced joints (tests 1 and 5), the
curves started to present some differences after a
deformation of a similar magnitude of the 3% b0
limit, while for the reinforced joints changes in the
curves may be spotted after the curve knee. Nev-
ertheless, the reinforced joints presented a higher
resistance than their unreinforced counterparts. In
this case, the difference amongst the two boundary
conditions was only of 3.9%. On the other hand,
the path of the reinforced joints’ curves presented
some differences. It may be concluded that for the
joint considered, the boundary conditions varia-
tion did not cause significant changes on the joint’s
Figure  6. Unexpected deformation on the free chord resistance. The deformed shapes for all tests are pre-
end. sented in Figures 8 and 9.

157

Figure  8. Deformed shape of the tests—chord sup-
ported along the entire length.
158
Figure 9. Tests deformed shape—chord with two
supports.
6 NUMERICAL MODEL
The first numerical model developed for this
study adopted four-node thick shell elements
(SHELL181) with six degrees of freedom per node
available in the Ansys Element Library (Ansys 12,
2010), therefore considering bending, shear and
membrane deformations. The finite element mesh
was more refined near the welds, where the stress
concentration is more likely to occur, and as regu-
lar as possible, with well-proportioned elements to
avoid numerical problems.
The flange plate area of the reinforced joints
was modelled by a thicker plate, i.e., with a thick-
ness equal to the sum of the chord thickness t0 plus
the plate thickness tp. The efficiency of this strat-
egy was assessed by comparing the relevant results
to those resulting from a second model where solid
elements were used to reproduce the reinforcement
plate overlapping to the chord area while consider-
ing the contact between them.
Figure  10 presents an overview of the devel-
oped finite element model. The welds were mod-
elled with shell elements as suggested by Yu (1997).
The weld size was modelled according to the mean
measured weld size (7  mm). Convergence studies
Figure 10. T joint numerical model.

were also performed to define the numerical model

optimum mesh size.
The brace loading was introduced in terms of
displacements at the top nodes. This procedure
simulated the previously described test set-up
that was used to calibrate this numerical model.
A full nonlinear analysis was performed consid-
ering material and geometrical nonlinearities.
The stress—strain curves obtained from the
tensile coupons tests were adopted in the numeri-
cal model (Guerrieiro, 2015) using the von Mises
yield criterion with average material properties of
fy = 367.65 MPa, fu = 439.2 MPa, E = 225 GPa and
εu = 21%.
The geometrical nonlinearity was imple-
mented according to the updated Lagrangian
formulation.

7 NUMERICAL RESULTS

7.1 Experimental versus numerical

The comparison of the numerical and experi-
mental load-displacement curves are depicted in
Figures 11 and 12 and the results are summarized
in Table 5. As far as the numerical results are con-
cerned, the model adopting shell elements led to
higher resistance values when compared to the
more refined model with solid elements that pre-
sented more accurate results when compared to
their experimental counterparts. For the first case,
when only shell elements were used, an average
ratio between experimental and numerical results
of 0.98 was obtained, while for the model with
solid elements, a ratio of 1.09 was observed. There-
fore, the performed parametric study was based on
a numerical model with solid elements that proved
to be more efficient for the characterization of the
reinforcement plate while considering the contact Figure 11. Numerical versus experimental curves com-
between this plate and the chord face. parison I.

159
 brace member to avoiding beam mechanisms. The
material constitutive law considered in this part
of the analysis the nominal values from ASTM A
36 steel grade, i.e.,. fy0 = fy1 = fyp = 250 MPa.

8.1 Influence of the reinforcement plate thickness

The influence of the reinforcement plate thickness in
the joint global response was evaluated for six differ-
ent thicknesses and presented in Table 6 according
to usual steel market availabilities. The joints geo-
metrical properties were the same as in the experi-
mental tests, i.e., chord of SHS 110 × 110 × 6.35 with
1000 mm length, while the braces were SHS 60 × 60
× 6.3 with 500  mm length. A minimum reinforce-
ment plate length of 125  mm was adopted based
on the experiments. The adopted thickness are not
in accordance with design codes where tp  ≥  2t1 is
recommended—Table  1. However, this procedure
aims to obtain a more economical reinforced joint
design. Using the same procedure of the experimen-
tal tests, the reinforcement plate material has the
same properties of the chord section.
The load-displacement curves obtained from
the numerical models are presented in Figure  13,
and Figure 14 and Table 6 show the evolution of
the ratio between the analytical joints resistance

Figure 12. Numerical versus experimental curves com-

parison II. Table 6. Joints resistances—influence of the reinforce-
ment plate thickness—fyp = 250 MPa.

Table 5. Joints resistances—experimental versus numer- tp Ncodes (Table 2 N codes

ical (in kN). Model (mm) NANSYS with t0 = tp) N ANSYS
N EXP N EXP 1 5.0 324.0 79.3 0.24
Test NEXP NNUM(shell) NNUM(solid) N shell N solid 2 6.3 353.1 125.8 0.36
3 7.1 363.1 159.8 0.44
1 (without lp) 216.76 213.28 – 1.02 – 4 8.0 383.1 202.9 0.53
2 (lp 125) 409.32 404.30 366.76 1.01 1.12 5 8.8 397.2 245.5 0.62
3 (lp 200) 430.47 453.98 404.52 0.95 1.06 6 10.0 419.3 317.1 0.76
4 (lp 250) 419.4 482.66 405.85 0.87 1.03
5 (without lp) 214.82 210.30 – 1.02 –
6 (lp 125) 393.99 382.60 348.37 1.03 1.13
average 0.98 1.09

8 PARAMETRICAL ANALYSIS

For the analysis presented in this section, the

numerical models, as previously mentioned, were
conceived with shell elements for the chord and
the brace and solid elements to characterize the
reinforcement plate overlapping the chord area
and considering the contact between them. The
boundary conditions corresponded to the chord
supported on its entire length and with the pure Figure  13. Numerical curves—influence of the rein-
concentrated force applied to the chord face by the forcement plate thickness.

160
Figure 14. Evolution of the ratio NCODES/NANSYS accord-
ing to the thickness tp. Figure 15. Ratio NCODES/NANSYS versus β—unreinforced
joints.
Table  7. Geometrical properties—influence of the
parameter β.

SHS
chord SHS braces

110 ×  50 ×  60 ×  70 ×  80 ×  90 ×  – – –

6,35 5.6 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3
150 ×  50 ×  60 ×  70 ×  80 ×  90 ×  100 ×  – –
6,30 5.6 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3
200 ×  50 ×  60 ×  70 ×  80 ×  90 ×  100 ×  – –
6,30 5.6 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3
250 ×  70 ×  80 ×  90 ×  100 ×  120 ×  150 ×  160 ×  200 × 
8,0 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3 6.3

from the design codes (Ncodes) and the numerical Figure  16. Ratio NCODES/NANSYS versus β—reinforced
simulations (NANSYS). It is possible to verify that the joints.
ratio Ncodes/NANSYS presented an almost linear rela-
tion with the reinforcement plate thickness.
9 PROPOSED ALTERNATIVE FOMULATION
8.2 Influence of the geometrical parameter β
The second phase of the parametric analysis The results obtained throughout the paramet-
involved 25 numerical models varying the SHS ric analysis and presented in the previous sec-
chord and brace sections for unreinforced joints, tions were systematically processed to assess the
with their respective equivalent reinforced coun- performance of the equation proposed by the
terparts, totalizing 50 numerical models. The rein- codes to predict the reinforced joints resistances.
forcement flange plate always adopted the same Therefore, some adjustments resulting from the
material properties of the corresponding chord and application of linear regressions were made in
its width was evaluated according to bp = b0 – 2t0. the above-mentioned equation, leading to the
All models were analysed with compression in the following alternative Eq. 1:
brace member and were fully supported at their
base, Table 7. kn f yp ⋅ (t t p )1.89
N1,mean = ⋅
Observing the results presented in Fig.  15, it (1 β ) ⋅ sinθ1 (1)
is noticed that, even for the unreinforced joints, ⎛ 4.54 β ⎞
there is a very large difference between the ana- ⎜⎝ sinθ + 3 1 − β ⎟⎠ / γ M 5
lytical and numerical results, mainly for higher 1

values of β. For smaller values of β, some ratios
N1,Rd/NANSYS approach the ideal of 1.0. On the
other hand, for reinforced joints—Fig.  16, the
results showed that the parameter β had a small
influence on the resistances of the joints studied
in this work.
The results obtained using this new equation
may be depicted in Figure 17 where it is possible
to clearly verify its better fit with the numerical
results when compared to those obtained by the
original formula present in Eurocode 3 (2010) and
ABNT NBR 16239 (2013) design codes.

161

Figure 17. Proposed new equation—reinforced joints.
10 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
An experimental/numerical study has been con-
ducted and presented in this paper aiming to
understand the effect of a reinforcing plate on the
joint ultimate capacity.
The experimental programme characterized the
static behaviour of T joints reinforced with a flange
plate and with the brace axially loaded in compres-
sion. The main variables of the study were the rein-
forcement plate length and the boundary conditions.
In the performed tests, using the minimum
reinforcement length lp according to design codes
(125  mm), a 88% increase in the joint resistance
was observed when compared to the unreinforced
joint test. In the other two tests with lp equal to 200
and 250 mm, the increase of the joint’s resistance
was equal to 98% and 93.4%, respectively.
The tests performed to evaluate the influ-
ence of the boundary conditions showed that, for
the unreinforced joints (tests 1 and 5), the load-
displacement curves started to present differences
after the 3% b0 deformation limit, while for the rein-
forced joints changes in the curves could be spotted
after the curve knee. The reinforced joints presented
nevertheless a greater resistance than their unre-
inforced counterparts. In this case, the difference
caused by the two boundary conditions was of only
3.9%.
The developed numerical model combining shell
elements and solid elements to reduce the compu-
tational effort presented a good correlation with
the performed experiments. This was followed by
a parametrical analysis performed to extend the
scope of the study considered in this work.
The experimental and numerical results were
also compared to design standards from Eurocode
162
3 and ABNT 16239. These comparisons indicated
the occurrence of cases where the joint experimen-
tal results are highly underestimated. Finally, an
alternative design formulation was proposed to
assess the plate reinforcement influence on SHS T
joints subjected to compression, leading to a more
economical design for this type of tubular joint.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank CAPES, CNPq
and FAPERJ for the financial support to this
research program. This work has also been par-
tially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for
Science and Technology under project grant UID/
MULTI/ 00308/2013.
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with chord reinforcement under axial cyclic loading.
J. Constr. Steel Res. 67:140–149.
Yu, Y. 1997. The Static Strength of Uniplanar and Mul-
tiplanar Connections in Rectangular Hollow Sections.
Doctoral dissertation, Delft University of Technol-
ogy, Delft, The Netherlands.
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G.J. 2010. Current static design guidance for hollow-
section joints, Structures and Buildings 163, SB6:
361–373.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

3D component method for welded tubular T joints

M. Garifullin, S. Pajunen, K. Mela & M. Heinisuo

Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland

ABSTRACT: The component method is an approach used in EN 1993-1-8:2005 for the design of steel
joints. It enables to take into account the stiffness of joints in the global analysis, which is particularly
important in the optimization of frames with semi-rigid joints. Recently, the component method has been
proposed as a unified approach for the design of a wide range of joints, including hollow section joints,
although some issues remain unsolved, particularly the design of initial stiffness. This paper considers the
component method for rectangular hollow section T joints under biaxial bending and axial force load-
ing. The paper develops the component model from a combination of springs and provides the design
procedures for the resistance and initial stiffness of the joint. Finally, the paper validates the method with
the experimental and numerical data available in the literature and discusses the most challenging issues
to be solved in the future.

1 INTRODUCTION 2012; Bayo et al. 2006). The component method

The current design rules for rectangular hollow
section (RHS) joints in the Eurocode (EN 1993-
1-8:2005) are based on the failure mode approach,
which employs the simple theoretical mechani-
cal models, calibrated through comparisons with
experimental tests. Therefore, the application
field of these rules is often restricted to the area
for which the rules have been validated. In addi-
tion, EN 1993-1-8:2005 provides very limited
information concerning the stiffness and ductility
of RHS joints. However, the stiffness of joints in
framed structures is known to be essential in the
global analysis. Moreover, Boel (2010) and Snijder
et al. (2011) showed that the rotational stiffness of
tubular joints is the most essential quantity when
considering buckling of tubular truss members.
The component method is designed to solve these
issues, providing a unified tool for the design of
welded RHS joints.
The component method was originally proposed
by Zoetemeijer (1974) for bolted beam-to-column
connections and developed by Tschemmernegg
et al. (1987). Later it was extended to column bases
(Wald 1995) and fire resistance (Leston-Jones
1997). Girão Coelho & Bijlaard (2007) exploited
the method to investigate the behaviour of high
strength steel end-plate connections. Da Silva
(2008) developed the component method for the
3D joints under arbitrary loading. Heinisuo et al.
(2009) presented a special rake model to study the
3D loaded end plate joints with the application
to base bolt joints. Other implementations can
be found in (Heinisuo et al. 2014; Neumann et al.
was implemented in EN 1993-1-8: 2005 for the
joints connecting H or I sections. For hollow sec-
tion joints, the method was proposed by Weynand
& Jaspart (2001).
The key principles of the component method
for RHS joints have been developed in the CID-
ECT projects 5BP (Jaspart et al. 2005) and 16F
(Weynand et al. 2015). These projects identify
the potential components together with the cases
when they are active and provide equations for
their design resistance and stiffness. Although the
authors present the clear design rules for resist-
ance, the equations for initial stiffness are not so
straightforward and remain questionable.
This paper develops a 3D component model for
the unstiffened welded RHS T joints under biax-
ial bending and axial loading. Having introduced
welds as a new component, the article provides the
calculation procedure for the design resistance and
stiffness of joints, in line with the research con-
ducted recently in this field (Weynand et al. 2015).
Particular attention is paid to the initial stiffness of
the joint under every loading case, discussing the
most challenging issues. Finally, the component
method is evaluated with the experimental and
numerical data available in the literature.
2 NOTATIONS AND VALIDITY RANGE
The main notations of the RHS T joint are pro-
vided in Figure 1.
The component method can be applied to both
hot-rolled and cold-formed tubes. To be consistent

165
 Figure 2. Loading components.

Figure 1. Notations of RHS T joint.

Table 1. Validity limitations.

Parameter Range of validity

β ≥ 0.25
b1/t1 and h1/t1 in compression ≤ 35 and Class 1 or 2
b1/t1 and h1/t1 in tension ≤ 35
h0/b0 and h1/b1 ≥ 0.5 but ≤ 2.0
b0/t0 and h0/t0 ≤ 35 and Class 1 or 2

with the present Eurocode, the scope of this study Figure  3. Local model for RHS T joint: a) loading
is restricted by the limits given in Table 1. zones, b) component model.

3 COMPONENT METHOD FOR RHS a. chord face in bending,

T JOINT
Tubular joints are generally subjected to different
loading cases. They show high resistance against
shear forces and torsion moments (Wardenier
1982), thus every loading on the RHS T joint can
be divided into three components: the axial force
(compression or tension) N, the in-plane moment
Mip and the out-of-plane moment Mop (Fig. 2).
The main idea of the component method (Wey-
nand et al. 2015) considers the loads to be trans-
ferred from the brace to the chord through four
loading zones located at the corners of the brace
(Fig.  3a). For simplicity, every loading zone can
be concentrated in a single loading point. The dis-
tances between the adjacent loading points (lever
arms) along the face of the chord are
zip h1 − t1
(1)
zop b1 − t1
The mechanical behavior of the joint can then
be modelled by a system of springs located in the
loading points (Fig. 3b). The springs represent the
following components:
b. chord side walls in tension or compression,
c. chord side walls in shear,
d. chord face under punching shear,
e. brace flange/webs in tension/compression,
f. chord section in distortion,
g. welds.
Although (Weynand et al. 2015) propose only
the components from a to f, welds can also be
considered as an independent component, since
they have their own resistance and stiffness.
Moreover, this enables to avoid the additional
checks for resistance in case not full-strength
welds are used.
The resistance and stiffness of each component
is determined based on the equations derived from
mechanics and experiments. Then the design resist-
ance and the initial stiffness of the joint are com-
puted by combining the corresponding values of
the components using the well-known rules for the
systems of springs. In general, the compound stiff-
nesses can be represented by one longitudinal and
two rotational springs, which correspond to the
axial stiffness Cj,ini,N, the rotational in-plane stiff-
ness Sj,ini,Mip and the rotational out-of-plane stiff-
ness Sj,ini,Mop (Fig. 4).

166
 It should be noted that the location of the
local model of the joint is of significant impor-
tance. In EN 1993-1-8:2005 and other references
(Rondal et al. 1992; Hornung & Saal 1998;
Galambos 1998), its position is defined as the
intersection of the midlines of the brace and the
chord. Following (Weynand et al. 2015), the local
model should be located on the top face of the
chord. This assumption agrees with other stud-
ies on this topic (Boel 2010; Snijder et al. 2011;
Haakana 2014).
4 DESIGN RESISTANCE
For a given joint, the first step identifies the rele-
vant (active) components for the applied loads and
the joint geometry (Table 2). Only the active com-
ponents are taken into account when determining
the resistance of the joint.
The resistances of the components a through f
can be found in (Weynand et al. 2015), the resist-
ance of the component g (welds) – in (Jaspart et al.
2005). For example, the resistance of the chord face
in bending (component a) under the axial load is

Fa ,N ,Rd ( . lefff + leff

eff ,2 ) kN ⋅ m pl ,Rd (2)

where mpl,Rd = 0.25⋅fy0⋅t02/γM5 is the plastic moment

resistance of the main member surface (chord);
kN is the chord stress function which takes into
account the axial stress of the main member
(chord); leff,1 and leff,2 are the effective lengths, pre-
sented in (Weynand et al. 2015).
The next step determines the limiting compo-
nents and defines the minimum resistances (Wey-
nand et al. 2015):

FN , ,Rd
Rd i ⎡⎣ Fa ,N ,Rd , Fg ,N ,Rd ⎤⎦
FMiip Rd
Rd i ⎡⎣ Fa ,Mipi,Rd
R , ... , Fg Mip
⎤
M ,Rd ⎦ (3)
FMop
o Rd
Rd i ⎡⎣ Fa ,Mop Rd ,
o Rd Fg ,Mop ⎤
o Rd ⎦

Finally, the design resistances of the joint can be

presented as (Weynand et al. 2015)
NRd 4 FN , i ,Rd
Figure 4. Simplified local model located on the top face
of the chord. M ip,Rd
Rd Miip i Rd ⋅ zip
2 FMip (4)
M op,Rd
Rd 2 FMo
Mopop i Rd ⋅ zop

Table 2. Active components for resistance (Weynand et al. 2015).

Component Axial force In-plane moment Out-of-plane moment

a Chord face β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0 β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0 β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0
in bending
• – • – • –
b Chord side wall(s) β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0 β  = 1.0 β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0 β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0
in tension or – • • – • – •
compression
c Chord side wall(s) – – – – – – –
in shear
d Chord face under β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ (1–1/γ) β > (1–1/γ) β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0 β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0
punching shear – • – – – – –
e Brace flange and β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0 β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0 β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0
web(s) in tension – • – • – •
or compression
f Chord section β ≤ 0.85 0.85 < β ≤ 1.0
in distortion – – – – – •
g Welds • • • • • •

167
 The final resistance of the joint is checked using 20t03 lefff cf 1
the linear interaction rule (Weynand et al. 2015): ka ,Mip = ⋅ (9)
( − ) 3
⋅b 3
0
2 + 6 β / (1
( − β)
N Ed M ip,Ed M op,Ed
+ + ≤1 (5) The major concerns are related to the out-of-
NRd M ip,Rd M op,Rd
plane bending stiffness. The application of Eq. (6)
for this purpose remains questionable, particularly
for the middle and large β (β > 0.5), while Eq. (7)
5 DESIGN INITIAL STIFFNESS cannot be implemented for the out-of-plane bend-
ing at all. In any case, this issue requires additional
To determine the stiffness of the RHS T joint, the studies.
approach similar to that for resistance is used. On
the first step, the stiffnesses of the components are
5.2 Chord side wall(s) in tension or compression
calculated. Some components may have extremely
high stiffness with respect to the certain loading, The stiffness equation for this component employs
and they can be modelled using the springs with the model of the RHS tube loaded by a transverse
infinite stiffness. Such components need not be plate on its top face and is proposed in (Weynand
taken into account when calculating the initial et al. 2015):
stiffness of the joint. The equations for the stiff-
nesses of the components are presented below. 2 ⋅ 0.7 ⋅ befff c ,wc t0
kb = (10)
h0
5.1 Chord face in bending
where beff,c,wc is the effective width, defined as
The formula for the stiffness of the chord face in
bending is provided in (Jaspart et al. 2005):
befff c ,wc t1 + 2 2a 5t0 (11)
1.25
t03 ⎛ L2stifff ⎞
ka = Another equation is provided in (Grotmann
14.4 β Lstifff ⎜⎝ bt0 ⎟⎠
2
& Sedlacek 1998) only for in-plane rotational
c ⎛ b ⎞ stiffness:
+ ⎜1 − tanθ
Lstifff ⎝ Lstiff ⎟⎠
(6)
× ,
⎛
3
(
b ⎞ 10.4 ⋅ 1.5 − 1. / Lstifff ) kb,Mip =
2 ⋅ t0 befff cw
cw ,el
(12)
⎜1 − L ⎟ + h0 t0
( )
2
⎝ f ⎠
stiff Lstifff / t0
where beff,cw,el is the effective width, defined as
where b and c are respectively the width and the
height of the brace, i.e., b  =  b1 and c  =  h1. Other
notations as well as the validity range can be found befff cw
cw ,el leff ,cw + t1 (13)
in (Jaspart et al. 2005).
Following the generic nature of the component ⎧⎪ 0.5b0t0 ≤ 2.5t0
lefff cw = max⎨ (14)
method, Eq. (6) can be applied for any type of β
loading. However, for the in-plane moment-loaded ⎩⎪ 0.5b0 . h0
T joint, the stiffness of this component can be
Although Eq. (12) is developed only for in-
found also in (Grotmann & Sedlacek 1998):
plane rotational stiffness, it employs the similar
8t03 lefff cf mechanical model as is used in Eq. (10). There-
1
ka ,Mip = ⋅ (7) fore, Eq. (12) can also be used as the alternative
( − ) 3
⋅b
3
0
2 + 6 β / (1
( − β) approach for the stiffness of this component.
Currently there is no single opinion which of Eqs.
where leff,cf is the effective length: (10) and (12) should be applied for this compo-
nent. Moreover, none of them can be used for the
lefff cf t1 + 2b0 1− β (8) out-of-plane bending.

However, Eq. (7) was found to significantly
underestimate the rotational stiffness of joints.
Instead, the improved equation is proposed and
used in this paper for the examples:
5.3 Chord side wall(s) in shear
This component is actual only in the case of in-
plane bending, and its stiffness is provided in
(Weynand et al. 2015):

168
 AVC Following the generic nature of the compo-
kc = 0.38⋅ (15) nent method, the lever arms zip and zop should be
β zip used in Eq. (17) for the in-plane and out-of-plane
rotational stiffnesses correspondingly. However,
where β  =  1 is the transformation parameter and considering the mechanical models used for deri-
AVC is the shear area: vation of the component stiffnesses, it seems more
reasonable to use the brace dimensions h1 and b1
AVC 2t0 ( h0 t0 ) (16) instead of the corresponding lever arms, or even
larger, if fillet welds are used.
Following the above statements and excluding the
5.4 Chord face under punching shear components with infinite stiffness, Eq. (17) is pre-
As proposed in (Weynand et al. 2015) for the RHS sented for the in-plane and out-of-plane stiffness as
in transverse compression or tension with punch-
ing shear failure, the stiffness coefficient should be Ehh12 ksn,ip b12 ksn,op
Eb
ini ,ip =
S j ini inii ,op =
; S j ini (18)
taken as equal to infinity (kd = ∞), since it is already 2 2 1 2 2
+ + +
taken into consideration in the stiffness of the ka ,Mip kb kc ka kb
component a (Chord face in bending).
Similarly, the longitudinal stiffness is
5.5 Brace flange and web(s) in tension or
compression Ekksn,N
ini ,N =
C j ini (19)
1 2
Following (Weynand et al. 2006), the stiffness of +
the brace flanges and webs in tension and compres- ka kb
sion should to be taken as equal to infinity (ke = ∞).
In Eqs. (18) and (19), ksn,N, ksn,ip and ksn,op denote the
chord stress functions which take into account the
5.6 Chord section in distortion reduction of initial stiffness due to the axial stresses
This component is active only for the out-of plane acting in the chord. The chord stress functions for
bending. No information is available for its stiffness. resistance are presented in EN-1993-1-8:2005 and
have been investigated in (Wardenier et al. 2007).
5.7 Welds However, the similar effect on initial stiffness has not
been studied, identifying the need for developing the
According to (Jaspart et al. 2005), the stiffness corresponding chord stress functions.
coefficient for welds should be taken as equal to
infinity (kg = ∞).
6 EXAMPLES
5.8 Initial stiffnesses
6.1 Joint under in-plane bending
Once the stiffness of components is determined,
the stiffness of the joint can be computed. EN Consider the joint 1131 (Table 3) from a series of
1993-1-8:2005 provides the following equation for tests conducted in Häme University of Applied
the initial rotational stiffness: Sciences (Havula et al. 2015). The design resistance
is compared to that calculated using EN 1993-1-
Ez 2 8:2005 (Fig. 5). In both cases, the reduction factor
S j ini = (17) 0.9 is used for the design moment resistance, fol-
1
∑i k lowing clause 7.1.1 (4) of EN 1993-1-8:2005. The
i
theoretical values are compared to the numerical
and experimental results.
where z is the corresponding lever arm, ki is the
stiffness of the component i. It should be noted
that each component must be taken into account
as many times as it is required depending on the
Table 3. Joint 1131 (Havula et al. 2015).
mechanical model used for its stiffness equation.
For example, the component b (chord side wall in b0 [mm] 150.6 b1 [mm] 100.33
tension or compression) employs the model where
h0 [mm] 151.6 h1 [mm] 100.85
the chord loaded by a transverse plate. The brace,
t0 [mm] 7.98 t1 [mm] 7.94
in its turn, is assumed consisting of two plates cor- fy0 [N/mm2] 478 (S420) E [GPa] 185
responding to its flanges. Therefore, the coefficient fu0 [N/mm2] 537 (S420) Full penetration butt welds
kb must be counted twice in Eq. (17).

169
 S j ini
ini ,ip kNm / rad ;

Experimental rotational stiffness:

S j ini
ini ,ip ,exp kNm / rad ;

Numerical rotational stiffness:

S j ini
ini ,ip ,FEM
E kNm / rad .

The same moment resistances obtained by the

Figure  5. Moment-rotation curves. The experimental
(Mip,exp) and numerical (Mip,FEM) moment resistances are
defined as the intersection of two lines adjusted to the
elastic and the hardening zones following (Grotmann &
Sedlacek 1998).
EN 1993-1-8:2005 and the component method
confirm the Eurocode-based approach of the lat-
ter (Weynand et al. 2015). The theoretical values
show the good agreement with the experimental
and numerical results, both in the case of design
resistance and initial rotational stiffness.

6.2 Joint under out-of-plane bending

6.1.1 Design resistance, EN 1993-1-8:2005 Determine the design resistance of the joint from
β  = 0.67 < 0.85; the previous example under the out-of-plane bend-
Failure mode: Chord face failure; ing. Since neither experimental nor numerical data is
Reduction factor: 0.9; available for this loading, the component method is
Design resistance: compared with the conventional Eurocode approach.
M ip,1,Rd . kNm.
6.2.1 Design resistance, EN 1993-1-8:2005
β = 0.67 < 0.85;
6.1.2 Design resistance, component method Failure mode: Chord face failure;
β = 0.67 < 0.85; Reduction factor: 0.9;
Active components: a, g; Design resistance:
Reduction factor 0.9 for component a;
Resistances of the components: M op,1,Rd . kNm.

Fa ,Mip
Mip ,Rd . kN ; Fg Mip d = 171.1 kN ;
Mip ,Rd 6.2.2 Design resistance, component method
β = 0.67 < 0.85;
Design resistance: Active components: a; g;
Reduction factor 0.9 for component a;
M ip,Rd . kNm
kN ; Resistances of the components:

Experimental resistance: Fa ,Mop

Mop ,Rd . kN ; Fg M
Mop d = 172.0 kN ;
op ,Rd

M ip,exp 8. kNm
kN ; Design resistance:

Numerical resistance: M op,Rd . kNm.

M ip,FEM
E . kNm.
6.1.3 Initial rotational stiffness
Active components: a (Eq. 9), b (Eq. 12), c;
Stiffnesses of the components:
As in the case of in-plane moment loading, the
component method and the current Eurocode
approach provide identical results. It should be
noted that the in-plane and out-of-plane moment
resistances are about the same for this joint.

ka mm kb = 8.61 mm; kc
mm 8. mm
m ; 6.3 Joint under axial brace load
To validate the component method in the case
Design rotational stiffness: of the axial loading, consider the joint TN01N0

170
Table 4. Joint TN01N0 (Nizer et al. 2016). Fa*,N ,Rd 8. kN ; Fg N ,Rdd = 144.6 kN ;
b0 [mm] 140 b1 [mm] 100
h0 [mm] 80 h1 [mm] 100 Non-dimensional normal stress ratio: n = –0.70;
t0 [mm] 4 t1 [mm] 3 Chord stress function: kN = 0.91;
fy0 [N/mm2] 361.9 E [GPa] 200 Resistances of the components:
fu0 [N/mm2] 418.6 a [mm] 5
Fa ,N ,Rd . kN ; Fg N ,Rdd = 144.6 kN ;

Design resistance:

NRd . kN ;

Experimental resistance:

Nexp . kN ;

Numerical resistance:

N FEEM kN .

Figure 6. Moment-rotation curves for the joint TN01N0
(Nizer et al. 2016).
(Table 4, Fig. 6) from (Nizer et al. 2016). The axial
load in the brace causes the bending of the chord,
leading to the compressive normal stresses in its
top flange. The effect of these stresses has to be
considered by the chord stress function, even with
no direct axial load in the chord. A short discus-
sion on this issue is provided in (Packer et al. 2017).
Similarly, the resistance obtained using the
component method repeats the one from the
Eurocode. The design resistance 65.6 kN slightly
differs from 65.06  kN presented in (Nizer et al.
2016). This can be explained by the possible dif-
ference in the geometrical parameters (cross-
sectional area and section modulus) of the joint
members. Overall, compared with the experimen-
tal results, the component method provides the
safe design resistance.

6.3.1 Design resistance, EN 1993-1-8:2005 6.3.3 Initial longitudinal stiffness

β = 0.71 < 0.85; Active components: a (Eq. 6), b (Eq. 10);
Failure mode: Chord face failure; Stiffnesses of the components:
Design resistance without chord stress function:
ka mm kb = 2.60 mm;
mm
N1*,Rd . kN ;
Design longitudinal stiffness:
Non-dimensional normal stress ratio: n = –0.70;
Chord stress function: kn = 0.91; C j ini kN / mm;
ini ,N
Design resistance:

N1,Rd kN . Experimental longitudinal stiffness:

C j ini
ini ,N ,exp kN / mm;
It should be noted that the calculation of the
chord stress function represents an iterative proc-
ess, since the chord stress function and the resist- Numerical longitudinal stiffness:
ance of joint depend on each other. The presented
value kn = 0.91 was obtained after 12 iterations. C j ini
ini ,N ,F
FEM kN / mm
m .

6.3.2 Design resistance, component method The theoretical initial stiffness is overestimated
β = 0.71 < 0.85; by 50%. Moreover, the calculation of the com-
Active components: a, g; ponent ka violates some validity requirements of
Resistances of the components without chord Eq. (6). All this requires further studies on this
stress function: issue.

171
7 DISCUSSION
This paper assumes T joints to behave identically in
compression and tension, as for the alternate axial
loading, as for the compressed and tensile parts of
joints in bending. This enables to implement the
same equations for the components in tension and
compression and thus simplify the design proce-
dure. However, further research is required to jus-
tify this assumption.
The identical design resistances, obtained by the
component method and the Eurocode, confirm
that the component method developed for hollow
section joints is just a presentation of the resist-
ance equations in EN 1993-1-8:2005 divided in
components, as declared in (Weynand et al. 2015).
The presented examples show the good agreement
between the theoretical values and the experimental
data with regards to the design resistance of joints.
At the same time, the major concerns are related
to initial stiffness. Although the method provides
rather accurate in-plane rotational stiffness, lon-
gitudinal axial stiffness is overestimated, whereas
the calculation of initial out-of-plane rotational
stiffness contains many uncertainties. The strict
validity requirements of Eq. (6) allow applying it
only for a very limited number of joints. In addi-
tion, no single equation exists for the stiffness of
the components a (chord face in bending) and b
(chord side wall in tension/compression).
It should be noted that the component method
for tubular joints is relevant for the range of steel
grades from S235 to S460 (Weynand et al. 2015),
whereas the design of joints made of stronger
materials, i.e., high strength steels, remains ques-
tionable. Employing the Eurocode equations, the
component method should be consistent with its
limitations in terms of steel properties. Clause
7.1.1(4) in (EN 1993-1-8:2005) requires using the
factor 0.9 for static design resistances of end prod-
ucts with a nominal yield strength higher than
355 N/mm2; however, it does not concern the com-
ponent g (welds). In addition, EN 1993-1-12:2007
contains the reduction factor 0.8 for steels with
grades greater than S460 up to S700. A wide discus-
sion concerning the relevance of these two factors
is provided in (Feldmann et al. 2016). Moreover,
no additional rules exist for the steel grades higher
than S700. Following the main principle of the
component method, these reduction factors must
be also considered in the design resistance of the
components, as is shown in the examples.
8 CONCLUSIONS
The paper formulates the component method for
RHS T joints, introducing the concept to model
172
the joint by means of the combination of springs.
Such approach enables to conduct the resistance
check of joints based on the simple equations for
the basic components. A new component (welds) is
proposed to avoid additional checks for the design
resistance of joints.
The design local model is located at the surface
of the main member (chord) and includes one lon-
gitudinal and two rotational springs to simulate
the stiffness properties of the joint under arbitrary
loading, which is of significant importance in the
global analysis. Simple examples are provided to
validate the method with the experimental data.
To verify that all components behave as
assumed, parametric analysis should be conducted
with varying geometrical and material properties
of the connected members. The stiffness equations
must be considered to discover the possibility to
combine those in order to obtain more generic and
accurate presentations, especially for out-of-plane
loading. In addition, the linear interpolation for
the resistance under arbitrary loading and the over-
all interaction in stiffness must be studied in future
research.
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component-based method to model semi-rigid con-
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Boel, H. 2010. Buckling Length Factors of Hollow Section
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

RHS X-connections near an open chord end

Y. Fan & J.A. Packer

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

ABSTRACT: The continuity of the chord member is implicit in all truss-type welded Rectangular Hol-
low Section (RHS) connection design guidelines. Amendments to code have recently been submitted,
which limit the end distances from the branch to an open chord end at which full connection strength can
be developed. This paper investigates their applicability for RHS connections, by testing 12 RHS-to-RHS
X-connections in the laboratory with the branch loaded in quasi-static axial compression. A modified
yield line mechanism was found to control the behaviour of RHS X-connections near an open chord end.
A proposed analytical model, by comparison with the experimental results, is shown to be an accurate
predictor of the yield load. The associated closed-form solution for the critical end distance (to avoid
a decreased connection strength) is thus justified for use with such RHS connections, in lieu of an EN
amendment, providing chord face plastification is the governing failure mode.

1 INTRODUCTION

Research into the behaviour of truss-type, welded

hollow structural section (HSS) connections in
the last 50 years has resulted in connection design
guidelines published in North America (Packer &
Henderson 1997, AISC 2010) and internationally
(CEN 2005, Packer et  al. 2009, ISO 2013). All of
these HSS design recommendations assume that
the chord member has ample continuity beyond the
connection region. There is no established guidance
yet for the case when an HSS branch member is near
an open end of a HSS chord member in a girder
or truss (Fig.  1). Designers are restricted to either
capping the chord with an end plate or reinforcing
the chord walls for this recurring practical problem.
However, there should be a minimum end distance,
emin, from an open chord end at which full connec-
tion capacity can be achieved for an unreinforced Figure  1. RHS connection near a truss end, chord
connection. stiffened.
Limited research on HSS chord end effects has
been conducted for circular hollow section (CHS) numerical studies on branch plate-to-CHS T- and
welded connections. The numerical investigations X-connections by Voth & Packer (2012a, b) also
on CHS-to-CHS T- and X-connections by van supported these results.
der Vegte & Makino (2006, 2010) concluded that The recommendations from this research are the
chord boundary conditions were not influential if basis for the minimum end distance proposed for
the chord length was greater than 10 times the CHS EN 1993-1-8, as illustrated in Figure  2 and sum-
diameter (10d0) for all connection geometries stud- marized in the amendments to Clause 7.1.2 (9):
ied. It was shown that the required chord length
depended primarily on the chord wall slenderness “For joints with a chord end not connected to other
(2γ), where chord plastification propagated further members, the chord end shall be at a distance of at
for connections with higher 2γ values compared to least (2γ/10)d0 from the heel or toe of the closest
those with lower 2γ values. The strengths of con- brace, with a minimum of 2.5d0. For RHS chords,
nections with fixed (capped with end plates) versus substitute d0 by the largest of b0 or h0. Otherwise,
free end conditions were found to be consider- the end shall be welded to a cap plate with a thick-
ably different for shorter chord lengths. Recent ness of at least 1.5t0, at a minimum distance of

175
Figure 2. Proposed end distance amendments to EN 19930-1-8 (shown for CHS).
0.5d0(1–β) or 0.5b0(1–β) from the brace toe or heel
of the joint.”
The (2γ/10)d0 rule which is derived empirically
for CHS chords, with a minimum value of 2.5d0
included for good engineering practice, is tran-
scribed for rectangular hollow section (RHS)
chords by simply replacing the CHS diameter (d0)
by the largest of the RHS width and depth (b0 and
h0), which leads to a large critical end distance of
2.5b0 to 5.0b0 (2.5h0 to 5.0h0) for the applicable 2γ
values. However, this rule is based on the propa-
gation of chord ovalization for CHS connections,
whereas yielding is more localized in the connect-
ing chord face for RHS connections. The research
behind the EN 1993-1-8 formula also examined
connections that were symmetrical about the
branch, while the behaviour of connections with
an asymmetrical branch may be different. Thus,
the EN amendment is likely very conservative and
further research is needed to develop end distance
rules specific to RHS members.
If the branch has to be closer to a chord end,
the use of a cap plate is specified. The respective
minimum distance of 0.5d0(1–β) and 0.5b0(1–β)
for CHS and RHS sections is the same as the dis-
tance between the branch and the longitudinal
chord walls, to ensure a similar stiffness around
the branch. The minimum cap plate thickness of
1.5t0 is based on engineering judgement so that it
has sufficient stiffness relative to the chord side-
walls (i.e. associated ratio of (1.5t0)3/t03 = 3.38) to
restrain deformation.
2 ANALYTICAL MODELS
Yield line analysis has been used to estimate the
capacity of flexible HSS connections. When a
176
connection is remote from the RHS chord ends
(termed a “regular” connection), the analytical
solution for the yield load PY (Eq. (1)), associ-
ated with the chord plastification limit state, can
be derived based on a symmetric flexural yield line
mechanism developing in the chord connecting face
(Fig. 3). Qf ≤ 1.0, is a reduction factor to account
for the effect of chord normal stress. Equation (1)
has been widely adopted in design recommenda-
tions for RHS-to-RHS T-, Y-, and X-connections.
f y 0t0 2 ⎡ 2 h1 ⎤
PY sinθ1 = ⎢ + 4 1 − β ⎥Qf (1)
(1 − β ) ⎣ b0 sinθ1 ⎦
If β approaches unity, PY tends to infinity and
this limit state is not likely to be critical. β ≤ 0.85
thus represents a practical upper limit for the
application of the yield line solution.
In Equation (2), the full dimensions h1, b1, b0
and branch-to-chord width ratio β in Equation (1)
are replaced by the effective dimensions h1/, b1/, b0/
and β/ to reflect plastic hinges forming along the
edges of the fillet welds and in the centre of the
chord walls.
f y 0t0 2 ⎡ 2 h1/ ⎤
PY / sinθ1 = ⎢ + 4 1 − β / ⎥Qf (2)
( )
1 − β / ⎣ b0 / ⎦
When a connection is near a RHS chord end
(termed an “offset” connection), there may not be
adequate lengths to develop the traditional yield
line mechanism. A potential asymmetric flexural
yield line mechanism (Fig. 4) is therefore proposed
and investigated for its ability to predict the yield
load of the offset connections (Eq. (3)), for a given
end distance e from the branch edge to the open
chord end.
Figure 3. Yield line mechanism for a regular RHS-to-RHS axially loaded X-connection.

Figure 4. Yield line mechanism for an offset RHS-to-RHS axially loaded X-connection.

f y 0t0 2 ⎡ 2e 2 h1 ⎤ It can be shown that this postulated yield line

PY ,O sinθ1 = + + 2 1 − β ⎥ Q f (3)
(1 − β ) ⎢⎣ b0 b0 sinθ1
mechanism controls and predicts a lower yield
⎦ load compared to the regular yield line mechanism
(Eq. (1)) if the end distance is less than:

177

emin b0 1 − β
If e  ≥  emin, end distance is not critical and the
yield load for the regular T-, Y-, or X-connection
represents the minimum connection strength.
In Equation (5), PY,O/ is expressed using effective
dimensions h1/, b1/, b0/, β/ and e/, where e is reduced
to account for the fillet weld size.
f y 0t0 2 ⎡ 2e / 2 h1/ ⎤ these regular connections, it will also be used to limit
PY ,O / sinθ1 = ⎢ + / + 2 1 − β / ⎥ Q f (5)
( )
1 − β / ⎣ b0 / b0 ⎦ the connection capacity and to validate the pro-
The associated minimum end distance is then:
emin b0 / 1− β / + w
The ratio of emin/b0, computed from Equation
(4), is plotted against β (i.e. represented by the solid
line) in Figure 5, which shows that emin, the end dis-
tance required to achieve full connection strength,
is always less than b0, the chord member width, for
all values of β according to the yield line solution.
Since the minimum end distance is derived ana-
lytically, it has not been substantiated by experi-
mental data. The formula is also only a function of
β, and does not account for the possible influence
of other geo metric parameters (e.g. 2γ). Moreover,
a yield line pattern, which assumes a chord face flex-
ure limit state, may not always govern. If β > 0.85,
which is outside the yield line theory applicability,
a sidewall failure limit state may control.
2.1 Ultimate deformation limit applied to tests
The ultimate connection capacity can be determined
from experimental or numerical load-displacement
results using (i) or (ii), whichever occurs at the lower
deflection, as implemented by IIW (2012):
i. the maximum load, or
ii. the load at an ultimate deformation limit
Figure  5. emin/b0 vs. β based on proposed yield line
mechanism.
A connecting face deformation equal to 3% of
(4)
the RHS chord width (0.03b0) or 3% of the CHS
chord diameter (0.03d0) has generally been used as
the ultimate deformation limit in (ii), as proposed
by Lu et al. (1994). The applicability of this ultimate
deformation limit for various RHS welded connec-
tions has been investigated (Zhao 2000, Kosteski &
Packer 2003a, b, Kosteski et al. 2003). As the 3% b0
ultimate deformation limit load N1,3% was shown to
correspond well with the analytical yield load PY for
posed yield line formula for the offset connections.
3 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
(6)
An experimental program, which consisted of 12
isolated, square HSS-to-HSS X-connections sub-
ject to branch axial compression, was undertaken
to study the behaviour of the offset connections,
and to assess the suggested end distances for RHS
chords.
3.1 Geometric and material properties
Two chord sizes and one branch size were selected
(Fig. 6), enabling one nominal β ratio of 0.5 and
two nominal 2γ values of 32 and 21. The end dis-
tance e from the open chord end was varied para-
metrically, with the branch centred laterally on the
chord. The chord length on the long side of the
branch was estimated from the EN 1993-1-8 for-
mula to minimize the influence of chord end con-
ditions. Details of the test connections, including
the average measured specimen and cross-sectional
dimensions, are tabulated in Tables 1 and 2.
All chord and branch members were made of
cold-formed HSS sections. The branch members
were produced to ASTM A847 (2014) and the cap
plate materials were made to CSA G40.21 (2013)
Figure  6. Square HSS-to-HSS X-connection test
specimens.
178
Table 1. Test specimens and measured dimensions.

End Chord
Specimen Specimen distance length
no. identification e [mm] l0 [mm]

1 X-0.5-32-25O 24 827
2 X-0.5-32-55O 55 764
3 X-0.5-32-100O 100 796
4 X-0.5-32-160O 160 875
5 (control) X-0.5-32-700O 714 1530
6 (+cap plate) X-0.5-32-55C 55 759
7 X-0.5-21-25O 25 687
8 X-0.5-21-55O 54 718
9 X-0.5-21-100O 101 771
10 X-0.5-21-160O 160 828
11 (control) X-0.5-21-550O 560 1222 Figure 7. Typical test setup (specimen with e = 25 mm).
12 (+cap plate) X-0.5-21-55C 55 731
3.2 Method and instrumentation
Note: Measured β  =  0.50 for all specimens, 2γ  =  34 for
specimens no. 1–6 and 2γ = 23 for specimens no. 7–12. The experiments were performed using a 5000 kN-
capacity Baldwin testing frame (with data acquisi-
tion to measure the branch load N1). The connection
Table  2. Average measured RHS cross-sectional was supported on a pedestal, which was secured to
dimensions.
the laboratory floor. A steel collar was fitted around
Wall the branch at the top to prevent any lateral move-
Designation Width & height thickness ment, which was fixed to the machine head. The
[mm] h & b [mm] t [mm] connection was thus tested directly in transverse
compression between the load application and sup-
HSS 203 × 203 × 6.35 chord 203.6 5.96 port points, and is technically classified as a X-con-
HSS 203 × 203 × 9.53 chord 203.1 8.85 nection based on this load transfer, even though it
HSS 102 × 102 × 9.53 branch 101.7 8.74 has the appearance of a T-connection (see Fig. 6).
This configuration also removed any chord normal
stress effects on the connection results and hence
Table  3. Average measured RHS chord material Qf = 1.0 (discussed further by Packer et al., 2017).
properties. All connections were instrumented with a linear
variable differential transformer (LVDT) placed
Designation fy* fu
between the top of the pedestal and the bottom of
[mm] [MPa] [MPa] εrup
the machine head to monitor the total branch elas-
HSS 203 × 203 × 6.35 Flat 388.8 508.7 0.287 tic deformation and connection local deformation.
HSS 203 × 203 × 6.35 Corner 540.5 598.9 0.176 A system, consisting of a K610 optical camera that
HSS 203 × 203 × 9.53 Flat 398.1 519.8 0.306 recorded the global coordinates of light-emitting-
HSS 203 × 203 × 9.53 Corner 513.8 604.4 0.219 diode (LED) targets installed on the test speci-
mens, was used to measure the vertical connection
*Yield strength determined by the 0.2% offset method. displacements δ (from the LED located on the
branch, just above the connection) and chord face
deformation profiles. A typical test setup is shown
Grade 350  W. The average measured material
in Figure 7.
properties of the chord members from multiple
tensile coupons, taken from the flat faces and the
corners and tested to ASTM E8 (2013), are given
in Table 3. 4 CONNECTION TEST RESULTS
All connections were fabricated with the
branches fillet-welded all-around to the chords Testing was quasi-static and displacement-
using a CSA W48 E491C-6M-H4  gas-shielded controlled to connection failure. All 12 connections
metal-cored wire. Two specimens had a 1-in. thick exhibited chord plastification failure in the chord
cap plate welded to the chord end closest to the connecting face and showed considerable ductility.
branch. Single-pass welds were used and the aver- The behaviour of the tested connections was
age horizontal leg sizes of the specimens using the summarized by the connection load-deformation
HSS chords with measured 2γ  =  34 and 23 were response. The ultimate connection capacities of all
found to be 7.8 mm and 7.9 mm, respectively. 12 tests were controlled by the 3% b0 deformation

179
limit (N1,3%). For the connection with a cap plate,
the chord face eventually failed in punching shear
at the junction with the cap plate, and the load sub-
sequently dropped. It is found that when the con-
nection is very close to the open chord end, there is
a reduction in strength of approximately 27–29%
compared to the regular (or control) connection
(see Table  1 and Fig.  8) where the branch is dis-
tant from the open chord end. Alternatively, if the
chord end is welded with a cap plate, there is an
increase in strength of about 27–30% compared to
the regular connection. Typical load-deformation
behaviour for the RHS chord with a measured
2γ = 34 is given in Figure 8.
The local vertical deformation along the cen-
treline of the top chord face was processed for
each test. A typical graph of these profiles, for vari-
ous branch loads, is presented in Figure 9 for the
X-0.5-32-25O specimen, which is open-ended and
has a nominal β = 0.5, a nominal 2γ = 32 (measured
2γ = 34), and a nominal end distance of e = 25 mm.
Note that gross deformations are also shown, to
well beyond the connection yield load (3% b0 limit).
It is found that deformations were concentrated
near the connection and extended for a length of
about 400 mm (2b0) and 300 mm (1.5b0), from the
Figure  8. Typical load-displacement curves (2γ  =  34
chord).
Figure  9. Typical chord deformation profiles
(X-0.5-32-25O).
180
branch edge for the 2γ = 34 and 23 chords, respec-
tively. This indicates that the chord lengths used,
based on the EN 1993-1-8 formula (which predicts
a length of influence extending to 3.4b0 rather than
2b0 as measured, or 2.5b0 rather than 1.5b0 as meas-
ured), are conservative in excluding any chord end
effects on the connection results.
5 EVALUATION OF RESULTS
5.1 Comparison with yield line predictions
To evaluate the proposed analytical model, the
experimentally-determined yield loads (N1,3%)
are plotted against the end distance (e) and com-
pared with the yield line predicted strengths (PY/),
calculated using measured chord yield strengths
(fy0), based on the chord flat faces, and with effec-
tive dimensions (b0/, b1/, β/ and e/). The compari-
sons for the two sets of six tests using the HSS
203 × 203 × 6.35 and HSS 203 × 203 × 9.53 chords,
with actual 2γ  =  34 and 23, are presented in Fig-
ure 10 (a) and (b), respectively.
The calculation using effective dimensions is
more accurate and increases the yield load value.
Figure 10. N1,3% or PY vs. e (using effective dimensions).
The plots show that the experimental loads agree
well with the predicted loads and demonstrate a
similar trend, in which the connection strengths are
reduced due to the open chord end for e less than
approximately emin and reaches that of the control
specimens for e greater than approximately emin,
where emin is the yield line solution given by Eq. (6).
While the test results are very close to the predicted
PYO/ values for the 2γ = 34 chord (Fig. 10 (a)), they
are slightly higher (but within 10%) for the 2γ = 23
chord (Fig.  10 (b)), indicating that the predictions
are still conservative. Thus, overall, the comparison
justifies the postulated yield line model as an accu-
rate predictor of the yield load for the offset connec-
tions, with a mean actual/predicted strength of 1.04
and an associated coefficient of variation (COV) of
0.035. Results for connections with a cap plate are
not included in the statistics. It is also seen that emin
does not seem to be affected by the chord wall slen-
derness, based on the trends for the two HSS chords.
As designers do not know the weld sizes until
the connections have been detailed, design recom-
mendations typically use full dimensions which
do not account for the chord wall thickness t0
and weld size w in the calculations. The predicted
yield line strengths are hence re-calculated using
measured fy0, and with full dimensions (b0, b1, β
and e). The test results (N1,3%) were then found to
always exceed the computed values (PY) for both
the 2γ = 34 and 23 chords, with an actual/predicted
mean value of 1.29 along with a COV of 0.053. This
shows that the proposed yield line model, used in Figure 11. Observed yield line patterns (2γ = 34 Chord).
conjunction with full (or nominal) dimensions
as a simplification, is a conservative predictor of
the yield load for the offset connections, and can equations for CHS connections. To assess the merit
be used for design. This also validates the corre- of this rule for RHS connections, the CHS chord
sponding yield line solution for the minimum end diameter (d0) is replaced by the square HSS chord
distance, provided by Eq. (4), to achieve the full width (b0), which gives a respective critical end dis-
connection strength, given β ≤ 0.85. tance of 3.4b0 and 2.5b0 for the HSS chords with
measured 2γ  =  34 and 23 (governed by the mini-
5.1.1 Observed yield line patterns mum value for the latter). This is much larger than
Application of the analytical rectilinear yield lines that predicted by the yield line solution of 0.71b0,
to the deformed surface of the chord face for two or Eq. (4) substituted with β = 0.5 for both chords,
of the tested connections is shown in Figure  11, which was found to agree well with test results.
to illustrate the general yield line mechanisms. Thus, the EN 1993-1-8 formula is excessively con-
Slightly modified yield line patterns, where the two servative, and not particularly suitable for esti-
longitudinal yield lines in the chord face from the mating the required connection end distances for
branch side to the open chord end became inclined open-ended chord members used in RHS trusses
and gradually converged, were observed from the and girders.
experiments for e  >  55  mm. However, since the The end connections found in practical applica-
yield line method is an upper bound method, these tions are typically asymmetrical about the branch.
mechanisms which compute higher yield loads However, the research on end distance effects, on
than that given by Eq. (5), would not govern. which the EN 1993-1-8 formula is based, consid-
ered connections that are symmetrical about the
branch. Hence, the recommended EN end dis-
5.2 Evaluation of EN 1993-1-8 amendments
tance or chord length pertains specifically to the
The amendment to EN 1993-1-8 specifies an end design of isolated connections in experimental or
distance greater than the maximum of (2γ/10)d0 or numerical tests, where the behaviour may differ
2.5d0 to limit the applicability of traditional design from that of integrated connections in real struc-

181
tures. In this respect, examination of the chord
deformation profiles on both sides of the branch
for the regular connections, or on the long-chord
side of the branch for the offset connections (see
Fig.  9 for specimen X-0.5-32-25O) reveals that a
chord length of about 2.0b0 and 1.5b0 is sufficient
for the 2γ  =  34 and 23 chords, respectively. Since
these values are less than 3.4b0 and 2.5b0, calcu-
lated above, the EN 1993-1-8 formula is reasonably
conservative, and still suitable for determining the
minimum required chord lengths of RHS chord
members used for isolated “symmetrical” connec-
tions in experimental or numerical research.
5.3 Influence of providing a chord end cap plate
Welding a cap plate to the chord end is seen to
restrain chord deformation and stiffen the connec-
tion, such that the connection yield loads exceed
that of the control specimens (see Fig. 8 for a com-
parison of the load-displacement curves). It is thus
an effective means of developing the full connec-
tion strength.
6 CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on laboratory tests of 12 RHS X-connec-
tions (which have the physical appearance of
T-connections), with the branch generally located
close to the chord end, a modified yield line mecha-
nism has been proposed to predict the chord plas-
tification strength of RHS connections with the
branch close to an open chord end. The connec-
tion yield loads predicted by the proposed analyti-
cal model are shown to correspond well with the
experimental results, and can thus be conservatively
estimated from Eq. (3) for branch end distances of
e  <  emin. The associated minimum end distance,
emin (which is given by Eq. (4)), has been adopted
in Table K3.2A of AISC 360-16 as a requirement
for such connections to achieve a strength equal to
that of a “regular” connection, where the branch is
distant from an open chord end. Where a branch
end distance of e < emin is required, reducing the full
connection strength by 50%—in lieu of a detailed
calculation by Eq. (3)—is also safe for design, and
is advocated in the AISC 360-16 Commentary. As
a further alternative, for when e < emin, providing a
chord end cap plate has been shown to be an effec-
tive stiffening method that restores the full “regu-
lar” connection strength.
The EN 1993-1-8 end distance amendment is
found to be very conservative when applied to
RHS connections governed by the chord plas-
tification limit state. It is recognized that differ-
ent end distance limits may yet apply for other
connection failure modes. Thus, the conclusions
182
herein would be applicable to RHS-to-RHS
axially loaded T-, Y-, and X-connections with
β  ≤  0.85 and where chord plastification is the
governing failure mode.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Financial support was provided by the Canadian
Institute of Steel Construction (CISC) and the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Coun-
cil of Canada (NSERC). The hollow structural
sections used were donated by Atlas Tube Inc.
SYMBOLS
b0, b0/ nominal/full (out-of-plane) width of RHS
chord, effective width ( = b0 – t0)
b1, b1/ nominal/full (out-of-plane) width of RHS
branch, effective width ( = b1 + 2w)
d0 outside diameter of CHS chord
e, e/, emin end distance from branch edge to chord end,
measured from weld edge ( = e – w), minimum
required end distance
fy, fy0 yield stress of material, yield stress of RHS
chord
fu ultimate stress of material
h0 outside (in-plane) depth of RHS chord
h1, h1/ nominal/full (in-plane) depth of RHS branch,
effective depth ( = h1/sinθ1 + 2w)
l0 chord length
N1 branch axial load
N1,3% connection load at an ultimate deformation
of 3% b0
PY, PY/ connection load predicted by traditional
mechanism using full, effective dimensions
PYO, PYO/ connection load predicted by proposed mech
anism using full, effective dimensions
Qf chord normal stress function
t0, t1 wall thickness of HSS chord, wall thickness
of HSS branch
w measured weld size (horizontal leg length)
β, β/ nominal/full width ratio ( = b1/b0 for RHS),
effective width ratio ( = b1//b0/ for RHS)
δ vertical connection displacement
εrup rupture strain of material
2γ chord width (diameter)-to-thickness ratio
( = 2b0/t0 for RHS, = 2d0/t0 for CHS)
θ1 included angle between branch and chord
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ard test methods for tension testing of metallic materi-
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seamless high-strength, low-alloy structural tubing
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welded structural quality steel. Toronto, Canada.
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tures—Part 1–8: Design of joints. Brussels, Belgium.
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XV-1402-12. Static design procedure for welded hol-
low section joints—Recommendations, 3rd ed. Paris,
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hollow-section joints—Recommendations. Geneva,
Switzerland.
Kosteski, N. & Packer, J.A. 2003a. Welded tee-to-HSS
connections. Journal of Structural Engineering, Ameri-
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structional Steel Research 59(4): 453–471.
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Bill Wong (eds.), Tubular Structures VI; Proc. intern.
symp., Melbourne, 14–16 December 1994. Rotterdam:
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Packer, J.A. & Henderson, J.E. 1997. Hollow structural
section connections and trusses—a design guide, 2nd
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Construction.
Packer, J.A., Puthli, R., van der Vegte, G.J. & Wardenier,
J. 2017. Discussion on the paper, “Experimental and
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Construction 10(1): 89–90.
Packer, J.A., Wardenier, J., Zhao, X.L., van der Vegte,
G.J. & Kurobane, Y. 2009. Design guide for rectangular
hollow section (RHS) joints under predominantly static
loading. Design Guide No. 3, 2nd ed. Geneva, Switzer-
land: CIDECT.
van der Vegte, G.J. & Makino, Y. 2006. Ultimate strength
formulation for axially loaded CHS uniplanar
T-joints. Int. Journal of Offshore and Polar Engineer-
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van der Vegte, G.J. & Makino, Y. 2010. Further research
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T- and X-joints. Advanced Steel Construction 6(2):
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G.J. 2010. Hollow sections in structural applications,
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Effect of chord tensile stress on the capacity of RHS K joints with gap
in real girders

O. Fleischer
Center of Competence for Tubes and Hollow Sections, Karlsruhe, Germany

J. Wardenier
Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
National University of Singapore, Singapore

ABSTRACT: For the determination of the chord tensile stress effect for K joints, besides the data from iso-
lated tests, also the results of four lattice girders were used. However, one K joint of a girder showed a rather
low result which could not be explained without further detailed analysis. That is why recently a more detailed
numerical investigation was carried out. Using measured dimensions and properties the joint resistances were
numerically re-evaluated considering the 3% deformation limit and the chord stress equations included in ISO
14346 (2013) standard which is based on the IIW (2009) recommendations. In this study joints in girder III
and comparable joints in girder II of CIDECT program 5Qg are simulated and re-analysed.

1 INTRODUCTION

According to the current version of EN  1993-1-8

(2005) the design resistance for chord face plasti-
fication of rectangular hollow section (RHS) K
joints with gap only has to be reduced for compres-
sive loaded chords. However, various investigations
later are based on a deformation limit of 3% of
the chord width b0 (Lu et al. 1994) and show that a
reduction of the joint resistance has to be taken into
account both for joints with chords loaded in com-
pression and in tension (e.g. Wardenier et al. 2007a,
2007b & 2010 and Wardenier & Puthli 2011).
To verify the chord tensile stress effect in real Figure 1. Geometry, numbering of joints and members
girders, Wardenier & Puthli (2011) and Warde- of girder II and girder III.
nier et  al. (2012) used the results of four girders
in CIDECT project 5Qg (de Koning & Wardenier
1979). However, evaluated on the 3% b0 deforma- in ISO 14346 (2013) with the chord stress function
tion limit, that analysis showed an unsafe result Qf (Eq. 2) is used as basis.
for joints of girder III (Fig. 1), which could not be
explained without further numerical analysis. f yot 20
N*i =14βγ 0.3Qf (1)
The other joint resistances agreed with the pro- sinθ11,2
posed chord stress function developed on basis of
the results of isolated joints. where β  =  average brace to chord width ratio;
Since the reason of the deviation of joint J3 2γ = chord slenderness ratio; fy0 = chord yield stress;
was unknown, recently numerical simulations and t0 = chord wall thickness; θ1,2 = brace angle 1 or 2.
frame analyses of girder III were carried out. Since
girder II of CIDECT project 5Qg offers compara-
( )
C1
ble joint geometries (Table 2) this girder was also Qf = 1 n0 (2)
investigated.
For the evaluation of the results of the numerical where n0  =  chord stress utilization based on axial
and frame analyses in this paper the design resist- loads and bending moments at the chord connecting
ance for chord face plastification (Eq. 1) included face; C1 = parameter considering joint configuration

185
and loading, for K gap joints C1 = 0.5⋅(1 – β) ≥ 0.10 Table 1. Measured dimensions and material properties
for compression and C1 = 0.10 for tension. of members of girder II and girder III.
The chord stress function Qf gives a reduction
Member h, b t ri/ro fy/fu A2)
for chord compression and for chord tension. The No.1) mm mm mm MPa cm2
IIW (2009) recommendations on which this ISO
standard is based and the second edition of the CC 10, 11 79.8 3.55 3/6 412/479 1081

Girder II
CIDECT Design Guide 3 (Packer et al. 2009) give TC 1–3 99.8 4.08 4/6 397/484 1510
the same joint resistance function (Eq. 1) with the CB 4, 6, 7, 9 60.1 3.28 3/5 387/486 741
same chord stress influence Qf (Eq. 2). This func- TB 5, 8 60.0 2.96 3/5 417/490 663
tion will also be incorporated in the revision of EN CC 16–19 99.2 3.7 4/6 353/471 1047
1993-1-8 (2005) but with a limit Qf ≥ 0.4. TC 1–5 119.8 4.3 5/7 332/447 1952

Girder III
In this paper three analyses are discussed, based CB 6, 8, 10, 60.2 3.29 3/5 355/510 727
on the experimental data, the numerical analysis 11, 13, 15
and a frame analysis, the latter to check the effect TB 7, 9, 12 60.0 2.96 3/5 417/490 650
of the bending moments due to eccentricities. First 14 60.0 3.05 3/5 388/492 663
the RHS lattice girder tests of CIDECT program
5Qg used for reference are described in section 2. Annotations: 1)see Figure 1.
2)
The numerical simulation is described in section 3 other section properties as Iyy, Izz, It, Wpl are based on
and the frame analysis in section 4. The results of measured dimensions.
these analyses are evaluated in section 5. Table  2. Eccentricities, gaps/overlaps and dimension-
less parameters of joints.

g (+)
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS
Joint e q (–)
No. mm mm 2γ β g/b0 e/h0
2.1 Geometry of investigated girders and joints
In the late 1970s tests on welded joints in four com- J2 10.54 15.96 22.5 0.750,20 0.13
Girder II

plete lattice girders (I–IV) were carried out in the J3 2.54 19.96 24.5 0.60 0.20 0.03
framework of CIDECT project 5Qg (de Koning & J4 −25.75 −56.62 22.5 0.75 −0.71 −0.32
Wardenier 1979). This project was originally car- J5 −35.75 −56.62 24.5 0.60 −0.57 −0.36
ried out to verify the ultimate strength of joints in J6 −25.75 −56.62 22.5 0.75 −0.71 –0.32
real RHS lattice girders. J2 0 −22.9 26.8 0.61 −0.39 0
The girders II and III considered in this publica- J3 0 34.8 27.9 0.50 0.29 0
tion consist of tension (TC) and compression chords J4 0 14.2 26.8 0.61 0.14 0
Girder III

(CC) and tension (TB) and compression braces J5 0 34.8 27.9 0.50 0.29 0
(CB), all made of square hollow sections (SHS). The J6 −35.4 −56.7 26.8 0.61 −0.57 −0.36
sections are welded, hot-finished hollow sections of J7 −45.7 −56.7 27.9 0.50 −0.47 –0.38
grade RSt.42-2 according to DIN 17100 (1966) with J8 −35.4 −56.7 26.8 0.61 −0.57 −0.36
a design yield strength of fy = 275 MPa for sections J9 −45.7 −56.7 27.9 0.50 −0.47 −0.38
with a wall-thickness t ≤ 16 mm, and are compara- J10 −25.4 −48.4 26.8 0.61 −0.49 −0.26
ble to steel grade S275 of EN 10025-2 (2004). The
measured dimensions and material properties of the corner radii, cross-sectional areas A, yield fy and
members of girder II and III are given in Table 1. tensile fu strengths are given in Table 1 for the sec-
The investigations in CIDECT project 5Qg tions of girders II and III.
cover centric e/h0  =  0 and eccentric e/h0 ≠ 0  K The eccentricities e, the gaps g, the overlap sizes
and N joints resulting in varying gaps g, overlaps q ( = –g), the chord slenderness 2γ and width ratios
q = –g and eccentricities e. Additionally, different β of K and N joints, the dimensionless gap g/b0
width ratios β  =  (b1+b2)/2b0 and chord slender- (with negative g for overlap) as well as the dimen-
ness ratios 2γ  =  b0/t0 were considered. The brace- sionless eccentricities e/h0 calculated based on
to-chord inclinations of the K joints are θ1,2 = 45°. measured dimensions are given in Table 2.
For the N joints (J2/J10 of girder III, Fig. 1) the In CIDECT project 5Qg (de Koning & Warde-
angle of the compression braces is θ1 = 90° and the nier 1979) the indicated overlap in % and the eccen-
angle of the tension braces is θ2 = 45°. Addition- tricity e do not agree with each other. In this paper
ally, the girders have T joints (J1 and J11 of girder the analyses are based on the indicated eccentricities.
III, Fig.  1) and Y joints (J1 and J7 of girder II,
Fig. 1). Since the T and Y joints are located at the
support regions these joints are not considered in 2.2 Setup, measurements and performance of tests
the present investigations. The measured widths The girders were pin supported at joints J1 and
b, heights h, wall-thickness t, inner ri and outer ro roller supported at the other support. To prevent

186
lateral torsional buckling, the top chords were sup- Table  3. Max. loads of load cases, failures and repair
ported out of plane. The girders were loaded by actions.
a hydraulic jack at the center joints of the girders
(joint J4 of girder II and J6 of girder III, Fig. 1). Load Fmax
case kN Failure Action
The vertical deflections δy of the bottom chords
beneath the load introduction were recorded (Fig. 1). LC1 177 Instability chord webs J4 Stiffening J4
For the determination of the axial forces and LC2 240 Local buckling chord J6 Stiffening J6,
the in-plane bending moments, resulting from Stiffening
joint eccentricities and joint stiffness effects, the J1/J7

Girder II
chord and brace sections were provided with strain LC3 260 Chord wall/face Stiffening
gauges. The arrangement of the strain gauges is deformation J2/J3
shown in Figure 2. J2, local buckling J3
Additionally, the local deformations of the joints LC4 290 Chord wall/face
were recorded by linear voltage displacement trans- deformation
J5, partial yielding
ducers (LVDT) measuring the change in length
in chord
δi = l0 – li between points on the outer surfaces of
the braces (MPb in Fig. 2) and corresponding points LC1 135 Instability J6 chord webs Stiffening J6
on the chords (MPc in Fig.  2). The initial lengths LC2 270 Local buckling and Stiffening
yield load J4/J5
between these measuring points are l0 = b0/sinθi.
Girder III in chord at J4/J5
The applied load F was increased until a partic- LC3 280 Local buckling J3 (CB) Stiffening J3
ular joint was close to the maximum load carrying LC4 295 Yield load in chord and Stiffening
capacity. Subsequently, the girder was unloaded local buckling J7/J8, J7/J8
and the particular joint was stiffened. If buckling chord face
or yielding limited the loading of the girder, the deformation J7
relevant member was reinforced. Afterwards, the LC5 300 Yield stress in
girder was re-loaded. The maximum loads Fmax of member M18
each load case, the observed failure modes and the
repair actions are summarized in Table 3.
Table  4. Results of the reported experimental
2.3 Experimental results investigations.

The maximum girder loads Fmax., the compres- At 3% b0 chord

sion brace member forces N1,max with the chord Maxima indentation
member forces N0,max due to the belonging maxi-
mum girder loads Fmax and joint deformations are Fmax N1,max F |N1|
given in report 5Qg (de Koning & Wardenier 1979) kN kN n0,ax.max kN kN n0,ax.
and here recorded in Table 4. However for deter- GII J3 260 201 0.88 260 201 0.88
mination of the joint resistance, the resistances GIII J3 280 175 0.76 227 142 0.62
for chord face failure Ni have to be determined at GIII J5 270 177 1.00 206 136 0.77
indentations of 3% of the chord width b0 at the
chord face, or at the peak load N1 = N1,max if this 1)
n0,ax will have to be corrected.
occurs at a lower deformation.
The resistances for chord face failure N1 and
the corresponding chord utilizations n0,ax of the tion to the maximum girder load Fmax i.e. N1 = F/
experimental investigations (Table  4) are based Fmax⋅N1,max resp. n0,ax = F/Fmax⋅n0,ax,max.
on the ratio of the girder load F at 3%⋅b0 indenta- In the experiments only deformations δi in the brace
directions were measured (Fig.  2), whereas for the
determination of the joint resistance the indentation
δi⋅sinθi perpendicular to the chord face is required.
Thus, for each joint the limiting deformation δi for the
joint resistance N1 is given by 0.03⋅δi⋅sinθi/b0.
The joint deformations of the K joints with gap
and a chord in tension are given together with the
numerical results of the next section 3 in Figures 5
to 7. However, it should be noted that the load
deformation relationships were determined after
previous loading steps and stiffening of failed
Figure 2. Position of strain gauges (SG) and displace- joints and/or members before the joint concerned
ment transducers (LVDT) for K joints with gap. reached its maximum load (Table 3). Therefore, the

187
deformations observed will be smaller than those
determined if the stiffening was carried out right
at the beginning, see also the comparison with the
numerical results in section 3.

3 NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS

3.1 General
For the numerical investigations, ABAQUS is used
as pre- and postprocessor and as solver in the finite
element analyses (FEA).
Until the onset of yielding at fy, elastic materials
with a Young’s modulus of E = 210,000 MPa and a
Poisson’s ratio of ν = 0.29 are used. Subsequently,
isotropic hardening up to the ultimate strength
fu at uniform strain Agt is considered. Since no
information about the uniform strain Agt is avail-
able, as a safe estimate, Agt is assumed to be 10%. Figure 3. Coupling of solid and beam elements.
ABAQUS requires true stresses σt (Eq. 3) and true
plastic strains εt (Eq. 4), thus the engineering yield
strengths fy und ultimate strengths fu (Table 1) and
the uniform strains Agt are converted. Further-
more, geometrical non-linearity (large displace-
ments) is taken into account.

True stress: σ t =σ ( 1+ε ) (3)

True plastic strain: ε t l ( 1+ε ) − σ / E
ln (4)

where σ = engineering stress; ε = strain; E = Young’s

modulus.
For the analyses, loads F are prescribed in incre-
ments at a reference points. The deflections and rota-
tions of the reference points are coupled to surfaces
at the load introduction. For the supports of the gird-
ers boundary conditions are prescribed at reference
points, which are also coupled to the end-surfaces of
the supported members. Kinematic coupling build-
in ABAQUS has been used to ensure that the sur-
faces remain planar and of the same size. Modified
Newton-Raphson technique is used in ABAQUS for
the iterative-incremental solution procedure.
3.2 Discretisation
The geometries of the girders are calculated based
on the assumption, that the dimensions of the
girders in report 5Qg (de Koning & Wardenier
1979) are measured dimensions.
Meshing of the complete girders using solid ele-
ments would give a huge number of degree of free-
dom (DOF) resulting in long CPU times and high
demands of the available disk space. Therefore,
only the joints are modelled three-dimensional and
meshed with 4-node linear tetrahedron solid elements
(C3D4). However, for the members connecting the
Figure  4. Repaired joint (left) and load introduction
(right).
individual joints only one-dimensional 2-noded lin-
ear beam elements (B31) are used. Multipoint con-
straints (MPC) of type BEAM build-in ABAQUS
are used for coupling joints and members.
For a further reduction of the DOF symmetry
to the XZ-plane of the girders is additionally taken
into account (Fig. 3).
The positions and exact stiffening methods
(e.g. lengths and thickness of stiffening plates) are
not given in report 5Qg (de Koning & Wardenier
1979). Therefore, to simulate the outside stiffen-
ing plates, the relevant sections are provided with
an equivalent wall-thickness of 10  mm inside the
chords (Fig. 4). The braces are not stiffened in the
numerical models.
Based on report 5Qg (de Koning & Wardenier
1979) 110  mm long and 25  mm thick steel plates
connected to the flange of joint J4 (girder II) resp. J6
(girder III) are used at the load introduction (Fig. 4).
For overlapped joints a reasonable mesh genera-
tion is difficult, thus an adaptive mesh generation
is used.

188
3.3 Determination of the local joint deformation
Similar as in the tests, the changes in length δi = l0 –
li between the measuring points on the braces (MPb,
Fig.  2) and on the chords (MPc, Fig.  2) are used
as local joint deformations. For the determination
of the actual length li the effect of displacements
out of the plane of the lattice girder (X-direction,
Fig. 3) are neglected.

3.4 Numerical results and comparison with the

experimental results
The numerical relationships between the girder
load F and the chord indentation δi⋅sinθi/b0 are Figure  7. Comparison of numerical and experimental
given together with the experimentally obtained indentations of joint J5 in girder III.
relationship in Figures  5 to 7. In Figure  5 for
joint J3 of girder II, in Figure 6 for joint J3 and in
Table 5. Results of the numerical investigations.
Figure 7 for joint J5 of girder III.
Especially, for girder II deviations between the At 3% b0 chord
experimental and the numerical joint deformations Maxima indentation
occur. In the experiment, girder II is loaded up to
F = 240 kN for the determination of the deforma- F N0 M0 |N1|
kN kN kNm kN n0,ax n0,b

GII J3 260 382 3.33 183 0.64 −0.15

GIII J3 232 222 4.98 145 0.34 −0.18
GIII J5 201 379 5.12 137 0.59 −0.18

tion of joint J6. After unloading and stiffening of

Figure  5. Comparison of numerical and experimental
indentations of gap K joints in girder II with a chord in
tension (J3).
Figure  6. Comparison of numerical and experimental
indentations of joint J3 in girder III.
joint J6 the deformation of joint J3 is measured
(Table  3  LC3). Since the failure load of joint J3
is F  =  260  kN, the previous loading (LC2) up to
240 kN already causes considerably plastic defor-
mations at the joint, which are not included in the
reported joint deformations in report 5Qg.
The deformations of joint J3  in the numerical
analysis are based on an initially un-deformed
girder without consideration of previous loadings.
They therefore show in the elastic-plastic range
considerable larger deformations than those in the
experimental tests.
For the joints J3 and J5 of girder III a load
of only F  =  135  kN has previously been applied
(Table  3, LC1), The determination of the joint
deformations took place in the following load case
(Table 3, LC2) up to F = 270 kN for joint J5 and
F = 280 kN for joint J3. Thus the plastic deforma-
tions caused by the previous loading of the girder
and the resulting difference to the numerically
determined deformations are here smaller.
The relevant data at 3%⋅b0 indentation of the
chord are presented in Table  5. The axial forces
N0 and N1 and in-plane bending moments M0 are
obtained from stresses at the members, thus the
distribution over the section is linear. Extrapo-
lation from here to the joint gives the remaining
bending moment M0, however, these also include

189
Table 6. Results of the frame analyses. Table 7. Results of the experimental investigations.

At 3%⋅b0 chord indentation |N1| N1,m* N1 Qf

F n0,ax kN kN *
N1,m (n0,ax) Ratio
F |N1|
kN kN Mip,0 n0,ax. n0,b GII J3 260 0.881 201 203 0.98 0.81 1.21
GIII J3 227 0.621) 142 164 0.87 0,911) 0.96
GII J3 260 183 3.22 0.63 −0.15 GIII J5 206 0.771) 136 164 0.83 0.86 0.97
GIII J3 232 156 0.56 0.34 −0.02
−0.12
1)
GIII J5 201 137 3.32 0.59 n0,ax have to be corrected.

the effect of the joint stiffness and will not be used

in the comparison.

4 FRAME ANALYSIS

Since in the experimental tests and in the numeri-

cal analyses the bending moments observed are a
combination of eccentricities, bending stiffness’s
and redistributions the effect of chord bending
stresses, excluding the effect of joint stiffness’s is
separately investigated in frame analyses for gird-
ers II and III. In these frame analyses the girders
II and III are modelled with continuous chords
and pin ended braces to obtain the chord bend-
ing moments excluding the effect of joint stiffness.
The results of the frame analyses based on girder
loads F at 3%⋅b0 indentation of the numerical
investigations are given in Table 6.
Compared to the numerical data in Table 5 the
data for N1 and n0,ax are about the same, only N1 for
joint J3 in girder III deviates by 7%.
5 EVALUATION
5.1 General
The differences between the experimentally
recorded load deformation behaviour and the
numerically determined deformation behaviour is
already discussed in 3.4.
In this section the effect of the chord tensile
stresses in real girders will be evaluated.
5.2 Chord stress effect—experimental results
For checking the chord stress effect the relation
between the resistance at a 3%⋅b0 chord indenta-
tion N1 divided by the ISO mean resistance N1,m*
for Qf = 1.0 and n0,ax.are given in Table 7.
The ISO mean resistance N1,m* for a chord
slenderness 2γ of about 25 can be determined
by using the same relation to the design resist-
ances N1* (Eq. 1) as determined for the resist-
ance for K gap joints in EN 1993-1-8 (2005), i.e.
N1,m* = (1/0.82)⋅N1*. (Wardenier 1982, Wardenier
et al. 2010).
Figure 8. Influence of chord stress on the joint resist-
ance based on the experimental investigations.
Figure  8  shows the influence of the chord ten-
sile stresses by comparing the ratio of |N1|/N1,m* for
Qf = 1.0 in relation to n0,ax with the Qf function (Eq. 2).
After checking report 5Qg (de Koning & Warde-
nier 1979) in detail in combination with the addi-
tional numerical (section  3) and frame analyses
(section 4) it can be concluded, that the chord uti-
lizations n0,ax cannot be correct. The stresses have
been measured at a distance of 100 mm behind the
brace heels (Fig. 2). Due to the non-uniform stiff-
ness distribution in the joints, also with local bend-
ing effects, this distance is not sufficient to assume
a linear stress distribution in the cross-section.
Therefore, incorrect utilizations were determined,
especially for the chords.
Figure 8 shows the reported experimental (open)
data points in combination with corrected chord
utilizations n0,ax (filled data points) if they are cor-
rected based on the numerical or frame analyses
with the experimentally reported girder loads F at
3%⋅b0 indentations (Table 4).
As shown, the data points, corrected for n0,ax, are
now shifted to the left but have a considerable devia-
tion from the calculated Qf function. Comparing the
data in Table 4 with those in Tables 5 and 6 shows
that N1 for GII-J3 also will have to be corrected.
5.3 Chord stress effect—numerical results
The ratios of the brace loads to the ISO “mean”
resistance with the belonging chord utilization n0,ax
are given in Table 8.

190
 The influences of the chord stresses n0,ax in rela- N0 Mip,0
tion to N1/N1,m* is given in Figure  9. Comparison n0 = n00,ax
ax + n 0,b = + (5)
with the n0,ax corrected experimental results in A 0 f y0 Wip,pl,0
Figure  8  shows that the data for joints J3 and J5
of girder III agree well but both are lower than where n0,ax, and n0,b = utilization due to axial loading
the Qf line. The numerical data point for joint J3 and due to bending; N0 and Mip,0 = design values of
of girder II is lower than that for the experimental the internal axial force and the in-plane bending
result and agrees with the Qf line. As discussed in moment in the chord; fy0, A0 and Wip,pl,0  =  yield
2.3, this may be caused by measuring the deforma- strength, cross-sectional area and plastic section
tions in the experiment after unloading, stiffening modulus of the chord.
and reloading. In case of yielding in the chord members Equa-
tion  5  should not be used and n0 has to be based
on the (extrapolated) strain ε at the connecting face
5.4 Chord stress effect—framework results
with the chord stresses σ0 limited by the yield stress
According to ISO 14346 (2013) the chord utilization σpl,0 for strains exceeding the plastic strain εpl,0, i.e:
can be based on n0 = n0,ax +n0,b where n0,b is based on σ0 ≥ εpl,0.
the bending moments caused by eccentricities, thus The data required for the determination of the
excluding the effect of the joint stiffness. chord stress effect based on the frame analyses is
Thus, in case of an elastic stress distribution the given in Table 9.
stress utilization factors n0 in the chord connecting For the considered joints with chords in tension,
faces are given by Equation 5: J3 in girder II and J3 and J5 in girder III, the eccen-
tricities are relatively small resulting in small bend-
ing moments and thus in small values n0,b.
Table 8. Results of the numerical investigations. However, due to the deformation of the girder
the bending moments give bending stresses with
N1 opposite sign of the belonging axial load, thus a
F |N1| N1,m* Qf
*
N 1,m relaxation of the maximum stresses in absolute
kN n0,ax kN kN (n0,ax) Ratio
sense.
GII J3 260 0.64 183 203 0.90 0.90 1.00 Comparison of the ratio |N1|/N1,m* for Qf = 1.0
GIII J3 232 0.34 146 164 0.89 0.96 0.93 with the Qf function in Figures 10 and 11 for n0,ax
GIII J5 201 0.59 137 164 0.83 0.92 0.91 and n0,ax+n0,b, respectively, shows that the cor-
relation based on n0,ax only, agrees well with the

Figure 9. Influence of chord stress on the joint resist-

ance based on the numerical investigations in relation to Figure  10. Influence of chord stress based on the
n0,ax. framework calculations in relation to n0,ax.

Table 9. Results of the frame analyses.

F |N1| N1,m* N1 Qf Qf
kN n0,ax n0,b kN kN *
N 1,m (n0,ax) Ratio (n0) Ratio

GII J3 260 0.63 −0.15 183 203 0.90 0.90 1.00 0.94 0.96
GIII J3 232 0.34 −0.02 156 164 0.95 0.96 0.99 0.96 0.99
GIII J5 201 0.59 −0.12 137 164 0.84 0.91 0.92 0.94 0.89

191

Figure  11. Influence of chord stress based on the
framework calculations in relation to n0,ax + n0,b.
numerical data and gives a better agreement with
the Qf function than based on n0, thus including
the reducing chord bending effect.
6 CONCLUSIONS
To verify the chord tensile stress effect in real gird-
ers, the results of two girders of CIDECT project
5Qg (de Koning & Wardenier 1979) are re-evalu-
ated based on the 3%⋅b0 deformation limit using
a numerical analysis and a frame analysis. All
analyses used measured dimensions and material
properties and are related to the mean resistance
function for chord face plastification, i.e. (1/0.82)×
the design resistance. Although the numerical
results for girder III are 0% up to 9% lower than
predicted by the Qf function, they are still within
the scatter band.
Comparison of the numerical analysis with the
experimental re-analysis shows that in the experi-
ments the stresses have been measured too close to
the joints which gives deviating chord utilizations
n0,ax. and n0,b. Furthermore, the deformations,
measured after unloading, strengthening of joints
and reloading gives lower deformations in the
load-deformation diagram and deviating loads N1
at 3%⋅b0 chord indentation and explains the deviat-
ing results.
The frame analysis shows that an analysis with
the chord stress related to n0,ax only, thus without
the reducing chord bending effect, gives a better
agreement with the Qf function than based on the
combined chord stress effect.
7 FUTURE WORK
Investigations will be carried out to determine the
influence of the secondary bending moment on
192
the joint resistance in real girders. This is especially
important when codes extend the validity to higher
strength steels with a lower ductility.
REFERENCES
DIN 17100. 1966. Allgemeine Baustähle—Gütevor-
schriften. Deutscher Normenausschuss, Berlin: Beuth
Verlag.
EN 10025-2. 2004. Hot rolled products of structural
steels—Part 2: Technical delivery conditions for
non-alloy structural steels. European Committee for
Standardization, Brussels, Belgium.
EN 1993-1-8. 2005. Eurocode 3: Design of steel struc-
tures—Part 1–8: Design of joints. European Commit-
tee for Standardization, Brussels, Belgium.
IIW. 2009. Static design procedure for welded hollow sec-
tion joints—Recommendations. 3rd Edition, Intern.
Institute of Welding, Sub-commission XV-E, Annual
Assembly, Singapore, IIW Doc. XV-1329-09.
ISO. 14346. 2013. Static design procedure for welded hol-
low section joints—Recommendations. Intern. Stand-
ard Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
Koning, C.H.M. de, & Wardenier, J. 1979. Tests on welded
joints in complete girders made of square hollow sec-
tions. CIDECT Report 5Q/79/5 and 5Qg-79/5, Delft
University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
Lu, L.H., Winkel, G.D. de, Yu, Y. & Wardenier, J. 1994.
Deformation limit for the ultimate strength of hollow
section joints. Proc. 6th Intern. Symp. on Tubular Struc-
tures, Melbourne, Australia, Tubular Structures VI,
Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 341–347.
Packer, J.A., Wardenier, J., Zhao, X.-L., Vegte, G.J. van
der & Kurobane, Y. 2009. Design guide for rectangu-
lar hollow section (RHS) joints under predominantly
static loading. 2nd Edition, CIDECT series “Con-
struction with hollow steel sections” No. 3, CIDECT,
Geneva, Switzerland.
Wardenier, J. 1982. Hollow section joints. Delft Univer-
sity Press, The Netherlands.
Wardenier, J, Vegte, G.J van der & Liu D.K. 2007a. Effect
of chord loads on the strength of RHS uniplanar gap
K joints. CIDECT Final Report 5BU-7/07.
Wardenier, J., Vegte, G.J. van der & Liu, D.K. 2007b.
Chordstress functions for K gap joints of rectangular
hollow sections. Intern. Journal of Offshore and Polar
Engineering, ISOPE, 17(3): 225–232.
Wardenier, J., Packer, J.A., Zhao, X.-L. & Vegte, G.J. van
der. 2010. Background of the new RHS joint strength
equations in the IIW (2009) recommendations. Proc.
13th Intern. Symp. on Tubular Structures, Hong Kong,
China, Tubular Structures XIII, Taylor & Francis,
London, UK, pp. 403–412.
Wardenier, J. & Puthli, R.S. 2011. Korrekturvorschläge
für die DIN EN 1993-1-8 zum Thema Hohlprofilan-
schlüsse. Stahlbau 80, Heft 7. Germany, pp. 393–459.
Wardenier, J., Puthli, R.S. & Vegte, G.J. van der. 2012.
Proposed corrections for EN 1993-1-8, Part “Hollow
Section Joints”. Proc. 14th Intern. Symp. on Tubular
Structures, London, UK, Tubular Structures XIV,
Taylor & Francis, London, UK, pp. 233–240.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Experimental evaluation of moment-rotation response of an innovative

modular beam-to-fabricated column connection

S.N. Sadeghi, A. Heidarpour & X.L. Zhao

Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

R. Al-Mahaidi
Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT: Fabricated columns are reliable choices for the growing demand for higher-capacity col-
umns. Of the fabricated columns available at present, Hybrid-Fabricated Columns (HFCs) are a game
changer. Although an innovative generation of these columns consisting of plates welded to corner tubes
has been developed and investigated at Monash University, the connection to these columns still needs
to be investigated. In this paper, the results of monotonic tests performed on a generation of connections
developed for use with HFCs and I-beams are presented. The column corner tubes are made of mild and
ultra-high strength steel materials and the tests were conducted to investigate the effect of their material
properties on the connection’s performance. The moment-rotation curves of the tests demonstrated that
this connection shows high moment capacity, ductility, and rotation. In comparison, the connection has
more capacity, ductility, and stiffness when used with Ultra-High Strength Steel (UHSS) corner tubes.

1 INTRODUCTION endplates and blind bolting systems, are avail-

Since the introduction of closed sections in the early
1950s, researchers have investigated their behaviour
under various loading conditions and configura-
tions. Innovative fabricated columns have been one
of the major improvements suggested by research-
ers in response to the growing demand from the
construction industry for stronger sections. This
concept, which has been investigated (Aoki & Ji
2000) and further developed during the past two
decades, needs to be studied in more detail. These
studies should include not only the behaviour
of structural members of this type, but also the
connections that could be used with this type of
member. The particular type of innovative column
used in this study consists of four plates welded to
tubes at each corner. This concept, which has been
investigated by many researchers (Javidan et al.
2015; Nassirnia et al. 2015; Heidarpour et al. 2014;
Heidarpour et al. 2013; Ye et al. 2007; Rhodes et
al. 2005) is referred to as a hybrid-fabricated col-
umn (HFC) in this paper.
A wide variety of connections is available for use
with open and closed sections in moment frames
in either standards or construction practices. How-
ever, in relation to choosing robust connections
between beams and HFCs, there is a knowledge
gap that needs to be covered. While many different
connections, including flush endplates, extended
able for conventional open and closed sections
(I-beams, rectangular/circular hollow sections),
to date there has been no investigation of connec-
tions for HFCs, with the exception of the research
conducted by the authors of the present paper
(Sadeghi et al. 2016).
One of the main characteristics of a connection
that is usually used as a reference to classify and
compare different connections is its moment-rota-
tion diagram. Researchers and standardization
organisations have introduced several classifica-
tions based on this curve (Bjorhovde et al. 1990;
Nethercot et al. 1998; Eurocode 3 2005). Since the
European standard (Eurocode 3) is widely used in
research and engineering practice, it is used in this
research work.
Eurocode 3 (2005) categorises the connections
into three main groups based on their initial stiff-
ness: pinned, semi-rigid, and rigid. Numerous con-
siderations need to be taken into account before
making the decision on how to treat a connection
based on these categories (such as moment-bearing
capability, rotation capacity, etc.). However, in
reality most connections behave as semi-rigid
connections.
In order to obtain the moment-rotation curve
for connections, researchers use different methods.
These include performing experimental studies,
developing numerical models such as finite element

193
analysis or utilizing methods such as yield-line
theory or component- based models. While experi-
mental results are the most valuable and reliable set
of data for studying connection behaviour, numer-
ical or theoretical models provide researchers with
more data with acceptable accuracy but at a lower
cost and in a shorter time.
Although the topic of connections between
HFCs and I-beams has not been studied in the
past, except by the authors of the present paper
(Sadeghi et al. 2016), connections between rec-
tangular hollow sections and I-beams have been
investigated by several researchers. A group of
researchers have focused on finding the behaviour
of different connections, such as flush endplates,
extended endplates, reverse channels, etc. between
I-beams and hollow sections. On the other hand,
some investigations have been directed to studying
the behaviour of different bolting systems (blind
bolting systems, Hollobolt, ONESIDE), which are
used to tackle the problem of difficulty of access to
the inside of hollow sections (Wang & Wang 2016; Figure  1. HFC column and innovative connection
Wang & Spencer 2013), which makes the use of assembly.
bolted connections in construction less attractive.
A vast amount of research has been done on the
connections between beams and I-section columns, to the column through four parts that are welded
but beam-to-rectangular hollow-section column to the corner tubes (parts 3–1, 3–2, 3–3, 3–4).
connections have attracted less research interest The remaining parts are designed such that they
(Mirghaderi et al. 2010). End-plate connections are sit fixed in their place due to the matching shapes
among the most commonly used connection meth- and surfaces on adjoining parts. Although the
ods and have therefore been under investigation for gravity and building loads maintain the integrity
decades (Ghobara et al. 1993; Ghobara et al. 1996; of the connection assembly, sixteen bolts are used
Mourad et al. 1996; Shi et al. 2007). Other types of to guarantee this integrity at all times from con-
connections ranging, from simpler types such as struction to extreme loading conditions. This con-
reverse channel to more complex systems such as nection provides the possibility of bi-directional
ConXL (Robert and Simmons 2005) have also been connection, and can be used along with different
investigated (Heistermann et al. 2015; Al Hendi & beam and column sizes.
Celikag 2015; Rezaeian et al. 2014; Yang et al. 2016).
This paper reports the results of an investiga-
tion of a recently introduced generation of connec- 2 EXPERIMENTS
tions for connecting I-beams to fabricated columns
(Fig.  1). The connection has been tested under The results of two experiments performed in the
monotonically applied force and the moment-rota- Structures Laboratory of the Civil Engineering
tion curve of its behaviour has been extracted. Two Department of Monash University on this con-
tests have been conducted with the difference being nection are presented in this section.
the material used in the corner tubes of the column.
In order to be able to investigate the behaviour of
2.1 Test setup
the connection in more detail and in cases that will
not be experimentally tested, a robust numerical A schematic view of the test set-up can be found in
model was developed in ABAQUS. The results of Figure 2. The set-up consists of the column, sup-
this finite element analysis are not presented here, port structure, connection, beam, and the load-
but can be found in another work by the authors ing machine, which is a 250 kN vertical hydraulic
(Sadeghi et al. 2016). jack. Eleven strain gauges and three displacement
The innovative connection presented in this measurement devices are also placed in different
paper is formed by assembling fifteen parts (Fig. 1 locations in order to record the deformations and
– parts 1 to 7), which together form a strong and deflections during the test.
robust base for connecting a beam to a column. The hybrid column used in these tests is 1 m in
The assembly transfers the loads from the beam height with the cross-section details presented in

194
Figure 3 and Table 1. The flat faces of the column
are mild steel (Grade 250) plates and the corner
tubes are of ultra-high strength steel (Grade 1200)
in Test 1 and of mild steel (Grade 250) in Test 2.
The column was fabricated by fillet welding the
corner tubes to the flat plates (Fig. 4). The column
was under constant 50  kN axial load during the
tests. This load is far from the column capacity
(1523 kN (Javidan et al. 2015)) but it simulates the
gravity load and the only-vertically-free boundary
condition at the top. No other constraint other
than the aforementioned loading was applied on
the top side of the column. The bottom section of
the column was fixed to the test rig.
The connection parts were machine-cut from
Grade 250 mild steel blocks. The four corner parts
were welded to the corner tubes using the tung-
sten inert gas (TIG) welding method on all edges
around the parts (Fig. 4).
For the calculation of the rotation of the con-
nection, the deformation of the beam is assumed
negligible. Therefore, the rotation (θ) can be calcu-
lated using Eq. 1.

⎛ Vertical displacement ⎞
θ = tan−1 ⎜ (1)
f e ⎟⎠
⎝ Distance form the connection fac
Figure 2. Test set-up schematic view.
Although the above relation does not precisely
represent the actual rotation of the connection but
it can be used for comparing the behaviour of dif-
ferent connections (FEMA350 2000). The points
used for measurements are located at 200, 500,
1150 mm from the connection face where the beam
is attached to the connection. The beam is a uni-
versal beam 200UB22.3 (AS/NZS 3679.1) in size,
which is 1200 mm long.

Figure 3. Column parametric dimensions.

Table 1. Dimensions of the column cross-section.

Value Value

Symbol mm Symbol mm

W1 286 T1 3
W2 286 T2 3.2
H1 1000 R1 34.8
Figure 4. Column and corner welds.

195
2.2 Test 1: Connection to column with UHSS
corner tubes
In this test, the column corner tubes are made of
ultra-high strength steel (Grade 1200). The load
was applied at 1  mm/min rate at a point 1  m far
from the connection face. A special fixture was
used to connect the hydraulic jack to the beam
that while transferring the load to the beam, allows
for rotation of the beam as it travels further down
from its horizontal state. Test 1 setup is presented
in Figure 5. Detail of the attachment of the beam
to the connection can be found in Figure 6.
The final state of the connection and the moment-
rotation curve for this connection can be found in
Figures 7 and 8 respectively. The results of this test
show that the connection has good ductility and rota- Figure 7. Final state of Test 1.
tion capacity (0.14 rad), more than three times that
of the standards requirement (AISC 2010), which
usually is about 0.04  rad. The moment capacity

Figure 8. Test 1: Moment-rotation curve.

Figure 5. Test 1 – setup.

Figure 9. Failed top angle.

is also high compared to the plastic moment capac-

Figure 6. Detail of the beam to connection attachment.
ity of the connected beam (66.5  kN.m), which
makes the connection a full-strength connection.
The first failure (point A in Fig.  8) occurred
at the point pertaining to the fracture of the left
side of the top angle (Fig.  9). Although failure

196
was initiated, the drop in the moment capacity was 2.3 Test 2: Connection to column with MS
not significant and the connection preserved 80% corner tubes
of its capacity. Point B in Figure 8 is the stage at
The second test was similar to the Test 1, with the
which the majority of the top angle fails and the
difference being in the material of the corner tubes
capacity drops noticeably.
of the column. The corner tubes were made of mild
It is worth noting that M16 bolts are used for
steel (grade 250) and welded to the corner tubes,
connecting the top angle to the connection face,
similar to the previous test column. The loading
and also holding the connection parts together.
regime was also the same as that used in Test 1.
Figure  10  shows how the applied load on the
The moment rotation curve of this test can be
connection led to the plastic deformation of these
found in Figure 12. Unlike the previous test, there
bolts. Bolt Number 1 is the first bolt on the left side
was no sign of abrupt drops in moment capacity
of the connection, which connects the top angle
resulting from failure in any parts of the connection.
to the connection and number 4 is the one on the
The connection parts in this test underwent sig-
right side.
nificant deformations but none showed any sign
Figure 11 shows the permanent deformation of
of fracture or rupture. The column corner tubes
the top angle connected to the top flange of the
deformed and squashed under the load and con-
beam.
tributed to some extent to the general deformation
After removal of the damaged parts (top and
of the connection. Their chord face failure capac-
bottom angles, beam and side plates), the connec-
ity according to Eurocode 3 (2005) is 70.38  kN.
tion parts sprang back in their original place and
Since there was no failure in the connection, the
further inspection proved that they were still in
test was stopped at a point when the hydraulic
their elastic range and could be reused.
jack’s ram displacement capacity was about to end.
Figure  13  shows the final state of the Test
2 set-up. It can be seen in the figure that the

Figure 10. Test 1: Deformation of the bolts connecting

the top angle to the connection.

Figure 12. Test 2: Moment-rotation curve.

Figure 11. Plastic deformation of top angle. Figure 13. Test 2: Final state.

197
bottom part of the corner tubes where the connec-
tion is welded to the corner tubes was deformed
noticeably, something which was not observed in
the column with UHSS corner tubes.
Figure 14 shows the top segment of the connec-
tion at the end of Test 2. As the figure shows, the
angle was not deformed as significantly as in Test
1. The gaps between the top collar and the corner
parts show that the connection deformed notice-
ably, but after removing the beam and cutting the
extension, it sprang back to its original place. This
indicates that the deformations were still in the
elastic range.
Figure  15  shows the strain measured on the
parts belonging to the top segment of the connec-
tion. Strain gauge #3 was located on the left upper
corner part of the connection (part 4–1 in Fig. 1);
strain gauge #15 was located on the top collar
(part 1 in Fig. 1), and strain gauge #16 was located
on the right upper corner part of the connection
(part 4–4 in fig. 1). Based on the yield strain of the

Figure 16. Test 2: Column side view.

material (0.13%), it is concluded that these parts

were still within their elastic range, as the maxi-
mum strain was 0.04%.
Warping of the lateral flat faces of the column
also occurred in Test 2, as can be seen in Figure 16.

3 DISCUSSION

The connection proposed in this paper effectively

transfers the load from the beam to the corner
tubes (as the strong components of the connec-
Figure 14. Test 2: Top segment of connection. tion), and while the column components are thin
(3 mm), the moment capacity of the connection is
high. For instance, in the case of Test 2, although
the corner tubes were crushed, the load was still
being transferred and the moment-rotation curve
did not show any sign of a reduction in the
moment-bearing capacity of the connection. This
is an indication of how effectively the connection
utilizes the corner tubes as the strong component
of the HFC section.
In the case of the connection attached to the
column with mild steel tubes, the corner tubes were
crushed and the column lateral plates showed pat-
terns of warping. This is not a favourable phenom-
enon and therefore should be avoided. Although
the column in Test 2 deformed significantly com-
Figure 15. Test 2: Strain data on top segment parts. pared to that in Test 1 and had relatively weaker

198
components (in terms of the material properties
of the corner tubes), its initial stiffness was still
close to the initial stiffness of the connection in
Test 1. The initial stiffnesses of the connections
in tests 1 and 2 were 1850 kN.m and 1404 kN.m,
respectively. Comparison of the initial stiffness of
the connection in both cases with the limits intro-
duced by Eurocode 3 (2005) for classification of
the connections, shows that this connection with
this beam and its span is a semi-rigid connection.
In the column with UHSS corner tubes the
beam flange buckled locally at the side that was
close to the connection near the weld line attaching
it to the bottom angle. This shows that the conne-
ction has a capacity comparable to the beam-bend-
ing capacity. In the case of the connection attached
to the column with the mild steel corner tubes, the
moment capacity (74  kN.m) was slightly higher
than the beam capacity (66.5  kN.m) but in the
column with the UHSS corner tubes, the connec-
tion moment capacity (93 kN.m) was almost 40%
higher than the beam moment capacity.
The extension (part 7 in Fig. 1, which connects
the top and bottom segments) deformed signifi-
cantly, proving that it plays an important role in
the distribution of the loads in the connection.
This part transfers a portion of the load to the
face of the column, and although it is weaker than
the other components of the connection, it takes
part in making the connection more ductile. The
rotation capacity of the connection in both cases
is far more than 0.04 rad, which that is the value
required by most standards (e.g. AISC 2010) for
the rotation of the connections in moment frames.
Therefore, this connection is a suitable candidate
for use in moment frames.
The side plates on either side of the beam web
that connect the beam, extension, and column web
together did not deform generally. Due to the slip-
page of the bolts, the plates came in contact with
the bolts, which resulted in local bearing of the bolt
holes. Nevertheless, the connection parts, with the
exception of the web extension (part 7  in Fig.  1)
and the side plates (part 5–1 in Fig. 1), were com-
pletely re-usable after the first test, which proves
the claim that this innovative connection can be
used in structures for both temporary and perma-
nent buildings.
Although the connection parts used in these
tests were machine-cut, for the mass production of
the connection, the suggested method of construc-
tion is casting, which can greatly reduce the cost.
4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
This paper reports the results of experimental work
performed on an innovative type of connection
199
between an I-beam and HFCs in order to determine
its behaviour under static loading. The first test
was on the connection connected to a hybrid-
fabricated column with ultra-high strength corner
tubes. The second test had a similar set-up but the
column had mild steel corner tubes.
The connection shows a high moment capac-
ity, which in both tests was higher than the plas-
tic moment capacity of the connected beam. The
moment capacity for the column with mild steel
tubes was almost 19.6% lower than that of the
other case.
The connection is of semi-rigid type, based on
the Eurocode 3 (2005) classification system. It also
has high ductility. The rotation capacity of the con-
nection is at least three times the widely accepted
criterion of 0.04 rad, which is a requirement for the
connections used in moment frames.
This modular connection is expected to have
the capability of being re-used in the erection of
temporary structures or being salvaged after the
destruction of permanent buildings. Its modular-
ity allows for higher quality construction, reduces
construction time, and almost removes the need for
on-site welding of the structure.
Although the connection has shown promising
performance, more simulations and experimental
work are required to prove the concept and make
improvements.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research work is supported by the Austral-
ian Research Council through a Discovery Project
(DP150100442) awarded to the authors. The
experiments were performed in the Structures
Laboratory of the Civil Engineering Department
at Monash University, and the contribution of
the staff is highly appreciated. The columns were
fabricated by CrossLine Engineering Pty Ltd and
the connection components by Fetha Engineering.
The SSAB steel manufacturer in Finland provided
the ultra-high strength steel tubes.
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Influence of chord wall interaction on stress concentrations of square

bird-beak SHS X-joints

C. Li, B. Cheng, Q. Qian & Y. Lou

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

X.L. Zhao
Monash University, Clayton, Australia

ABSTRACT: This research employed an X-shape Square Hollow Section (SHS) joint with typical non-
dimensional parameters (i.e., β  = 0.6, 2γ = 20, τ = 0.5) to illustrate the influences of chord wall interactions
on stress concentrations of square bird-beak welded connections. Refined finite element models consid-
ering geometries of welds were constructed, and numerical results show that, for the square bird-beak
X-joint under single-side brace axial force, the stresses on the non-brace load side are up to 62% of the
values at the corresponding locations on the brace load side and thus cannot be ignored for SCF predic-
tions. The influencing mechanism has been revealed as the interactions between adjacent walls of the
chord. A new load case, where both single-side brace axial force and reversed chord in-plane bending were
considered, has been introduced as the solution. The proposed superposition approach makes the SCF
calculation of square bird-beak X-joints under asymmetrical brace axial forces more accurate and simpler.

1 INTRODUCTION stress concentrations are the combination of sym-

A square bird-beak square hollow section (SHS)
joint is formed by rotating the chord of a conven-
tional SHS joint at 45° about its longitudinal axis.
Such new-type connections have been revealed
by Ono (1991, 1993) and Owen (1996) to behave
higher static strengths than conventional joints
with the same non-dimensional parameters. The
fatigue behaviors, including stress concentration
factors (SCFs) and cyclic load resistances, have
also been investigated by Ishida (1992), Keizer
et  al. (2003), Tong et  al. (2014, 2015, 2016), and
Cheng et al. (2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c) with the
aim of applying the joints into engineering struc-
tures subjected to dynamic or repeated loads.
In order to predict the fatigue resistances of
tubular steel joints, the structural local stresses at
weld toes should be first obtained from the nomi-
nal stresses by multiplying the stress concentration
factors at specified hot spots. For an X-shape SHS
joints under possible asymmetric brace axial forces
(i.e., the axial forces in two braces are not equal),
the SCFs are commonly calculated as the sum of
two load cases, that is, the balanced symmetrical
brace axial forces and the single-side brace axial
force. The SCF formulae under symmetrical brace
axial forces have been provided in CIDECT fatigue
design guide (2000). While for the single-side brace
axial force, it is also suggested in the guide that the
metrical axial forces in the braces and reactions
induced in-plane bending in chord. This treatment
of single-side brace axial force, which makes the
calculation simple, is supported by the fact that the
stresses on the non-brace load side of conventional
joint are hardly affected by the loading from the
opposite brace, since the chord walls that support
the braces are not directly connected to each other.
While for the novel square bird-beak X-joints
where the chord has been rotated by 45° about its
longitudinal axis, the treatment could be inappli-
cable due to the interactions between chord walls.
Therefore, this paper systematically investigates
the influences of such type of plate interactions on
stress concentrations of square bird-beak X-joints
by using the finite element method.
2 SQUARE BIRD-BEAK SHS X-JOINTS
Cruciform square bird-beak X-joints (i.e., the
angles between the chord axis and the brace axis
are 90°) were employed in this research to dem-
onstrate the plate interaction of such innovative
SHS connections, as shown in Fig. 1. Three non-
dimensional parameters are typically selected as
brace/chord width ratio β = b1/b0 = 0.6, chord wall
slenderness ratio 2γ  =  b0/t0  =  20, and brace/chord
wall thickness ratio τ  =  t1/t0  =  0.5, where L0 and

201

Figure 1. SHS welded X-joints.
L1 respectively represents the chord length and the
brace length; b0 and t0 respectively represents the
sectional width and wall thickness of the chord;
and b1 and t1 respectively represents the sectional
width and wall thickness of the brace. The member
lengths are selected as L0  =  24b0 and L1  =  3b1 in
order to eliminate the boundary effects of member
ends on the joint core zone.
Three chord spots (i.e., B, C, and D) and two
brace spots (i.e., A, and E) at each corner of the
weld conjunction, as specified in CIDECT fatigue
design guide (2000), were considered for the con-
ventional joint, as shown in Fig.  1(a). For the
square bird-beak joints, six saddle spots (i.e., Sa-B,
Sa-C, and Sa-D on the chord and Sa-A, Sa-E, and
Sa-F on the brace) and six crown spots (i.e., Cr-B,
Cr-C, and Cr-D on the chord and Cr-A, Cr-E, and
Cr-F on the brace), as shown in Fig. 1(b), were used
for discussion by referring to Cheng (2014–2015).
202
Figure 2. Load cases of X-joint.
2.1 Load cases
Totally four load cases were employed for the anal-
ysis, as shown in Fig. 2.
1. Load case X-BFa. The X-joint is subjected to an
axial force P at one of the brace ends, and the
chord ends are simply supported in the brace
axial force direction.
2. Load case X-BF. The X-joint is subjected to
a pair of balanced axial forces P at the brace
ends.
3. Load case X-CIPB. The X-joint is subjected to
a pair of balanced in-plane bending moments
M P ( L b ) / 4 at the chord ends.
4. Load case X-BFam. The X-joint is subjected to
an axial force P at one of the brace ends and
a pair of balanced in-plane bending moments
M P ( L b ) / 4 at the chord ends. The chord
ends are also simply supported in the brace axial
force direction.
3 FINITE ELEMENT MODEL
A general-purpose finite element program ANSYS
(2016) was used to calculate the SCFs of both con-
ventional and bird-beak SHS X-joints. Solid ele-
ments (SOLID95) with 20 nodes and three degrees
of freedom for each node were used. Geometries
of fillet welds were accurately considered in FE
models. Considering the complexities of stress
distributions near the weld junction, the meshes in
these areas were refined. The element sizes within
the extrapolation regions were t/5 in length, which
is exactly consistent with the selected partitions of
extrapolation regions. The selected mesh-control-
ling parameters were validated by comparing to
the half-size refined meshes. Comparisons between
the numerical outputs and the experimental results
from Cheng (2014) also indicate the accuracy of
the FE models constructed.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1 Existing approaches
For the SCF calculation of X-shape conventional
SHS joint, the load case of asymmetrical brace
axial forces (i.e., unequal axial forces in two braces)
is commonly split into two load cases, that is,
the balanced symmetrical brace axial forces and
the single-side brace axial force. The SCF for-
mulae under symmetrical brace axial forces (i.e.,
load case X-BF) have been provided in CIDECT
fatigue design guide (2000). As for the single-side
brace axial force (i.e., load case X-BFa), it has also
been suggested in the guide that the stress concen-
trations are the combination of symmetrical axial
forces in the braces (i.e., load case X-BF) and reac-
tions induced in-plane bending in chord (i.e., load
case X-CIPB), as shown in Fig.  3. Here, the bal-
anced bending moments in load case X-CIPB are
taken as M  =  P (L0 - b1)/4. The SCF calculation
formula is written as the following:
Figure  3. Load case superposition of conventional
X-joint under single-side brace axial force.
(1) A1 ⋅ ( 0 − 1 ) ⋅ SCFF
SCF
FX- BFa = SCF
FX-BF + X-CIPB (1)
4W0
where SCFX-BF and SCFX-CIPB are the SCFs corre-
sponding to load case X-BF and X-CIPB; A1 = the
sectional area of the brace; and W0  =  the elastic
section modulus of the chord.
By employing the conventional X-joint with
non-dimensional parameters of β  =  0.6, 2γ  =  20,
τ  =  0.5, SCFs obtained from the FE model are
listed in Table  1, where SCFX-BFa, SCFX-BF, and
SCFX-CIPB corresponds to the load case X-BFa,
X-BF, and X-CIPB, respectively. The SCFs derived
from the above formula ( i , SCF ( )
FX- are also
BFa )
given in Table 1. It can be found that SCF ( )
FX-BFa are
only 3%-8% higher than SCFX-BFa for the hot spots
on the brace load side, which supports the applica-
bility of formula (1) in real structures.
Similar treatment was applied to the square
bird-beak X-joint with identical non-dimensional
parameters, and the correspondent results are
also pprovided in Table  2. It can be seen that the
( 1)
SCF FX- BFa / SCF
FX-BFa ratios vary between 0.61 and
1.71, indicating that the SCF errors caused by
existing formula (1) could be unacceptable for
square bird-beak joints.
4.2 Modified approaches
Actually, load case X-BFa should be the combina-
tion of load case X-BFam and load case X-CIPB,
as shown in Fig.  4. Load case X-BFam repre-
sents the effects of pure brace axial force since the
chord’s sectional moment at the crown location, as
induced by the support reactions, will be eliminated
when a pair of reversed in-plane moments M  = P
(L0 – b1)/4 has been applied at the chord ends.
Load case X-CIPB represents the effects of pure
chord bending as induced by the support reactions
in original load case X-BFa. Therefore, the SCF

Table 1. SCFs of conventional SHS X-joints under various load cases (β = 0.6, 2γ  = 20, τ = 0.5).

Hot spots on the brace load side Hot spots on the non-brace load side

Load case A B C D E A’ B’ C’ D’ E’

SCFX-BFa 8.21 12.84 14.38 15.29 6.90 1.40 −2.24 −4.96 −7.45 0.51
SCFX-BF 9.60 10.60 9.41 7.84 7.41 9.60 10.60 9.41 7.84 7.41
SCFX-CIPB −0.12 0.53 0.95 1.32 −0.02 0.12 −0.53 −0.95 −1.32 0.02
SCFX-BFam 8.94 9.67 8.66 7.30 7.02 0.67 0.94 0.76 0.54 0.39
( 1) 8.87 13.77 15.13 15.83 7.29 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
SCF
FX-BFa
( 1) 1.08 1.07 1.05 1.04 1.06 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
SCF
FX-BFa / SCF
FX-BFa
( 2) 8.21 12.84 14.38 15.29 6.90 1.40 −2.23 −4.96 −7.45 0.51
SCF
FX-BFa
( 2) 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
SCF
FX-BFa / SCF
FX-BFa

203
Table 2. SCFs of square bird-beak SHS X-joints under various load cases (β = 0.6, 2γ = 20, τ = 0.5).

Hot spots on the brace load side

Load case Cr-A Cr-B Cr-C Cr-F Sa-A Sa-B Sa-C Sa-D Sa-E Sa-F

SCFX-BFa 4.95 11.14 11.20 5.17 4.05 6.43 8.77 11.59 3.43 3.81
SCFX-BF 1.08 1.67 1.69 1.13 7.55 8.66 8.07 6.24 5.79 6.85
SCFX-CIPB 0.25 1.11 1.11 0.26 −0.07 0.09 0.41 0.90 −0.03 −0.05
SCFX-BFam 2.85 1.70 1.73 2.99 4.68 5.63 5.24 3.94 3.65 4.27
( 1)
SCF
FX-BFa 3.18 11.11 11.16 3.31 6.92 9.46 11.61 13.89 5.56 6.38
( 1)
SCF
FX-BFa / SCF
FX-BFa 0.64 1.00 1.00 0.64 1.71 1.47 1.32 1.20 1.62 1.68
( 2)
SCF
FX-BFa 4.95 11.14 11.20 5.17 4.05 6.43 8.77 11.59 3.43 3.81
( 2)
SCF
FX-BFa / SCF
FX-BFa 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Hot spots on the non-brace load side

Load case Cr-A’ Cr-B’ Cr-C’ Cr-F’ Sa-A’ Sa-B’ Sa-C’ Sa-D’ Sa-E’ Sa-F’

SCFX-BFa −3.87 −9.47 −9.51 −4.04 3.50 2.23 −0.70 −5.35 2.36 3.05
SCFX-BF 1.08 1.67 1.69 1.13 7.55 8.66 8.07 6.24 5.79 6.85
SCFX-CIPB −0.25 −1.11 −1.11 −0.26 0.07 −0.09 −0.41 −0.90 0.03 0.05
SCFX-BFam −1.76 −0.03 −0.04 −1.86 2.87 3.03 2.83 2.30 2.14 2.58
( 1)
SCF
FX-BFa N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
( 1)
SCF
FX-BFa / SCF
FX-BFa N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
( 2)
SCF
FX-BFa −3.86 −9.47 −9.51 −4.04 3.50 2.23 −0.70 −5.35 2.36 3.05
( 2)
SCF
FX-BFa / SCF
FX-BFa 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

Figure 4. Load case superposition of square bird-beak Figure 5. Composition of load case X-BF.
X-joint under single-side brace axial force.

superposition of square bird-beak X-joints under 4.3 X-BF v.s. X-BFam

single-side brace axial force should be modified to
be as the following: In formula (2), the effect of pure axial force in the
brace is represented by load case X-BFam instead
A1 ⋅ ( 0 − ) ⋅ SCFF of load case X-BF in formula (1). The differences
(2 ) 1
between two load cases can be further understood
SCF
FX- BFa = SCF
FX-BFam + X-CIPB (2)
4W0 since load case X-BF is actually the superposition
of load cases X-BFam and X-BFam’, as shown in
where SCFX-BFam are the SCFs corresponding to Fig. 5, where the SCFs at upside (i.e., brace load
load case X-BFam. side) hot spots under load case X-BFam’ are iden-
To verify the accuracy of the modified formula tical to the SCFs at symmetric downside (i.e., non-
(2), SCF comparisons of both square bird-beak brace load side) hot spots under load case X-BFam.
and conventional X-joints are also demonstrated In other words, for upside (i.e., brace load side) hot
( 2)
in Table 2. It is evident that SCF
FX- BFa at all speci-
spots, SCF differences between load case X-BF
fied hot spots, including the locations on the and load case X-BFam can be quantified as the
non-brace load side, are exactly equivalent to downside (i.e., non-brace load side) SCFs of load
SCFX-BFa. case X-BFam, whose values have been listed in

204
Table 2. It can be found that, for the conventional
joint, the SCFs on the non-brace load side (i.e.,
spots A’, B’, C’, D’, E’) under load case X-BFam
are fairly small when compared to the SCFs on
the brace load side. While for the square bird-beak
joint, data in Table 2 indicate that the SCFs on the
non-brace load side under load case X-BFam are
comparable to the SCFs on the brace load side,
which explains why formula (1) is not suitable for
square bird-beak X-joint under single-side brace
axial force due to remarkable errors.
4.4 Chord wall interactions
Fig.  6 further shows the deformations of middle
transverse sections of two joints. For the conven-
tional joint, the chord’s top flange, which directly
supports the compressed brace, deforms locally
and remarkably due to the flowing stresses from
brace walls, while the deformations of chord’s bot-
tom flange are fairly insignificant since most of
remaining flowing stresses or distortion energy
have been absorbed by the deformations of chord’s
web plates, as shown in Fig. 6(a). In other words,
the deformations of chord’s top flange will hardly
be transferred to the chord’s bottom flange due
to the existence of web plates between them, and
therefore the interactions between top and bottom
flanges of the chord are small to be neglected. The
situations are totally different for square bird-beak
joint. As shown in Fig. 6(b), the deformations of
chord’s right-top wall, as induced by the flowing
stresses from the axially loaded brace, will certainly
cause the distortion of chord’s right-bottom wall
since the two walls are directly connected to each
other by the right corner of the chord. As a result,
stress concentrations on the non-brace load side
are considerable since the deformations of chord’s
right-bottom wall will be definitely restrained by
the brace walls. The so-called interaction between
chord walls explains why stress concentrations
occur on the non-brace load side of square bird-
beak X-joints under load case X-BFam and why
Figure  6. Deformations of SHS X-joints under load
case X-BFam.
205
formula (1) is not suitable for square bird-beak
X-joints with unequal axial forces in two braces.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The existing superposition approach for the SCF
calculation of conventional X-joints under asym-
metrical brace axial forces, as provided in CIDECT
fatigue design guide, is found to be unsuitable for
square bird-beak X-joints. The reason was revealed
to be the interactions between chord walls with
investigation into deformations of joints. By intro-
ducing a new load case X-BFam considering both
single-side brace axial force and reversed chord in-
plane bending, a modified superposition formula
was proposed for the SCF calculation of square
bird-beak X-joints under asymmetrical brace axial
forces.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research work was sponsored by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 51678359).
The supports are gratefully acknowledged.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Punching shear behaviour and design of an innovative connection

between steel tubular column to flat concrete slab

J.L. Yu & Y.C. Wang

School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the results of an experimental and numerical investigation into the
punching shear behaviour of a simple and effective method of connection between steel tubular columns
and concrete flat slabs using welded shear studs. These studies have investigated the effects on punching shear
behaviour and resistance of the proposed shear connection system under different design variables including
concrete depth above the shear stud, concrete compressive strength, concrete tensile strength, and shear stud
dimensions (length and diameter). The results indicate that the punching shear resistance of the proposed
connection system is directly affected by concrete tensile strength rather than concrete compressive strength.
An existing method has been modified accordingly. A series of numerical simulations of steel column-
concrete flat slab assembly were carried out and the results indicate that it is possible to use the proposed
simple connection system to provide sufficient punching shear resistance in realistic flat slab construction.

1 INTRODUCTION
Flat slabs do not have beams and are directly sup-
ported on columns with/without caps. Owing to their
simplicity, both for construction and for use, they
are preferred in short to medium span residential
and office buildings as well as for parking garages.
In the current flat slab construction, the slabs and
columns are made from reinforced concrete (RC).
However, the idea of replacing RC columns by steel
tubular columns (with or without concrete) was pre-
sented by Yan & Wang (2011, 2014, 2016), owing to
many distinctive advantages of using steel tubes over
RC columns: fast construction, small footprint and
superior structural performance.
The obstacle preventing steel tubes from being
used in flat slab construction is the lack of natural
punching shear resistance, because of the smooth
finish of the external surface of the tubes. There-
fore, a few research studies have been carried out
to investigate using mechanical systems to develop
punching shear resistance. Cheol-Ho Lee (2008) has
proposed one shearhead system in which the steel
tube is continuous through the slab and very short
lengths of I-sections are welded to the steel tube.
Yan & Wang (2011,2014,2016) have proposed one
shear-head system where the steel tube is cut to floor
height. A slot is then cut at the top of the tube to fit
the shearhead system. These shearhead systems can
deliver very high punching shear resistance, but they
are complex and expensive to fabricate.
The aim of this research is to develop a new
connection method between steel tubular columns
and flat slabs using shear studs welded around the
column, as illustrated in Figure 1. In this system:
simple shear studs are welded around the col-
umn. This new connection method has significant
advantages by making the construction simple and
reducing construction time.
A major issue is the limited amount of concrete
in the flat slab in the punching shear force direc-
tion (the flat slab thickness direction). This would
prevent the shear studs from reaching their full
capacity compared with the situation in composite
beams where there is unlimited amount of con-
crete available to develop full shear resistance of
the shear stud. The aim of this research is to prove
that this new steel tubular column-flat concrete slab
system is able to provide sufficient punching shear
resistance for the construction in mind through a
programme of experimental and numerical para-
metric study, and to develop a design method for
practical use. It should be appreciated that the real-
istic steel tube-slab construction will have different,
Figure 1. Arrangement of shear studs in the new steel
tube-flat slab shear connector system.

207
and more complex, connection arrangement. This Table  1. Main parameters of the experiment
paper focuses on steel stud push-out behavior to programme.
ensure thorough understanding of the problem and
comprehensive validation of the numerical model- Concrete Concrete depth above Shear stud size
No grade shear stud (mm) (mm)
ling method.
1 C40 100 19 × 100
2 C20 100 19 × 100
2 EXPERIMENT INVESTIGATION 3 C60 100 19 × 100
AND RESULTS 4 C40 75 19 × 100
5 C40 40 19 × 100
2.1 Test specimens 6 C40 100 19 × 150
Push-out test was used to investigate punching 7 C40 100 25 × 100
shear behaviour of the proposed new shear connec-
tion system. Figure 2 shows the authors’ push-out
test arrangement. In this arrangement, two shear Table  2. Experimental concrete mechanical properties
studs were welded on the two opposite surfaces and comparison with EC2 tensile strength.
of the steel tube, which was located between two
Measured Measured Concrete tensile
concrete blocks. Due to time and cost constraint, a concrete cylinder concrete tensile strength
total of only 7 tests were carried out to investigate compressive strength according to
the effects of changing the following three varia- No strength (N/mm2) (N/mm2) EC2 (N/mm2)
bles: depth of concrete engaged in punching shear
resistance (depth of concrete above the shear studs 1 40 2.3 2.5
in the test arrangement: 100 mm, 75 mm, 40 mm), 2 28 1.9 1.9
concrete grade (C20, C40, C60) and shear connec- 3 50 2.7 2.9
tor dimensions (19  ×  100  mm, 19  ×  150  mm and 4 38 2.5 2.4
25 × 100 mm). The width and length of the con- 5 45 2.7 2.7
crete blocks were adapted depending on the size 6 46 2.5 2.7
of the shear studs being investigated. Table 1 sum- 7 43 2.5 2.6
marises the key test parameters.

specimens and tested on the day of the specimen

2.2 Material property
For each concrete mix, three concrete cylinder spec-
imens and three dog-bone specimens were prepared
at the time of casting the push-out specimens. These
concrete specimens were cured alongside the push-out
test. Table 2 lists the concrete mechanical properties
for the test specimens. Also provided in Table 2 are
the concrete tensile strength values calculated from
the measured compressive cylinder strength using the
following EC2 (CEN 2004) relationship:

ft fc2k/3 ( fck C )
⎛ ⎛ f + 8⎞ ⎞ (1)
ft = 0.7 ⋅ 2.12⋅ l 1+ ⎜ ck
⎝ ⎝ 10 ⎟⎠ ⎟⎠
( > )

where fck is the concrete cylinder compressive

strength.
Table  2  shows that the calculated direct tensile
strengths using the above EC2 equation are in
good agreement with the measured concrete ten-
sile strengths.
The nominal grade of the steel tubes was 355
N/mm2. However, no mechanical property test of the
steel tube was carried out because it was assumed,
and observed, that failure of the shear connector was
due to concrete and the steel behaved elastically.

2.3 Experiment observation and results

Figure  2. Arrangement and dimensions of push-out All test specimens behaved and failed in a similar
test. manner. An inclined crack appeared roughly when

208
 the applied load reached about 90% of the peak
load. The crack propagated from the centre of the
shear stud towards the edge of the concrete block
at about 35  degree with respect to the top edge.
Then the crack increased rapidly in width until the
applied load reached the peak value. Afterwards,
the crack width kept increasing while the applied
load decreased. Figure 3 shows a half-cone shaped
breakout of the concrete block after reaching the
peak load.
Figure  4 Compares the recorded load-
displacement curves for different test parameters.
In all cases, the proposed connection system dis-
Figure 3. Failure pattern of concrete. played ductile behaviour, with a prolonged unload-
ing branch after reaching the peak load. Figure 4(a)
shows that the peak punching shear load increased
with increasing concrete grade. The concrete grade
increased from C20 to C60, but the punching shear
resistance of C60 concrete is only 35% higher than
that of C20 concrete. This 35% increase is similar
to the 35% increase in concrete tensile strength
from C20 and C60 concrete according to the
results in Table 2. Figure 4(b) shows that the ulti-
mate load increased with increasing concrete depth
above the shear stud. This is expected because this
parameter determines the size of the concrete fail-
ure cone surface. Figure  4(c) shows that increas-
ing the length and diameter of the shear stud only
slightly increased the peak punching shear load.

3 VALIDATION OF THE FINITE

ELEMENT MODEL

Test 1 was used to illustrate validity of the devel-

oped finite element model.
In this research, the general finite element pack-
age ABAQUS was used to numerically model the
punching shear behaviour of shear stud in pro-
posed system. A typical finite element model is
shown in Figure 5(a). To allow faithful modelling,

Figure 4. Comparison for measured load-displacement Figure  5. Finite element model of push-out test
curves. specimen.

209
all components of the push-out test specimens were
represented in the numerical model. A concen-
trated load was applied through a reference point
coupled to the bottom face of the steel tube. Due
to symmetry in load and geometry, only a quarter
of the specimen was modelled, which consisted of
half of one shear stud, half of one concrete block
and a quarter of the steel tube. Figure  5(a) and
5(b) show the loading conditions of the numerical
model of a specimen and the finite element mesh,
where C3D8 solid elements were used for all com-
ponent of the finite element mesh.
Table  3 compares the load-displacement rela-
tionships between the experimental and simula-
tion results for all 7 test specimens. The simulation
results using the measured compressive and tensile
strengths of concrete are in very good agreement
with test results. Comparison between this set of
simulation results and the test results of peak punch-
ing shear load in Table 4 shows an average difference
of 3.6% and the maximum difference of less than
10%. This validates the finite element model.

Table 3. Comparison of ultimate loads between simula-

tions and tests of authors. Figure 6. Comparison of post peak crack patterns from
test and simulation, Test 1.
Simulation using measured
Test concrete tensile strength (kN)
No (kN) (simulation/test) Figure  6 compares one example of the experi-
mental and simulation crack patterns. Both show
1 34.0 35.5 (1.044) a half-cone shaped breakout of concrete propa-
2 30.7 30.8 (1.003) gating from the shear stud position towards the
3 40.5 41.4 (1.022) concrete edge. In the test, the fracture crack angle
4 24.0 23.2 (0.967) with respect to the top edge is about 350. For visu-
5 11.7 10.9 (0.932) alisation of the crack surface from the numerical
6 39.1 40.9 (1.046) model, the concept of an effective crack direction
7 37.9 39.3 (1.037)
can be used. Lubliner et  al. (1989) assumed that
crack initiates at points where the tensile equiva-
lent plastic strain (PEEQT in ABAQUS) is larger
Table  4. Effect of concrete tensile and compressive than zero and the maximum principal plastic strain
strength on the punching shear resistance (100 mm con- (PE, Max, Principal in ABAQUS) is positive. This
crete depth and 19 × 100 mm shear stud size). visualisation exhibits the crack angle from the
numerical model to be about 350 as shown in Fig-
Concrete cube CCD ure 6(b), which is in agreement with the test result.
Concrete tensile compressive Simulation design
strength strength load load
(N/mm2) (N/mm2) (kN) (kN)
4 ASSESSMENT AND MODIFICATION
1.5 50 25.9 43.0 OF AN ANALYTICAL METHOD
2.0 50 31.6 43.0
2.5 50 38.2 43.0 4.1 Numerical parametric simulations
2.9 50 46.5 43.0
The ABAQUS model has been used to investigate
3.1 50 49.4 43.0
the effects of systematically changing different
2.5 25 36.5 30.4
design parameters on punching shear resistance.
2.5 37 37.2 37.0
Referring to Figure 7 which shows the shear con-
2.5 50 38.2 43.0
nection system under consideration, the investi-
2.5 60 39.1 47.1
2.5 75 40.3 52.6
gated design parameters are: concrete compressive
strength, concrete tensile strength, concrete edge

210

Figure 7. Shear connector system under consideration.
distance (c in Fig. 7, measured from the shear stud
centre to the concrete top edge), shear stud dimen-
sions (length L and diameter d).
The parametric study is divided into 2  series.
Series 1 simulations investigate the effects of chang-
ing concrete grade and dimensions (c, L, d). In these
simulations, the concrete tensile strength is calculated
based on the EC2  material model (Equation  1). In
Series 2 simulations, the concrete tensile strength and
compressive strength are changed independently.
Firstly, the concrete tensile strength is changed while
keep the same concrete compressive strength. Sec-
ondly, the concrete compressive strength is changed
while keep the same concrete tensile strength.
4.2 Simplified calculation method
In existing design, the Concrete Capacity Method
(CCD) is used to calculate the punching shear
resistance. The CCD method was developed by
Fuchs et  al. (1995) for anchors to concrete. The
failure mode is formation of a half-cone shaped
fracture surface that propagates from the anchor
position towards the edge of the concrete block
as shown in Figure  8. The inclination between
the fracture surface and concrete edge surface is
35 degree. The failure load is the sum of the con-
crete tensile force distributed on the concrete fail-
ure surface.
The punching shear resistance is calculated
using the following equation:
0.2
⎛ L⎞
Vno = ⎜ ⎟ ⋅ d fcc ⋅ c1.5 (2)
⎝d⎠
where referring to Figure 8:
fcc is concrete cube compressive strength
(N/mm2)
211
Figure 8. Concrete half-cone fracture in a single anchor
in concrete under shear load towards the free edge (Fuchs
et al. 1995).
d is the outside diameter of the anchor or shank
diameter of the headed stud (mm), d ≤ 25 mm
c is the edge distance measured from the centre
of the anchor to the face of the concrete edge
L is the length of anchorage stud (mm)
L/d ≤8
fcc accounts for the direct influence of con-
crete tensile strength, see Equation 1.
The punching shear capacity is proportional to
c1.5 rather than the fracture cone surface area c2.
This is to account for non-uniform tensile stress
distribution over the fracture surface. It applies
not only to the anchorage and shear stud problems
investigated in this paper, but also more generally
to concrete under tensile stress as exemplified by
punching shear resistance of flat slab and shear
resistance in beams without shear reinforcement.
The size effect law was proposed and verified with
fracture mechanics in a general sense by Bazant
(1984,1987), and for fastening systems by Elige-
hausen et al., (1991,1992) and Ozbolt (1995).
4.3 Assessment of CCD (Concrete Capacity
Design) method
In general, the CCD method gives reasonably close
results to the simulation results, particularly if the
tensile strength of concrete is calculated based
on the compression strength of concrete accord-
ing to equation 1. However, it is observed in Fig-
ure  9 that with increasing shear stud diameter,
the results of CCD method show larger increases
than the simulation results. This indicates that the
power of shear stud diameter in the CCD equation
(equation 2) is too high. In addition, if the tensile
strength of concrete is different from the relation-
ship in equation 1, as highlighted in Table  4, the
CCD calculation method can give quite different
Figure 9. Effect of shear stud diameter on the punching
shear resistance (C40 concrete grade, 100  mm concrete
depth and 100 mm shear stud length).

results from the simulation results. In fact, since

the failure mode is due to concrete cracking, the
tensile strength of concrete should be directly used
in the calculation method.

4.4 Modifications to CCD method

To reduce the dependency of punching shear resist-
ance on shear stud diameter and to relate punching
shear resistance directly with the tensile strength of
concrete, a nonlinear regressive analysis was per-
formed and the following modified relationship is
obtained:
0.2
⎛ 1⎞
Vno = 2.4 ⎜ ⎟ ⋅ d 0 35 ft ⋅ c1.6 (3)
⎝ d⎠

The regressive analysis also suggests that the

power of concrete depth engaged in punch-
ing shear resistance should increase from 1.5 to
1.6. Comparison among the simulation results
and the prediction results using equation (3) in
Figure 10 shows great accuracy.
In particular, Figure 11 compares the effects of
changing shear stud diameter. Compared with CCD
equation, the proposed modification significantly
improves accuracy of the calculation method.

5 BEHAVIOUR OF STEEL COLUMN-

CONCRETE SLAB CONNECTION

The previous sections have investigated individual

shear connector behavior. A further parametric
study was carried out to investigate how the shear
connection resistance may be affected by the spac- Figure 10. Comparison of modified calculation results
ing between shear studs in possible practical struc- of punching shear resistance with simulation results.

212
 resist the applied load in the column. However,
insufficient spacing between the two shear studs
on each side may prevent full development of the
individual punching shear resistance of each shear
stud. The investigated design parameters are the
spacing between shear studs (L) as a ratio of the
concrete depth above the shear studs (C).
Tables  5 and 6 present results for two differ-
ent depths of concrete above the shear studs,
C  =  75  mm and C  =  100  mm respectively.
The square tube widths are both 400 mm. A shear
stud spacing to concrete depth ratio of 4 is neces-
sary to ensure complete development of punching
shear resistance of each individual shear stud.
This is a direct result of the fracture surface at
Figure 11. Comparison of modified calculation results
of punching shear resistance with simulation results (C40
35 degree to the slab surface (Figure 8). The results
concrete grade, 100  mm concrete depth and 100  mm in Table  5  show that even when the stud spacing
shear stud length). to concrete depth ratio is 2.67, it is still possible
to develop near full strength of individual shear
studs. However, this is on the condition that there
is sufficient space between the shear studs around
the corners of the tube to allow each shear stud to
fully develop the associated concrete fracture cone.
Otherwise, as shown by the results in Table 6 where
the distance between two shear studs around each
corner is only 70 mm when the shear stud spacing
to concrete depth ratio is 3, the shear studs cannot
develop the complete concrete fracture cone.
Figure 12. Steel column-concrete flat slab connection. Nevertheless, even if the individual shear stud
capacity cannot be developed, it is still possible for
the proposed connection system to develop suf-
Table  5. Effects of shear stud spacing on punching
shear resistance (C40 concrete grade, 75  mm concrete ficient punching shear resistance. For example,
depth and 19 × 100 mm shear stud size). Table  6  shows that when the stud spacing to con-
crete depth ratio is 2, the punching shear resistance
No Arrangement L L/C Load on each side can reach 63.5 kN. Consider a flat slab
of 120  mm (so that it would be able to provide a
1 Single stud 24.1 concrete depth of 100 mm for punching shear resist-
2 Double studs 50 0.67 29.3 ance) in residential construction. The characteris-
3 Double studs 100 1.33 33.5 tics dead and live loads are 3.5 kN/m2 (3 + 0.5) and
4 Double studs 200 2.67 47.2 3  kN/m2 (2.5 + 0.5) respectively. The total design
5 Double studs 300 4 47.9 load is 1.35 × 3.5+1.5 × 3 = 9.225 kN/m2. The total
punching shear resistance is 4 × 63.5 = 254 kN. This
is sufficient to support a total slab area of 27.5 m2,
Table 6. Effects shear stud spacing on punching shear equivalent to a flat slab construction on 5 m × 5 m
resistance (C40 concrete grade, 100  mm concrete depth
or 4 m × 6 m.
and 19 × 100 mm shear stud size).

No Arrangement L L/C Load

6 CONCLUSIONS
1 Single stud 40.3
2 Double studs 50 0.5 41.1 This paper has reported the results of an experi-
3 Double studs 100 1 47.9 mental programme on the punching shear behav-
4 Double studs 200 2 52.9 iour and resistance of a new steel tube-flat concrete
5 Double studs 300 3 63.5 slab connection using shear studs. The experimen-
tal results were then used to validate a numerical
simulation model using ABAQUS. The validated
tures. Refer to Figure  12 which shows the shear simulation model was used to conduct two series
connection system under consideration. Using of parametric investigations, one to examine the
2  shear studs per side of the tube is necessary to effects of varying a number of design parameters

213
on individual shear studs, and one to investigate a
complete flat slab-tubular column assembly. In all
the tests and numerical simulation models, the fail-
ure mode for one shear study is concrete fracture
into a half-cone shape from the centre of the shear
stud to the surface of the concrete block. The incli-
nation between the failure surface and concrete
edge surface is about 35  degree. The main trends
of punching shear resistance variation with chang-
ing various design parameter are:
1. The punching shear resistance of the new
connection system increases with increasing
concrete grade, concrete depth above shear
stud, and shear connector length and diameter.
2. The punching shear resistance of the new con-
nection system is directly dependent on the ten-
sile strength of concrete.
The parametric study results were used to assess
the CCD calculation method originally proposed
by Fuchs & Eligehausen (1995). The results of this
comparison indicate that the CCD method can be
used as the basis of a design method for calculating
punching shear resistance of the proposed system,
but the following modifications are necessary:
1. The punching shear resistance of the new con-
nection system is directly dependent on the
tensile strength of concrete. Instead of using
concrete compressive strength as an indirect
measure of concrete tensile strength, the con-
crete tensile strength should be explicitly used.
2. The influence of shear stud diameter is not as
great as in the original CCD equation and it is
proposed that the power of shear stud diameter
in this equation be decreased from 0.5 to 0.35.
3. The concrete depth engaged in punching shear
resistance has a higher effect then in the original
CCD equation and this research suggests that
the power of concrete depth should be increased
from 1.5 to 1.6.
The modified calculation method is considered
to be accurate, with an average ratio of calculation/
simulation punching shear resistance of 0.972 and
standard deviation of 0.075, compared to an aver-
age of 1.200 and standard deviation of 0.060 if the
CCD method is used.
A series of steel column-concrete flat slab simu-
lation were carried out. The results indicate that
using the proposed simple shear connection system
can provide sufficient punching shear resistance in
realistic residential flat slab construction.
214
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was partially funded by CIDECT,
through project 4G “flat slabs to tubular columns”.
Dan Hudson of Severfield Ltd arranged for the
shear studs to be welded to the steel tubes.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Laser tube cutting—Comparison of new types of K-joints and their

SCF with standard solutions

S. Herion, O. Fleischer & J. Hrabowski

Center of Competence for Tubes and Hollow Sections (CCTH), Karlsruhe, Germany

S. Raso & A. Valli

Adige-sys spa, Levico Terme, Italy

A. Mastropasqua & E. Bononi

MZA MONACO sarl, Monaco

ABSTRACT: The recent developments in tubular laser cutting technologies provide a fast and very
precise solution by combining several different steps—as 3D geometrical control of the beveled surface,
laser-beam inclination, laser-beam power—in one operation cycle. Examples of joints and cuts by laser
technology give an insight into what is possible. New types of K-joints made of rectangular hollow sec-
tions using different kind of gusset plates which make use of the advantages of laser cutting are in the
focus of this investigation here. In a first step the resulting stress concentration factors SCF of classical
K-joints with gap and without gusset plates are compared with new innovative joint geometries. For this
comparison Finite element analysis is used.

1 INTRODUCTION a beam path that delivers the laser to a movable

If the end preparations of members of structural
steel hollow section joints do not match exactly, the
number of discontinuities increases. These discon-
tinuities have a negative influence on the fatigue
behavior due to additional notch effects which
interact with the geometrical stress concentrations.
To fabricate exactly compatible parts for a joint,
new laser tube cutting technologies provide a fast
and very precise solution by combining several
different steps—as 3D geometrical control of the
beveled surface, laser-beam inclination, laser-beam
power—in one operation cycle.
In addition to that new possibilities of introducing
gusset plates are possible now. This paper presents
some first results of Finite Element based prelimi-
nary studies about the impact of special gusset plates
on the stress concentrations of RHS K-joints.
2 LASER TUBE CUTTING
2.1 General
Laser cutting technology is widely used for sheet
metal machining since late seventies. In 1987 Adige
introduced the first laser system designed for tube
cutting. The typical architecture of a laser system
is made by a laser source, normally stationary and
focusing head. Cutting operations are a conse-
quence of a relative movement of the focusing
head with respect to the material to be machined.
In the most common sheet metal laser machines,
plate is stationary and just the focusing head is
moving, thus the definition “flying optics”. In
tube laser cutting systems machining comes from a
movement either of the focusing head and the bar.
Tube cutting systems are often able to cut not only
tubes but also differently shaped hollow sections or
profiles, such as I-beams, angulars or U-beams.
Laser cutting requires an assist gas that flows
coaxially to the laser beam which can be low pres-
sure oxygen (oxidation cutting) or high pressure
nitrogen (fusion cutting).
2.2 Cutting process
In oxygen cutting, used for carbon steel, the oxy-
gen reaction with the material heated by the laser
beam (exothermic reaction) results in a tempera-
ture increase that contributes to melting and cut-
ting process.
In fusion cutting, used for stainless steel and
aluminum, the material is melted only by the ther-
mal contribution of the laser beam and high pres-
sure inert gas ejects the melted material.
With oxygen cutting, due to double energy con-
tribution from laser and oxygen, high thicknesses

215

Figure 1. Laser cutting end-machining.
may be machined, up to 20–25  mm with a laser
power less than 5 kW. Fusion cutting requires more
power and a 5 kW laser can hardly cut up to 15 mm.
Oxygen cutting leaves a thin layer of oxide on
the cutting edge and generally the heat affected
zone, i.e. the area near the cut edge where metal-
lurgical properties of the material are affected and
modified by the thermal process, is larger com-
pared to fusion cutting.
Fusion cutting if often named as “clean cut”,
due to the lack of any oxide layer, and for that rea-
son is widely used also for carbon steel, with severe
thickness limitation. Fusion cut of carbon steel
with a 5 kW laser is hardly possible up to 8 mm.
Cutting process is affected by several param-
eters: laser power level, pulse mode, focal length of
the focusing optic, position of the focal point, gas
pressure and relative feed rate.
Cutting parameters are slightly affected by
mechanical proprieties of the material: as an exam-
ple nearly same parameters may be used to cut S355
or S700 carbon steel. Parameters are more affected
by the surface aspect of the material; a rusty sur-
face requires in general a reduction of laser power
and feed rate.
2.3 Laser development
Until ten years ago, CO2 laser were definitely the
most used technology in material processing, nearly
the only one. In a CO2 laser source, the radiation is
generated in a gas medium and the collimated beam
is guided to the focusing optics by mirrors. The
wavelength is 10.6 μm and when focused it is well
absorbed by carbon and stainless steel. By some
aluminum alloys only partially absorption occurt;
the laser beam is reflected by most aluminum alloys;
copper and brass. The power level of CO2 laser for
cutting applications ranges from 2 to 6 kW.
In the last years high power solid state laser
have been developed: disk laser, where radiation
216
is generated in a disk shaped gain medium (crys-
tal doped with neodymium and/or ytterbium), or
fiber laser, where radiation is generated in a doped
optical fiber. In both cases the wave length is
1,06–1,08 μm. The and laser beam is guided to the
collimating and focusing optics by a thin fiber.
Fiber and disk laser technologies have several
advantages: fiber delivery is less complex than mir-
ror delivery; plug efficiency is much larger; laser
beam can be better focused, thus the definition of
high brilliance laser; shorter wavelength is better
absorbed by most materials, also by all aluminum
alloys, brass and copper; fiber and disk laser tech-
nology are more scalable, without relevant reduc-
tion of the brilliance. Disadvantages are safety
issues due to greater sensitivity of the eye to shorter
wavelength and lower performances in high thick-
ness cutting.
At the state of art, industrial applications of
disk or fiber laser are in the range 1 to 8 kW, but
there already examples of more powerful laser up
to 12 kW, and the technology is rapidly developing.
Disk or fiber laser are widely used in sheet metal
machining, mainly for small thickness, due to
energy saving and better performance achievable.
In tube cutting safety issues, i.e. full segregation
of working volume, are more demanding, so CO2
lasers are generally preferred for this application.
2.4 Application examples for fiber lasers
As already mentioned fiber lasers are very flex-
ible in use and together with a powerful handling
system nearly all kind of geometries can be cut
into hollow section with high speed and very high
accuracy.
As can be seen in Figure  2 new possibilities
can be realized by laser cutting which is not pos-
sible in same accuracy and speed by other cutting
technologies.
It is even possible to cut holes or small slots
only in one side of the hollow sections without
any negative influence from the cutting proc-
ess. This opens the way for the development of
several new types of connections. With special
regard to fatigue, the Laser cutting process pre-
vents that drops of melted steel are falling on the
other (inner) side of the hollow sections. Using
e.g. plasma cutting methods these drops cannot be
avoided and are always a potential starting point
for fatigue cracks. Further, especially when only
small slots are cut in one side of the CHS or RHS,
drops like that cannot be removed from the inside
of the sections as it is normally done for open sec-
tions or plates.
Some of the new types of connections for
K-joints with gap and their advantages in case of
fatigue are shown in the following paragraphs.
 K07: Rectangular gusset plate stuck into the chord
K08: Shaped gusset plate stuck into the chord
K09: Extra shaped gusset plate stuck into the chord
As a basis a RHS K-joint with sections b0 × h0
× t0  =  300  ×  300  ×  20  mm, and brace section bi  ×
hi × ti = 200 × 200 × 20 mm is used. The brace incli-
nation is θi = 45° for all joints and the theoretical gap
of g = 100 mm is chosen; see Herion et al. (2014).
The gusset plate is in general l = 1000 mm long
and t = 20 mm thick and centered in the symme-
try axis of the joint. The height is h = 300 mm for
joint K02 and K06 with gusset plates welded on
the chord, see Figures 3 and 4.
For joint configurations K07 and K08 with gus-
set plates stuck into the chord, the total height of
the plate is h = 620 mm, see Figure 5.
Additionally, a configuration with an extra
shaped gusset plate with various corners and fillets
has been designed, see Figure 6.

3.3 Procedure
The numerical modelling of the joints is carried out
analogical to Herion et al. (2014). The response of
the numerical model is linear only and therefore a
linear material behavior with a modulus of elasticity
of E = 2.1⋅105 N/mm2 and a Poisson’s ratio of ν = 0.3

Figure 2. Application examples for laser technology.

3 RHS K-JOINTS WITH GUSSET PLATE

3.1 Introduction
In lattice girder design joints are sometimes rein- Figure 3. K-joints with rectangular gusset plate on the
forced by a gusset plate either to stiffen the joints chord (K02).
or due to considerations concerning production.
Herion et al. (2014) have shown that a gusset plate
is also a good possibility to transfer the stresses out
of the usually highly stressed gap region. Based on
the possibilities offered by laser cutting techniques,
in a preliminary study different designs of K-joints
with welded gusset plates are investigated concern-
ing the fatigue behavior.

3.2 Joint geometry

Within this study following different K-joint
designs are investigated:
K01: Classical K-joint with gap
K02: Rectangular gusset plate on the chord Figure  4. K-joints with shaped gusset plate on the
K06: Shaped gusset plate on the chord chord (K06).

217

Figure 5. K-joints with shaped gusset plate stuck into
the chord (K08), transverse cut.
Figure 6. K-joints with extra shaped gusset plate stuck
into the chord (K09), longitudinal cut.
is applied to the chord, the braces and the welds.
Geometric non-linearity is not taken into account.
In the numerical model generally first-order
(linear) hexahedra solid elements with reduced
integration, in the ABAQUS element library these
elements called C3D8R, are used. The verification
of the numerical model is already carried out in
Herion et al. (2014).
To prevent a rotation of the joints which results
in deflections out of the connection plane, the rota-
tion of the supports is generally fixed along the local
x- and the local y-axis. Additionally, the deflections
of the supports are fixed in the local z-directions.
Within the shown finite element analysis (FEA)
three different load cases have been considered:
Axial loading of the braces and in-plane bending
moments (IPB) on the braces either in concordant
or inverse direction, see Table  1. For symmetrical
218
Table 1. Static system for axially and in-plane-bending
loaded joints.
Table 2. Extrapolation region for RHS-joints according
to Zhao et al. (2001).
RHS – RHS K-joints with t0 = t1 = 20 mm
distance from
weld toe chord brace
Lr,min 0.4 · t0 ≥ 4 mm = 0.4 · t1 ≥ mm =
8 mm 8 mm
Lr,min Lr,min + t0 = 28 mm Lr,min + t1 = 20 mm
joints the two different directions of the inverse
moments result in either tension or compression at
the heel or toe, but the same absolute value for the
SCF. So the two pictures for inversely in-plane bend-
ing moments are considered in load case 2 (LC2).
For joints under axial loading, the rotation along
the local z-axis (in member direction) is always
admitted, thus no end moments occur neither in the
braces nor in the chord. At the load introduction,
where the deflection of the local x-axis has to be
admitted in order to apply the load, the deflections
of the supports are fixed in local y- and z-direction.
For joints loaded by in-plane-bending, the sup-
port of the chord is completely restrained, but due
to equilibrium of forces and moments, no reaction
forces or moments occur.
The hot spot stress is determined by quadratic
extrapolation; see Herion et al. (2014). Therefore, the
stress component perpendicular to the weld within
the extrapolation region given in Table 2 is used.
This is done at different positions, as shown in
Figure 7. Due to the plate, the hot spots in the gap
region drop out and the hot spots are no longer
Figure 7. Locations of the hot spots.

in the edge region of the RHS but at the weld toe

at the edge of the gusset plate. The SCFs at the
braces at the positions E and F are determined at
the brace toe and heel. Altogether, 6 hot-spots have
to be considered per joint.
The SCFs at the weld are then obtained by the
ratio between the structural stresses and the nomi-
nal stresses in the member where loads are applied
(Zhao et al., 2001; ISO 1437, 2008; Hobbacher,
2008), see equ. (1).

σ
r, hs
C =
SCF (1)
σ
nom

3.4 Evaluation
3.4.1 Axial brace loads
In Figure  8 the von Mises stresses are shown for
the joint configurations K02 with rectangular
gusset plate and K06 with a shaped gusset plate
welded on the chord. For classical RHS joints
without plates the hot spots usually are located in
the edge region of the braces. With the gusset plate
in the center of the joint, the critical spots now
are in the longitudinal symmetry axis of the joint
(z-axis) at the fillet weld toe of the gusset plate, see
Figure 8. For all joints the maximum SCFs occur
at position D for the chord and at position E for
the braces depending on load case either at the heel
or at the toe.
For joint K06 the unstressed region in the mid-
dle of the rectangular gusset plate of joint K02
is rounded off. The comparison of the von Mises
stresses in Figure 8 shows smaller stresses for K06
at the weld toe at the braces, but an increase of the
stresses in the gusset plate. Generally, the notch at
a weld is more critical than the corner of the gusset
plate. In particular cases also a thicker gusset plate
or a slightly modified shape of the plate can reduce
the stresses in the gusset plate.
Figure  8. K02 and K06, axial brace load, von Mises
stresses.
The illustration of the von Mises stresses of
joint K09 with an extra shaped gusset plate stuck
into the chord (see Figure 9) shows an even stress
distribution with considerably smaller stresses for
axial loaded braces.
In Table  3 the results of the FEA for K-joints
with balanced axial loads on the braces are summa-
rized. As a reference the stress concentration fac-
tors calculated with the formulae given in CIDECT
DG 8 (Zhao et al., 2001) are given. These formu-
lae are valid for the presented joints configuration
K01. A comparative FEA of a K-joint with chords
300 × 300 × 20 mm and braces 200 × 200 × 20 mm
without gusset plate leads to smaller SCFs than the
CIDECT formula. So for the given dimension the
CIDECT formula is conservative. The SCFs deter-
mined by FEA for joint K01 are taken as a refer-
ence for further comparisons.
Stress concentrations at the chord for K-joints
with gusset plates welded on the chord (K02 &
K06) are decisively smaller than for directly welded

219
 joint without gusset plate. On the other hand the
stress concentration in the braces rises to a SCF
of 3.9 (K07). If the gusset plate is extra shaped
as shown in Figure  9 for joint type K09, so that
the transition from the gusset plate to the braces
is smooth, the reduction of the chord SCF is 38%
and 97% for the SCF at the braces.
Under axial forces on the braces the joint K06
with a shaped gusset plate welded on the chord
performs already well. A serious reduction of the
stress concentrations in the chord results from a
gusset plate which is stuck through the chord and
welded on the backside of the chord. An optimum
for both, chord and brace SCFS is reached by a
plate which is adapted to the joint, so that the tran-
sitions from the plate to the members are smooth.

3.4.2 In-plane bending moments on the braces

As explained before, the same joints are also inves-
tigated under concordant and inverse in-plane
bending moments, see Table 1.
The calculated SCFs are summarized in Table 4.
In the CIDECT design guide (Zhao et al., 2001)
no recommendations for K-joints under in-plane
bending exist. So the basis for comparison is the
FEA of the classical K-joint K01.
SCFs determined by FEA for a directly welded
RHS K-joint (K01) under concordant moments
are with 2.6 (chord) and 2.5 (braces) already small.
Inversely oriented moments cause nearly the same
SCFs with 2.6 for the chords and 2.7 for the braces.
Figure 9. K09, axial brace load, von Mises stresses.
Gusset plates welded on the chord result in
higher SCFs for the chords under concordant
IPB and smaller SCFs under inverse IPB while the
Table  3. Stress concentration factors (SCF) for axial SCFs at the braces are only slightly smaller (K02
brace loading. and K06). Figure  10 shows joints K02 with rec-
Chord Brace
tangular gusset plate welded in the chord and K07
with rectangular gusset plate stuck through the
Joint SCF Percent SCF Percent chord under inverse in-plane bending moments.
Here, the chord ends of the plate are unloaded and
K 01 CIDECT* 5.8 129% 3.6 116% the load transfer runs directly through the gap and
K 01 FEA 4.5 100% 3.1 100% the gusset plate. The through going plate at joint
K 02 FEA 2.5 56% 3.6 116%
K 06 FEA 2.5 56% 2.9 93%
K 07 FEA 1.5 33% 3.9 126% Table 4. Stress concentration factors (SCF) for in-plane
K 08 FEA 2.0 44% 3.1 100% bending (IPB).
K 09 FEA 1.7 38% 3.0 97%
Concordant IPB Inverse IPB
*Calculated with CIDECT formula for RHS K-joints. Joint Chord Brace Chord Brace

joints (K01). The stress concentration at the braces K 01 CIDECT* no no no no

is advantageous for a shaped gusset plate with a K 01 FEA 2.6 2.5 2.6 2.7
K 02 FEA 3.5 2.3 0.2 2.3
smooth transition of the plate to the braces (K06).
K 06 FEA 3.6 2.4 1.4 2.4
K-joints with a gusset plate, which is stuck
K 07 FEA 2.0 2.4 0.1 2.4
through the chord and welded on the back side of
K 08 FEA 2.0 3.0 0.3 2.5
the chord profile gives more stiffness to the joints.
K 09 FEA 2.2 2.7 0.4 2.7
This leads to a reduction of the stress concentra-
tions in the chord down to 33% compared to a *IPB not covered by CIDECT (Zhao et al, 2001).

220

Figure  10. Half section of K02 and K07, inverse in-
plane bending, von Mises stresses.
K07 effects an additional unloading of the chord
and the load transfer is completely taken by the
plate. Introducing a rectangular gusset plate stuck
through the joint (K07, K08 and K09) the SCF in
the chord can be reduced decisively.
Design K08 with a shaped gusset plate through
the chord leads to the smallest SCF at the chord
with 2.0 but the larges stress concentration at the
braces with a stress concentration factor SCF = 3.0
under concordant moments. For this joint the
stress concentration factor for inverse IPB is negli-
gible at the chord and 2.5 at the braces.
Under concordant in-plane bending moments,
the chord is loaded on the far side of the moments,
where the stress concentration gets decisive for the
chord. For joint K09 with an extra shaped gusset
plate the SCF at the chord is small with 2.2 as well
as at the braces with 2.7 for concordant moments,
see Figures 10 and 11. The load transfers through
the plate into the braces and with a rounded out
plate a smooth transition allows for smaller stress
221
Figure  11. Half section of K09, concordant in-plane
bending, von Mises stresses.
concentration. Under inversely oriented in-plane
bending moments the stress concentration is negligi-
ble at the chord and at least unchanged at the braces.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Rectangular or square hollow sections offer a
lot of design and structural advantages, such as
straight installation face, high torsion, bending
and buckling resistance and they are good portable
and have a pleasant visual appearance. But due to
the low fatigue resistance of welded joints made of
RHS or QHS, they are often not used for fatigue
loaded structures. With new design opportunities
enabled by laser cutting techniques, fatigue does
no longer have to be the governing factor. Since
the shown joint configurations are designed with
open section ends which are air flushed, no corro-
sion problems will occur.
The design example of joint K09 with a special
shaped gusset plate which is stuck through the chord
profile can be easily realized with laser cutting. The
process is comparatively fast and very accurate and
also one sided slots into hollow sections are pos-
sible. Depending on the loadings remarkable reduc-
tions down to 33% of the stress concentrations
compared to a classical K-joint can be achieved,
especially for the chords which normally are the
decisive elements in axial loaded K-joints.
As this preliminary study shows, these joints have
very small stress concentrations already. Nonethe-
less, further optimizations of the shapes of the
plates and a further optimization of the essential
geometric parameters 2γ, β and τ are expected lead
to even better results. Finally, an adaption of the
gusset plates to individual load situations can lead
to even smaller stress concentrations factors SCF.
REFERENCES
EN 1993-1-9. 2010. Eurocode 3: Design of steel structures
—Part 1–9: Fatigue.
Herion, S., Fleischer, O. & Koenig, D. 2014. Comparison
of different configurations of thick-walled K-joints
with gap made of RHS and CHS, Proceedings of the
222
24th International Offshore and Polar Engineering
Conference, Busan, Korea, June 15–20, 2014.
Hobbacher, A. 2008. Recommendations for fatigue
design of welded joints and components. IIW-Doc.
No. XIII-2151-07/XV-1254-07, Paris: International
Institute of Welding.
ISO 14347. 2008. Fatigue—Design procedure for welded
hollow-section joints—Recommendations.
Zhao, X.L., Herion, S., Packer, J.A. Puthli, R.S., Sed-
lacek, G. Wardenier, J. Weynand, K. Wingerde, A.M.
van & Yeomans, N.F. 2001. CIDECT Design Guide 8
for CHS and RHS welded joints under fatigue load-
ing. TÜV Verlag, Cologne, Germany.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

High strength steel tubular X-joints—an experimental insight

under axial compression

M. Pandey & B. Young

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT: The paper describes a test program on cold-formed high strength steel tubular X-joints.
The nominal yield strength of the tubular material was 960 MPa. The fabricated joints include the braces
and chord made up of rectangular and square hollow sections. The gas metal arc welding process was
used for the welds. A total of 15 X-joints was tested under axial compression through the braces without
any preload in chord. The ratio of brace to chord width (β) ranged from 0.34 to 1, brace to chord thick-
ness (τ) from 0.53 to 1.26, and the chord width to thickness (2γ) from 25.33 to 38.66. The resistances
and deformations of the tubular X-joints were carefully examined. The test results were compared with
strength and deformation criteria in Eurocode and CIDECT. The applicability of these design guidelines
for high strength steel tubular X-joints with nominal yield strength of 960 MPa was assessed.

1 INTRODUCTION mentioned in these guidelines mostly cover those

The behaviour and design of tubular joints have
been adequately investigated in the last five dec-
ades through the contribution of individual
researchers mainly in the early periods via theoret-
ical and experimental studies. Thereafter, Comité
International pour le Développement et l´Etude de
la Construction Tubulaire (CIDECT) and Interna-
tional Institute of Welding (IIW) developed design
recommendations via rigorous theoretical, experi-
mental and numerical approaches. The recommen-
dations proposed by these bodies are available in
the form of guidelines, reports and monographs,
and adopted by many international standards
around the world. To facilitate the reliability of
these guidelines in real applications, various geo-
metric, material, strength and configurational
limitations have been investigated. One of the
important limitations is the material strength. In the
latest edition of CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009), the
applicability of the design rules has been extended
up to the yield strength of 460 MPa, compared to
355 MPa in the first edition of CIDECT (Packer
et al. 1992). However, this extension comes with an
additional check on the yield strength, which taken
as the minimum of yield strength or 0.8 times the
ultimate strength of the material, and a reduction
factor of 0.9 to account for the reduced ductility
concern associated with yield strength between 355
to 460 MPa. Through the efforts of EC3 part 1.12
(EC3 2007), a reduction factor of 0.8 has been pro-
posed for material having steel grade between S460
to S700. The validity ranges of the design rules
tubular sections which had dimensions and mate-
rial properties similar to the specimens used in the
corresponding experimental verifications (Teh &
Rasmussen 2006).
The typical applications of tubular joints include
both onshore and offshore applications mainly in
bridges, heavy cranes, high rise buildings, military
operations, large span roofs, spatial lattice struc-
tures, truss girders, frameworks, claddings, pedes-
trian bridges, offshore platform and many other
applications. The infrastructure sector requires
high performance materials in constructions and
the recent trend has slanted towards the use of
high strength steel (HSS) materials with nominal
yield strength equal to or greater than 460  MPa.
In contrast to normal steel grade, HSS offers novel
architecture and structural design possibilities
through the unparalleled merits of high strength,
improved toughness, high strength-to-weight ratio
and weldability as well as reduced transportation,
handling, erection time and costs. Due to these
merits, the use of HSS material supports the much-
needed sustainable development practice as now
required in many developed and developing coun-
tries. The benefits of HSS are currently being used
by the automobile industries, but the use of HSS in
the construction field is limited due to the lack of
investigation and adequate design rules.
In the literature, very limited studies were
devoted towards the structural behaviour of HSS
joints, particularly of rectangular and square hol-
low section (RHS and SHS) configurations, while
most of the research to date conducted were mainly

223
confined to steel having nominal grade of S460
or below. Therefore, there is an on-going need to
investigate HSS joints. Hence, an attempt has been
made in this study through experimental investi-
gation to understand the behaviour and strength
of cold-formed high strength carbon steel hollow
X-joints made up of RHS and SHS members hav-
ing nominal yield strength of 960 MPa, and thus
to examine the applicability of the current design
rules mentioned in the EC3 part 1.8 (EC3 2005)
and CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009).
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
2.1 Test specimens and labelling
The critical section dimension ratios mainly affect-
ing the strength of X-joints are namely the brace
to chord width ratio, β (= b1/b0); the brace to chord
thickness ratio, τ (=  t1/t0); and the ratio of chord
width to chord thickness, 2γ (  =  b0/t0). A total of
15 X-joints was tested under axial compression
through the braces with no preload in the chord
by varying β from 0.34 to 1, τ from 0.53 to 1.26,
and 2γ from 25.33 to 38.66. The test specimens
were carefully designed to cover a wide range of
the above-mentioned dimension ratios in order to
have a comprehensive assessment of the applicabil-
ity of the design rules. For the brace members, the
hollow sections had nominal overall flange widths
(b1) ranged from 50 to 140  mm, nominal overall
web depths (h1) ranged from 50 to 140  mm, and
nominal thicknesses (t1) of 3 and 4  mm. For the
chord members, the hollow sections had nomi-
nal overall flange widths (b0) ranged from 100 to
150  mm, nominal overall web depths (h0) ranged
from 50 to 150  mm, and nominal thicknesses (t0)
of 3, 4 and 6 mm. The nominal chord length (L0)
was adopted as 4h0+h1 for adequate load distribu-
tion in the chord and to ensure that the stresses at
the brace and chord intersection are not affected
by the free ends of the chord. The nominal brace
length (L1) was taken as the maximum of 2b1 or
2h1 to avoid overall buckling of the brace mem-
bers and possible interaction of stresses between
the ends of the braces. For all specimens, the seam
weld of the chord member was positioned in the
web of the chord and the seam weld of the brace
members were aligned parallel to the cross-section
of the chord, as shown in Figure 1.
In order to assure full contact between the
braces and flat plates as well as the brace and
chord members, all braces were wire-cut. For fab-
rication, the chord ends were kept free to deform
and the brace members were fully welded at right
angles to both the flanges of the continuous chord
member. To avoid any occurrence of out-of-plane
bending, the top and bottom brace members were
224
Figure 1. Definition of symbols.
carefully positioned before welding. The measured
dimensions of each member as reported in Table 1
corresponds to the average of total eight measure-
ments taken from both the ends and mid-length.
The weld leg sizes (w and w’) were also based on
the average of approximately 30 measurements
taken around the joint perimeter.
The specimens were labelled such that their
joint configuration and critical dimension ratios
can easily be determined. In the labelling, the
first letter “X” indicates X-joint, followed by the
nominal cross-sectional dimensions of the brace
members arranged as (b1 × h1 × t1) and the nominal
cross-sectional dimensions of the chord member
arranged as (b0 × h0 × t0) with hyphen as a separator.
For any repeated test, a letter “R” with a hyphen is
shown in the suffix of the label. For example, the
label X-120 × 120 × 4-150 × 150 × 6-R represents a
repeated X-joint test with the nominal width, depth
and thickness of the brace and chord members as
120 × 120 × 4 and 150 × 150 × 6, respectively.
2.2 Material properties and welding
The SHS and RHS were high-frequency induc-
tion welded cold-formed structural hollow sec-
tions made of hot-rolled high strength carbon steel
plates with a minimum yield strength of 960 MPa
(SSAB 2015). The mechanical properties satisfy
the requirements of the European Code (EN10219
2016). According to the mill certificates, the car-
bon equivalent value (CEV) of the tubes ranged
from 0.51 to 0.54 while the carbon content varied
from 0.09 to 0.1%. Longitudinal tensile coupons
were extracted from both flat (from the centre of
the face at 90˚ from the seam weld) and corner
regions of the sections. The material properties
Table 1. Measured specimen and welding dimensions.

Braces Chords Dimension Welds

(mm) (mm) ratios (mm)
Specimens
(X-b1 × h1 × t1-b0 × h0 × t0) b1 h1 t1 L1 b0 h0 t0 L0 β τ 2γ w w’

X-50 × 100 × 4-150 × 150 × 6 50.5 100.5 3.97 200.1 150.2 151.3 5.92 700.4 0.34 0.67 25.35 7.4 –
X-50 × 100 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 50.6 100.5 3.98 200.1 140.3 141.5 4.00 661.1 0.36 1.00 35.12 6.3 –
X-50 × 100 × 4-120 × 120 × 4 50.5 100.5 3.96 200.0 121.4 121.8 3.93 581.6 0.42 1.01 30.87 7.2 –
X-80 × 80 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 80.3 80.2 3.95 160.1 140.6 141.6 4.02 641.2 0.57 0.98 34.98 6.8 –
X-80 × 80 × 4-120 × 120 × 3 80.3 80.2 3.94 160.0 120.6 120.4 3.12 559.9 0.67 1.26 38.65 6.5 –
X-100 × 50 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 100.6 50.6 3.97 200.1 140.4 141.5 3.99 609.9 0.72 0.99 35.16 7.0 –
X-120 × 120 × 3-150 × 150 × 6 120.7 120.4 3.11 239.3 150.5 151.9 5.89 721.7 0.80 0.53 25.54 7.7 –
X-120 × 120 × 4-150 × 150 × 6 121.8 121.9 3.92 238.8 150.5 151.7 5.89 720.2 0.81 0.67 25.53 7.7 –
X-120 × 120 × 4-150 × 150 × 6-R 121.5 121.8 3.93 239.3 150.1 152.4 5.89 720.1 0.81 0.67 25.47 7.3 –
X-80 × 80 × 4-100 × 50 × 4 80.4 80.2 3.93 160.1 100.6 50.6 3.97 280.2 0.80 0.99 25.33 6.9 –
X-120 × 120 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 121.5 121.8 3.91 239.2 140.1 141.6 4.00 678.1 0.87 0.98 35.01 7.8 –
X-100 × 50 × 4-100 × 50 × 4 100.6 50.6 3.97 200.1 100.6 50.5 3.97 249.8 1.00 1.00 25.34 6.5 13.5
X-120 × 120 × 4-120 × 120 × 4 121.4 121.8 3.92 239.3 121.6 121.7 3.93 598.2 1.00 1.00 30.93 7.0 13.2
X-140 × 140 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 141.6 140.4 4.00 279.3 140.4 141.5 3.99 701.0 1.00 1.00 35.18 6.2 12.9
X-120 × 120 × 3-120 × 120 × 3 120.7 120.3 3.11 239.2 120.8 120.4 3.12 600.0 1.00 1.00 38.66 6.6 11.9

include, the initial Young’s modulus (Eo,f and Eo,c),
static 0.2% proof stress (σ0.2,f and σ0.2,c) that is
the yield strength, static ultimate tensile strength
(σu,f and σu,c) and fracture strain (ε50,f and ε25,c)
for coupons of gauge lengths 50 mm and 25 mm,
respectively. The subscripts f and c represent flat
and corner region material properties, respectively.
The dimensions of the flat coupons confirmed
the standard coupon specimen dimensions of the
ASTM E8/E8M specification (ASTM 2016).
The nominal gauge lengths of the flat and corner
coupons were 50 mm and 25 mm, while the nomi-
nal gauge widths were 12.5 mm and 6 mm, respec-
tively. Two holes of diameter 10 mm were drilled
at 15  mm from both ends of the corner coupon
and subsequently tested between two pins through
specially designed grips, in order to apply tension
load through the centroid of the corner coupon.
The coupons were tested in an MTS hydraulic
controlled testing machine with a loading rate
of 0.05  mm/min up to around 0.2% proof stress
and with 0.3 mm/min thereafter. The longitudinal
strains of flat and corner coupon specimens during
testing were measured with pre-calibrated exten-
someters of 50 and 25 mm gauge lengths, respec-
tively. Two linear TML strain gauges were attached
to the centre of the gauge length on both faces of
the specimen. The purpose of using slow loading
rate in the initial part of the stressstrain curve is to
obtain sufficient data for the determination of ini-
tial Young’s modulus and 0.2% proof stress from
strain gauges data. For all the coupon specimens,
a very good correlation was obtained between the
extensometer and strain gauge data, up to around
0.8 to 1.0% strain. The static stress-strain curves
were obtained from the test curves, by pausing the
tests for two minutes at the pre-determined loca-
tions, which were near 0.2% proof stress, ultimate
strength and post-ultimate region. The measured
material properties for each section are summa-
rised in Table 2.
Gas metal arc welding (GMAW) was used in
the fabrication of the X-joints. The welds were
designed in accordance with the AWS D1.1/D1.1M
specification (AWS 2015b). A low alloy carbon
steel wire of diameter 1.2 mm was used as a filler
material that conformed to class ER120S-G of the
AWS A5.28/A5.28M specification (AWS 2015a).
The typical 0.2% proof stress, tensile strength
and elongation of the filler wire were 930 MPa,
980 MPa and 19%, respectively. For all the X-joint
test specimens, the weld leg size is greater than the
minimum value (maximum of 1.5t or 3 mm; where
t is the thickness of the thinner connecting part)
specified in the AWS D1.1/D1.1M specification
(AWS 2015b). The measured weld leg sizes w and
w’ (for full width joint only) are shown in Table 1.
2.3 Test rig and procedure
A 1000 kN servo-controlled hydraulic testing
machine was employed to apply an axial compres-
sion to the X-joint specimens with a constant load-
ing rate of 0.3 mm/min under displacement control
mode. The schematic sketch of the test rig is shown
in Figure 2. The testing machine has an adjustable
top support to allow the tests to be conducted at
various heights. The specimen was directly seated

225
Table 2. Measured material properties.

Flat regions Corner regions

Section Eo,f σ0.2,f 0.8σu,f σu,f ε50,f Eo,c σ0.2,c σu,c ε25,c
(b × h × t) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%)

80 × 80 × 4 212 1004 944 1180 7.9 212 1126 1249 9.1
100 × 50 × 4 200 952 879 1098 7.8 210 1087 1188 12.5
120 × 120 × 3 212 1038 928 1160 6.6 214 1088 1211 10.4
120 × 120 × 4 209 971 910 1138 8.0 214 1099 1231 12.9
140 × 140 × 4 209 1008 893 1116 7.5 220 1068 1181 12.9
150 × 150 × 6 209 1059 917 1146 9.4 210 1102 1233 15.6

this gap. This procedure allowed the ball bearing

Figure 2. Test rig.
on the hardened flat plates. The bottom flat plate
was bolted to the actuator ram, while the top
flat plate was bolted to the special ball bearing
attached to the adjustable top support. This ball
bearing was specially designed and can be self-
adjusted to the flat profile of the end of the top
brace, thereby eliminate any possible gaps between
the end of the brace and flat plate, and thus a uni-
formly distributed load can be applied to the speci-
men. In the beginning, the special ball bearing was
free to rotate in any direction and the bottom brace
of the specimen was in full contact with the bot-
tom flat plate. The ram of the actuator was moved
slowly until the gap between the top brace and the
top flat plate was left around 1–2  mm. An initial
load between 3 to 5  kN was then applied to the
specimen through load control mode to close-up
to adjust itself according to the flat wire-cut pro-
file of the end of top brace, and thus eliminate any
possible gaps. Under this initial loading, the ball
bearing is restrained from any major and minor
axis rotations. The position of the ball bearing was
then locked for the rest of test by using four ver-
tical bolts. Hence, the ball bearing can be consid-
ered as a fixed-ended bearing which can only apply
axial load to the specimen without introducing any
major and minor axis rotations. Thus, a pure axial
compressive load without any bending moment
was then applied to the specimen.
The deformations were carefully measured
with the help of pre-calibrated linear variable dis-
placement transducers (LVDTs). The chord face
indentations (u) at the centre of the connecting
faces of the chord were measured with respect to
their corresponding chord flanges on either side
of the braces with the extension arms attached to
the tips of the four LVDTs. The purpose of the
extension arms is to ensure a consistent measure-
ment of ‘u’ at 10 mm from the faces of the brace
members for all the specimens. The chord side
wall deformations (v) were measured through two
horizontal LVDTs having Poly Methyl Methacr-
ylate (PMMA) plates connected to their tips for
both webs of the chord. As the exact location of
the maximum chord side wall deformation is dif-
ficult to predict, thus, the use of PMMA plates
facilitates to record the maximum chord side wall
deformations instead of measuring at a particu-
lar location. In addition, four LVDTs were verti-
cally placed near the corners of the bottom chord
flange to measure any tilting and twisting of the
chord member during the test. Further, the axial
shortening of the specimen was measured by two
vertical LVDTs that positioned diagonally on the
actuator ram. After pre-loading, the test was con-
ducted under displacement control mode to allow
the test to be continued in the post-ultimate range.
The applied loads and readings of the displace-
ment transducers were recorded at regular interval

226
through data acquisition system. A photograph of 2.4 Test results
the test setup is shown in Figure 3.
The summary of the test results obtained from
the static curves is shown in Table  3. The stand-
ard failure modes for SHS and RHS tubular joints
under static loading according to design standards
(EC3 and CIDECT) include chord face failure (for
β ≤ 0.85), chord side wall failure (for β = 1), brace
local yielding, chord punching shear and chord
shear. The failure modes observed in the present
study were chord face failure, chord side wall fail-
ure, and a combination of these two failure modes.
Referring to Table 3, Nmax represents maximum test
load (i.e. curve with a noticeable peak) observed in
the tests. In case of pre-dominant chord face failure
mode, owing to the membrane effect of the connect-
ing chord flanges and strain hardening of the mate-
rial, no clear peak load was observed, and the test
load continually increases with the increase in chord
flange indentation. Thus, the maximum test load
(Nmax) for such cases are not reported in Table 3, and
failure loads for ultimate and serviceability limit
states are determined from the deformation limits
criteria. In case of pre-dominant chord side wall
failure mode, a clear noticeable peak was observed
and reported as Nmax. The load corresponding to the
ultimate deformation limit criterion (taken as 3% of
b0) has been designated as Nu,3%, and the load cor-
Figure 3. Test setup photo. responding to the serviceability deformation limit

Table 3. Comparison of test strengths with design strengths for ultimate limit state (ULS) and serviceability limit
state (SLS).

Nominal
Test strengths strengths ULS SLS
*
Specimens Nmax Nu,3% Nu Ns,1% NEC3 N 1 Nu Nu Ns,1% Ns,1%
(X-b1 × h1 × t1-b0 × h0 × t0) (kN) (kN) (kN) (kN) (kN) (kN) NEC3 N*1 (NEC3/γM5)/1.5 (φN*1)/1.5

X-50 × 100 × 4-150 × 150 × 6 — 160.3 160.3 74.4 257.4 222.8 0.62 0.72 0.43 0.50
X-50 × 100 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 — 71.9 71.9 33.1 116.6 103.3 0.62 0.70 0.43 0.48
X-50 × 100 × 4-120 × 120 × 4 — 97.9 97.9 49.8 121.3 113.6 0.81 0.86 0.62 0.66
X-80 × 80 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 — 111.6 111.6 59.4 142.8 126.5 0.78 0.88 0.62 0.70
X-80 × 80 × 4-120 × 120 × 3 — 101.2 101.2 57.4 110.1 98.5 0.92 1.03 0.78 0.87
X-100 × 50 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 — 147.2 147.2 90.8 161.5 143.1 0.91 1.03 0.84 0.95
X-120 × 120 × 3-150 × 150 × 6 515.7 506.3 506.3 390.5 628.4 543.9 0.81 0.93 0.93 1.08
X-120 × 120 × 4-150 × 150 × 6 559.5 556.2 556.2 436.3 649.7 562.3 0.86 0.99 1.01 1.16
X-120 × 120 × 4-150 × 150 × 6-R 566.1 559.8 559.8 444.5 650.4 562.9 0.86 0.99 1.03 1.18
X-80 × 80 × 4-100 × 50 × 4 319.5 305.8 319.5 312.9 252.9 233.5 1.26 1.37 1.86 2.01
X-120 × 120 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 352.3 350.3 350.3 289.0 327.3 291.3 1.07 1.20 1.32 1.49
X-100 × 50 × 4-100 × 50 × 4 482.2 412.2 482.2 481.1 278.2 264.7 1.73 1.82 2.59 2.73
X-120 × 120 × 4-120 × 120 × 4 566.8 416.2 566.8 495.7 146.7 145.5 3.86 3.89 5.07 5.11
X-140 × 140 × 4-140 × 140 × 4 483.6 339.7 483.6 458.1 131.1 129.4 3.69 3.74 5.24 5.31
X-120 × 120 × 3-120 × 120 × 3 316.8 267.2 316.8 305.2 75.3 74.5 4.21 4.25 6.08 6.14
Mean 1.53 1.63 1.92 2.03
COV 0.827 0.763 1.001 0.944

Note: γM5 = 1.0 and φ = 1.0.

227
 et al. 2009). It should be noted that the design rules
mentioned in these two specifications are valid
for steel grade with nominal yield strength up to
460  MPa. The X-joints tested in this study had a
steel grade of S960. Design rules in EC3 part 1.8
(EC3 2005) are based on the first edition of CID-
ECT (Packer et al. 1992). There is no fundamental
change in the design rules of X-joints with no chord
preload between the first edition (Packer et al. 1992)
and the second edition of CIDECT (Packer et al.
2009), except for the rearrangement of some terms
in the design equations. However, the fundamental
difference between EC3 part 1.8 (EC3 2005) and
CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009) is mainly the design
yield strength, where EC3 taken the actual yield
strength whereas CIDECT adopted the design yield
strength as the minimum of yield strength or 0.8
times the ultimate strength of the material. In the
present study, 0.8fu (0.8σu,f) governs for all the cases
compared to fy (σ0.2,f), as shown in Table  2. Thus,
the measured static 0.2% proof stress and meas-
ured static 0.8fu were used to calculate the design
strengths for EC3 part 1.8 (EC3 2005) and CID-
ECT (Packer et al. 2009), respectively. The compari-
son of the test strengths is shown in Table 3.

3.2 Design rules

The design rules for SHS and RHS X-joints speci-
fied in EC3 part 1.8 (EC3 2005) and CIDECT
(Packer et al. 2009) are as follows:
Chord face failure (for β ≤ 0.85)
EC3 part 1.8 (2005)
Figure 4. Load versus deformation curves.
kn f y 0t02 ⎛ 2η ⎞
N1,Rd = ⎜ + 4 1− β ⎟ / γ M5
criterion (taken as 1% of b0) has been designated (1 − ) 1⎝ 1
sin θ s in θ ⎠
as Ns,1%. The final ultimate test load (Nu) is corre-
sponding to the first occurrence of Nmax or Nu,3%. It CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009)
is worthwhile here to mention that the maximum
measured values of chord flange indentation (u) ⎛ 2η 4 ⎞ f y 0t02
and chord side wall deformation (v) among their N1* Qf
respective LVDTs were used in the analysis. Figure 4 ⎝ (1 − ) sinθ1 1 β⎠ sinθ1
presents the plots of three typical load-deformation
curves for chord flange indentation (u) and chord Chord side wall failure (for β = 1)
side wall deformation (v) for β = 0.34, 0.87, and 1. EC3 part 1.8 (2005)
Static curves were obtained from the test curves by
pausing the tests for 2 minutes near the ultimate and kn fbt0 ⎛ h1 ⎞
in the post-ultimate region. N1,Rd = + 10t0 ⎟ / γ M 5
sinθ1 ⎝ sin
i θ1 ⎠

3 COMPARISON WITH DESIGN CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009)

STRENGTHS
fkt0 ⎛ 2 h1 ⎞
N1* = + 10t0 Q f
3.1 General sinθ1 ⎝ sin
i θ1 ⎠
The test strengths were compared with the design
strengths calculated from design rules specified in For 0.85 < β < 1, a linear interpolation between the
EC3 part 1.8 (EC3 2005) and CIDECT (Packer above two cases is required. In the above equations,

228
kn and Qf are the parameters to account for chord
preloads and taken as unity in the present study,
fy0 is the design yield strength of the chord, θ1 is
the included angle between the brace and chord,
η (equals to β for SHS) is the ratio of brace depth
to chord width (h1/b0), fb and fk are the chord side
wall buckling strengths. These design equations in
both the design guides are based on the ultimate
limit states. The rules given in CIDECT (Packer
et al. 2009) have already incorporated the resist-
ance factor (φ) in the equations, while the rules
specified in EC3 part 1.8 (EC3 2005) have incor-
porated the partial safety factor (γM5) explicitly in
the equations, where γM5 = 1. The value of partial
safety factor for joint resistance (γMj) was 1.1 (or
resistance factor φ  =  1/1.1 ≈ 0.9) in EC3 part 1.1
(EC3 1992). Thus, by adopting the value of γM5
(equals to 1.0) in the design equations, the nominal
strength becomes identical to the design strength.
In this study, a resistance factor of 1.0 (φ  =  1.0)
was used in the calculation of the design strengths
for CIDECT. Therefore, the nominal strength
becomes identical to the design strength for CID-
ECT (Packer et al. 2009) as well.
3.3 Ultimate and serviceability limit states
The nominal strengths calculated (without using
the reduction factors of 0.8 and 0.9) from EC3
part 1.8 (EC3 2005) used the 0.2% proof stress,
whereas CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009) used the
0.8fu, which is the minimum of yield strength or
0.8fu in this study, are expressed as NEC3 and N*1
in Table  3. The buckling strength (fb or fk) corre-
sponding to the chord side wall was based on the
buckling curve “c” for cold-formed hollow sections
with imperfection factor α = 0.49 as per EC3 part
1.1 (EC3 2005).
From the comparison of the results for ultimate
limit state (ULS), it can clearly be seen that both
EC3 part 1.8 (EC3 2005) and CIDECT (Packer
et  al. 2009) are generally unconservative for
X-joints with small β values, with the CIDECT
predictions are less unconservative compared to
the EC3 predictions. This is because of the extra
requirement on the design yield strength as speci-
fied in the CIDECT. For full width joints (β = 1.0),
EC3 and CIDECT predictions are clearly over-
conservative and in general the trend of over-
conservativism increases as the chord side wall
slenderness (h0/t0) increases. The reason for this
behaviour can be attributed to the assumption of
effective chord side wall (h0–2t0) as a pin-ended col-
umn in the design equation.
The load (Ns,1%) corresponding to the serv-
iceability limit state (SLS) obtained from the
tests are compared with the design serviceability
loads that determined from the design strengths
229
(NEC3 /γM5 and φN1* ) divided by 1.5. The use of load
factor 1.5 on the design strength is consistent with
the recommendations of CIDECT (Packer et al.
2009) and AISC 360 (AISC 2016) for allowable
stress design. The ratios of test serviceability load
(Ns,1%) to design serviceability load for EC3 part
1.8 (EC3 2005) and CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009)
based on their respective design yield strengths
are shown in Table  3. For all tests, the values of
the ratio are higher for CIDECT predictions com-
pared to EC3 predictions. The values of the ratio
are less than unity for small β values, indicating
that the joints are unsafe under SLS (taken as 1%
of b0) when design strengths were calculated based
on the existing design rules (EC3 and CIDECT).
In contrast to X-joints with small β values, for the
full width joints (β = 1), the values of the ratio are
much greater than unity, indicating that the joints
are very safe under SLS when design strengths
were calculated based on the existing design rules
(EC3 and CIDECT).
It is observed that the maximum test load (Nmax)
occurred before the loads at 1% and 3% deforma-
tion limit criterion (Ns,1% and Nu,3%) for the full
width X-joints (β = 1). However, for other X-joints
(β < 1), the loads (Ns,1% and Nu,3%) occurred before
the noticeable peak load (if any) except for the
specimen X-80 × 80 × 4-100 × 50 × 4 where the peak
load lies between the loads at 1% and 3% limits
of b0.
4 CONCLUSIONS
An experimental investigation of cold-formed high
strength steel tubular X-joints has been presented.
Square and rectangular hollow sections with nom-
inal yield strength of 960 MPa were used. The test
specimens were designed to cover a wide range of
brace width to chord width ratio (β), brace thick-
ness to chord thickness ratio (τ) and chord width to
chord thickness ratio (2γ). The test strengths based
on load and deformation criteria were reported.
The load-deformation curves were also reported.
The chord face failure, chord side wall failure and
a combination of these two failure modes were
observed.
The test strengths were compared with the
design strengths predicted from EC3 part 1.8 (EC3
2005) and CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009). In gen-
eral, it is shown that the design rules for both the
ultimate limit state and serviceability limit state
are clearly unconservative for X-joints with small
values of β and clearly conservative for full width
X-joints (β = 1). The trend of over-conservativism
for full width joints generally increases with the
increase of chord side wall slenderness (h0/t0). The
reduction factor of 0.8 recommended for high
strength steel joints in EC3 part 1.12 (EC3 2007)
is generally not suitable for X-joints with small β
values. However, for full width joints (β  =  1), no
reduction factor is needed in this study. Further
investigation is still required to propose accurate
design rules and reduction factors for cold-formed
high strength steel tubular X-joints.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to SSAB Europe Oy
for providing the cold-formed high strength steel
tubular materials. The research work described
in this paper was supported by a grant from The
University of Hong Kong under the seed funding
program for basic research.
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Packer, J.A., Wardenier, J., Zhao, X.L., Vegte, G.J. van
der., and Kurobane, Y. (2009). Design guide for rectan-
gular hollow section (RHS) joints under predominantly
static loading, 2nd ed., Comite´ International pour le
Developpement et l’Etude de la Construction Tubu-
laire (CIDECT), LSS Verlag, Dortmund, Germany.
SSAB. (2015). STRENX Tube 960 MH. Data Sheet 2043,
Sweden. (www.ssab.com).
Teh, L.H., and Rasmussen, K.J.R. (2006). Strength of
arc-welded T-joints between equal width cold-formed
RHS Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 63(4):
571–57.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Contributions of welded web to rotational stiffness and bending

moment capacity of ‘I beam-RHS column’ joints

M. Lozano, M.A. Serrano-López & C. López-Colina

Department of Construction and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Oviedo, Campus Gijon, Spain

Y.C. Wang
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

ABSTRACT: In steel construction using RHS as columns and open sections as beams, it is common
to weld the perimeter of the open section profile (flanges and web) to the wall of the tubular column.
It is expected that the flanges of the open section contribute most to the stiffness and resistance of the
joint and contributions from the welded web would be relatively minor. If this were the case, it would be
preferable not to weld the web to the tube to save construction costs. Furthermore, this would greatly
simplify analysis of the joint behaviour. To assess this, this paper presents the results of an experimental
and numerical modelling programme. After validation, the numerical parametric study examines the
effects of several dimensional ratios. The results of this investigation indicate that the web contribution is
quite low and can be conservatively neglected.

1 INTRODUCTION of the tubular column, i.e. the outside and inside

The use of structural hollow sections in the steel
construction industry has increased in the past few
decades owing to a number of inherent advantages
of using tubular sections, Edkhout (2011), Warde-
nier et al. (2010), instead of traditional open pro-
files in structural engineering applications.
Among the different types of tubular sections,
rectangular hollow sections (RHS) or the square
hollow sections (SHS) are the most widely used
allowing simpler execution of the joints. The com-
bination of RHS as columns and IPE open profile
beams takes full advantage of the characteristics of
both types of sections in terms of their mechanical
behaviour and their connections are not difficult
to execute.
Regarding joints of tubular columns, the use of
bolted connections is more difficult than in open
profiles due to the inability to access to the inside of
the tube. Although there are some interesting sys-
tems of bolting to avoid the access problem, such
as the Flowdrill or the Hollo-bolt system that are
included in design guides, Kurobane et al. (2004),
SCI/BCSA (2013), they are expensive and need
additional pieces as end plates, or flange cleats to
execute the bolted connection. Therefore most of
the beam-column joints involving rectangular hol-
low sections as columns are executed by welding.
In this case it is common to fully weld all around
the beam section perimeter to the front face wall
parts of the flanges together with the web of the
beam. This requires a large amount of welding and
increases the heating during the welding process.
Because the web height is much larger than the
flange width of the beam, not welding the web
could drastically reduce the amount of welding
leading to significant savings.
When the beam is under bending, not welding
the web to the steel tube is unlikely to be detrimen-
tal to the joint behaviour, because the bending stiff-
ness and moment resistance of the beam comes
primarily from the flanges.
The authors have carried out a few preliminary
tests on welded open profile beams to tubular col-
umns with the beams in bending. The results have
revealed that the contribution of the welded web to
both the stiffness and the moment resistance of the
joint was low. Furthermore, similar joint behav-
iour was observed when welding was all around the
perimeter of the IPE section or when welding was
only around the flanges. However, this research
programme was not sufficiently extensive so the
conclusions were only indicative. Therefore it was
decided to prepare a new campaign of tests specifi-
cally focused in the study of this issue. This paper
presents a more set of experimental and numeri-
cal simulation results to comprehensively examine
contributions of the welded web. The numerical
analysis is validated by means of the additional test
results and then used to systematically examine the

231
effects of changing different dimensions of the Table 1. Beam-to-column joint combinations.
connected members in the initial rotational stiff-
ness and in the bending moment capacity of the Column Beam Ratio
joint. Specimen (h0 × b0 × t0) IPE bf /b0 Weld

1.1 150 × 100 × 6 200 1 F + W

1.2 150 × 100 × 6 200 1 F
2 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM 1.3 140 0.73
150 × 100 × 6 F + W
1.4 150 × 100 × 6 140 0.73 F
2.1 Beam-to-column joint tests
2.1 250 × 100 × 6 200 1 F + W
A total of eighteen doubled sided welded beam- 2.2 250 × 100 × 6 200 1 F
column joints in which the column is a rectangu- 2.3 250 × 100 × 6 140 0.73 F + W
lar hollow section while the beams are IPE sections 2.4 250 × 100 × 6 140 0.73 F
(Fig.  1), have so far been tested, and further tests 3.4 200 × 150 × 6 300 1 F + W
are ongoing. These tests are summarised in Table 1. 3.5 200 × 150 × 6 300 1 F
They are grouped in three phases. Phase 1 (speci- 3.8 250 × 150 × 6 300 1 F + W
mens 1.1 to 1.4) and phase 2 (specimens 2.1 to 3.9) 3.9 250 × 150 × 6 300 1 F
in total consist of six pairs of joints, the difference 4.1 150 × 100 × 4 200 1 F + W
in each pair being welding both the flanges and the 4.2 150 × 100 × 4 200 1 F
web of beam (F+W) or only welding the flanges (F). 4.3 150 × 100 × 4 200 1 W
In Phase 3 (specimens 4.1 to 4.6) tests, the six 4.4 200 × 100 × 4 200 1 F + W
test specimens consist of an IPE200 connected to 2 4.5 200 × 100 × 4 200 1 F
tubular section sizes, each with three different ways 4.6 200 × 100 × 4 200 1 W
of welding the steel beam: welding the entire beam
section perimeter (Figure 1a, F+W), welding only (F) Flanges welded; (W) Web welded.
around the flanges (Figure 1b, F) or welding only the
web of the beam (Figure 1c, W). For the specimens
with web welding only, it was necessary to cut both
flanges of the beam to avoid their contact with the
wall of the tube during the test.
Figure  2 shows the experimental set up. The
RHS section was 900 mm in length and the length
of the IPE on each side of the RHS was 450 mm.
The IPE sections were welded to the middle of the
tube so the assembly can be considered to be dou-
bly symmetrical. In the test, a vertical compression
load was applied on the top of the column while
the ends of the beams were simply supported on
a pair of adaptable supports that allowed different
total spans of the specimens to accommodate the
different depths of the tubes. The tests were car-
ried out under displacement control at a speed of
4  mm/min in a reaction frame and the load was
introduced by means of a hydraulic jack GIB-500
with a load capacity of 500 kN. The vertical reac-
tions at the beam end supports produced bending
moments in the connections that were measured
together with the angle of rotation for plotting the
joint moment-rotation curves.
To measure the rotation angle two different
techniques were used. For joints tested in phase 1
(1.1 to 1.4), four LVDTs synchronized by means of
a quantum with the applied load were positioned
respectively on the middle of the outside part of
the beam flanges to indirectly obtain the rotation
angle while taking into account the beam’s depth.
However, some problems were encountered with
this measurement method, necessitating a change
Figure 1. Beam-column joint specimens. to the procedure. For joints tested in phases 2 and

232
 Table 2. Material properties.

Column fy fu E
(h0 × b0 × t0) [N/mm2] [N/mm2] [Gpa]

150 × 100 × 6 467.5 532.8 201.2

250 × 100 × 6 469.1 558.8 200.4
200 × 150 × 6 397.0 472.8 212.5
250 × 150 × 6 438.3 535.0 203.6
150 × 100 × 4 412.0 477.2 201.9
200 × 100 × 4 393.9 502.1 194.1

fy fu E
Beam IPE [N/mm2] [N/mm2] [Gpa]

200(1) 367.5 458.9 199.0

140 337.0 476.8 198.1
300 298.5 451.4 207.3
200(1) 354.1 453.2 202.7
(1)
Different IPE piece.
Figure 2. 3D displacements measurements with DIC.

of 100  kN. During the tests, sometimes the dis-

3, a Digital Image Correlation (DIC) system, using
a pair of cameras, was used to measure the rotation
of the beams. This equipment allows to measure,
without contact, 3D displacements in many points
of the area of interest. The applied load entered
by an analogue connector was synchronized with
the displacements according to the procedure used
by Wang (2013), allowing easy post-processing of
joint moment-rotation relationships.
The DIC equipment used was an Aramis 5M
from GOM. For the specimens included in Phase
2, a pair of lens with 23 mm of focal distance was
used allowing to obtain images of 30 × 25 mm size,
so rotation of only one of the connections could be
obtained. In phase 3 tests, the same equipment was
used but with a different configuration. The focal
length for lens was 12 mm allowing to get images
of a much bigger size (1900 × 1700 mm), so that
rotations of both connections could be obtained.
The results in Figure  2 confirm symmetry of the
experimental set up.
2.2 Material properties
Standard tensile tests were carried out to obtain
the mechanical properties of steel. For each tubu-
lar section, two coupons were extracted from the
frontal face and two more from the lateral face.
For the IPE sections, two coupons from the flanges
and two from the web were extracted allowing to
obtain the material properties of both parts of the
beam. A total of 24 coupons from the RHS sec-
tions and 16 from the IPEs profiles were tested. All
these tests were carried out in a universal testing
machine, model MTS810, with a load cell capacity
placement control was performed by means of an
extensometer MTS model 634.31F24 but in most
of the tests the digital system with lens of 50 mm
of focal distance was used allowing to plot a more
real stress-strain curve updating the cross section
of the coupon as it elongated. Table 2 presents the
mean values of measured mechanical properties.
2.3 Test results
Figure  3 shows the measured moment-rotation
relationships for the connections on the two sides
in tests 4.1 (F+W) and 4.2 (F). The curves are plot-
ted for both sides simultaneously: IPE A on the left
and IPE B on the right. They demonstrate sym-
metrical behaviour as intended. This indicates that
in the tests where measurements were made on only
one connection, it is acceptable to use the results as
representing the behaviour of this connection.
Test results did not show significant differences
among pair of joints with the only difference of
welding or not the web of the beam. Compara-
tive values for the initial stiffness and the moment
resistance are presented in Figures 4 and 5 respec-
tively. These results suggested that the web con-
tribution was low. This was confirmed by results
of joints tested in phase 3 in which as above men-
tioned three different ways of welding were con-
sidered for any beam-column joint i.e. welding the
entire section perimeter, welding only around the
flanges or welding only the web.
Figures 6 and 7 present the experimental results
of moment-rotation curves for joints IPE200 with
RHS 150 × 100 × 4 and RHS 200 × 100 × 4 for the
three combinations tested. The results for welding

233

Figure 3. Symmetry of moment-rotation behaviour for
both connections.
Figure 4. Initial stiffness comparison for two nominally
identical connections (F+W and F).
Figure 5. Moment resistance comparison for two nomi-
nally identical connections (F+W and F).
234
Figure  6. Moment-rotation curves for joints 4.1, 4.2
and 4.3.
Figure  7. Moment-rotation curves for joints 4.4, 4.5
and 4.6.
the flanges only are almost identical to the results
for welding the entire beam section profile. On the
other hand, if only the web of the beam section
is welded, the joint is very flexible and has little
moment resistance (the initial rotational stiffness
and bending moment capacity being <3% and
<10% of those with welded flanges).
3 NUMERICAL MODEL VALIDATION
3.1 Model description
The joints under consideration have been simulated
by means of the FEA software ANSYS 17.0 using
shell 181 elements located at the middle surface of
the walls, flanges and webs of the connected steel
components. The shell element thickness for welds
was taken to be the same as the throat thickness of
the corresponding weld. Figure 8 shows the typical
finite element meshes. These type of elements were
calibrated and validated for similar connections by
Serrano et al. (2016) and were demonstrated to give
good results and efficient computation time. For
the steel tubes, the stress-strain curve was assumed
to be an elastic-plastic, with a linear strain hard-
ening part that has a slope of E/100 in the plastic
zone of the curve, EN-1993-1-5 (2006) where E is
Figure 8. Finite element meshes for F+W (left) and F
(right).
Figure  10. Comparison between simulation and
experimental results for connection initial rotational
stiffness.

Figure 11. Comparison between experimental and sim-

ulation results for moment resistance.
Figure 9. Moment-rotation curves for tests 4.4 and 4.5.

the Young’s modulus of steel. The measured yield

stress and Young’s modulus in Table 2 were used.
For welds, the nominal yield limit and ulti-
mate strength values provided by the electrode
manufacturer were used, being fy = 500 MPa and
fu = 570 MPa respectively. Symmetry in the geomet-
rical models was taken advantage of to save com-
putation time. Displacement control was adopted
on top of the column to simulate the applied load.
3.2 Validation of the numerical model
As sample, Figure  9 compares the recorded and
simulated moment-rotation curves for tests 4.4
and 4.5. The agreement is quite good especially for
stiffness.
Figures 10 and 11 compare the simulation and
test results for the initial rotational stiffness and
maximum moment capacity. Figure  10 refers to
joints tested in phases 2 and 3 with the flanges
welded and presenting a width ratio of 1.0 accord-
ing to Table 1. Figure 11 includes additional joints
Figure 12. Comparison of failure mode between exper-
imental and numerical modelling.
tested in phase 1. The moment capacity corre-
sponded to that at an indentation of 3%b0 or the
maximum moment whichever occurred first. Both
figures show very good agreement between the test
and modelling results.
Figure  12 further shows typical comparison
of failure mode between experiment with DIC
equipment and numerical modelling. Again, the
simulation result agrees with the experimental
observation.

235
4 PARAMETRIC STUDY

The validated numerical model was then used to

extend the scope of the experiments by considering
different IPE section dimensions, IPE200, IPE240
and IPE300. They were connected to RHS with
the depth ranging from 100  mm to 300 mm and
wall thicknesses from 4 mm to 12 mm but always a
width ratio of 1.0.
Table 3 lists the initial rotational stiffness for the
numerical simulation cases. For each connection,
simulations were carried out for welding the entire Figure 13. Differences for joints F+W vs. F with IPE200.
steel beam section profile (F+W) and welding only
the flanges (F). Results on Table 3 refers to F+W
joints. Figures  13 to 15 compare the simulation
results between welding the entire section profile
and welding only the flanges, presenting the results
of initial rotation stiffness, the vertical axis plot-
ting the % difference between the two values. In all
cases, the differences were negligible. Although the
difference increases slightly for thicker tubes, the
difference is always lower than 3.5%, confirming
that it is not necessary to include the contribution
of the web to the joint moment-rotation behaviour.

Table 3. Rotational stiffness for simulated joints F + W. Figure 14. Differences for joints F+W vs. F with IPE240.
Joint h0 [mm] t0 [mm] Sini [kNm/rad]

100 4 7682
8 15206
12 23195
200 4 7171
RHS (h0 × 100 × t0) 8 13760
+ IPE 200
12 20777
300 4 6994
8 13198
12 19953
Joint h0 [mm] t0 [mm] Sini [kNm/rad]

100 4 10145 Figure 15. Differences for joints F+W vs. F with IPE300.
8 21911
12 32658 5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
200 4 9649
RHS (h0 × 120 × t0) 8 19926
+ IPE 240 This research has presented the results of a pro-
12 29128
gramme of experiments, validation of numerical
300 4 9345
simulation and numerical parametric study to obtain
8 19075
the moment-rotation relationship of double sided
12 27847
welded IPE profile beam—RHS column joints. The
100 4 14358 main aim of this research was to quantify the contri-
8 32673 bution of the welded web of the beam to the initial
12 49198
rotational stiffness and bending moment capacity of
200 4 13747
RHS (h0 × 150 × t0) the joint. The experimental work consisted of 18 full
8 29986
+ IPE 300 joints and 40 standard tensile tests. The test results
12 44162
were used to validate the proposed numerical model.
300 4 13401
The validated simulation model was then used to
8 28761
12 41952
simulate 27 joints with different combinations of
RHS-IPE dimensions. The main conclusions are:

236
− The testing procedure was appropriate. The
results for nominally identical connections on
two sides of the same test specimen showed the
expected symmetry.
− The digital image correlation facility was
capable of obtaining displacement data without
any contact.
− The proposed numerical model reproduced
quite well the tests results for the moment-
rotation curve and for the failure mode.
− Both the experimental and the numerical results
have confirmed that the contribution of the
beam web to the rotational stiffness and to the
bending moment capacity of the joint is very
small and can be safely neglected. Comparisons
of the results for joints with the entire beam
profile welded (F+W) and with only the flanges
welded (F) have shown that the maximum differ-
ence is about 3.5%. This opens way for welding
the flanges only in welded connections and also
simplifies the component based joint method for
this type of joint because it would not be neces-
sary to include the web component.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to express their gratitude
to the IEMES Research Group at Oviedo Univer-
sity. The financial support for this research was
provided by the Spanish Ministry of Economy
237
and Competitiveness (Project BIA2013-43177-P)
and CIDECT (project 5CE). Furthermore they
would also like to thank Swanson Analysis Inc. for
their assistance with the use of ANSYS University
program.
REFERENCES
CEN. 2006. Eurocode 3: Design of steel structures.
Part 1–5: Plated structural elements. EN-1993-1-5.
European Committee for Standardization.
Edkhout M. 2011. Tubular Structures in Architecture,
CIDECT, Geneva and TU Delft.
Kurobane Y, Packer JA, Wardenier J, Yeomans N. 2004.
Design guide for structural hollow sections column
connections. CIDECT, TÜV-Verlag GmbH, Köln.
SCI/BCSA. 2013. Joints in Steel Construction: Moment
Resisting Joints to Eurocode 3. The Steel Construction
Institute & The British Constructional Steelwork
Association.
Serrano MA, López-Colina C, González J, Gayarre FL.
2016. A simplified simulation of welded I beam-to-
RHS column joints, International Journal of Steel
Structures 16, No. 4: 1095–1105.
Wang, YC, Xue, L. 2013. Experimental study of moment-
rotation characteristics of reverse channel connections
to tubular columns, Journal of Construction Steel
Research, 85: 92–104.
Wardenier J, Packer JA, Zhao XL and van der Vegte
GJ. 2010. Hollow sections in structural applications.
2nd Ed. CIDECT, Geneva.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Application of the component method to bolted endplate

composite beam-to-CFST column joints

H.T. Thai
School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia

ABSTRACT: Component method can be used to predict the moment-rotation behaviour of a wide
range of joint configurations by decomposing the joint into individually basic components. The compo-
nent method has been adopted in Eurocode 3 Part 1–8 and Eurocode 4 Part 1–1 for the design of steel
and composite joints, respectively. However, the design rules given in Eurocode 3 Part 1–8 and Eurocode
4 Part 1–1 are restricted to the steel and composite joints with open section columns, i.e. I- or H-sections.
For the joints with hollow or concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) sections, new basic components are
introduced and thus the design rules for the new components are required. This paper aims to provide
design guidelines for the application of the component method to predict the behaviour of steel and
composite beam-to-CFST column joints.

1 INTRODUCTION

CFST columns have been increasingly used in

multi-story buildings due to their excellent per-
formance such as high strength and large energy
absorption capacity. In these buildings, bolted end-
plate joints as shown in Figure 1 are widely used
to connect composite beams to a CFST column
due to their simplicity and economy in fabrication
and assembly. Numerical and experimental studies
carried out by Thai and his colleagues (Thai & Uy
2015, Thai & Uy 2016, Thai et al. 2017) indicated
that this type of connection belongs to semi-rigid
and partial strength type. Therefore, its behaviour
should be considered in the global analysis and
design of frames.
At this stage, the design rules for bolted end-
plate joints given in Eurocode 3  Part 1–8 (EN
1993-1-8 2005) for steel joints and in Eurocode
4 Part 1–1 (EN 1994-1-1 2004) for composite joints
are restricted to the joints with open section col-
umns, i.e. I- or H-sections. For the bolted endplate
joint with hollow and CFST sections considered
in this paper, specific design guidelines need to be
developed. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce
design rules for predicting the moment-rotation
behaviour of bolted endplate beam-to-column
joints with hollow and CFST sections. The design
rules presented in this paper are based on the
ones given in Eurocode 3 Part 1–8 and Eurocode
4 Part 1–1 and recently numerical and experimen-
tal studies on bolted endplate composite joints
Figure 1. Example of a composite joint.
carried out by the author. It is worth noting that a

239
recently released draft of Australian/New Zealand
Standard for composite steel-concrete construc-
tion in buildings (AS/NZS 2327 2017) did cover
the design of the considered joints. This is the first
standard in Australia, and probably the first in the
world, to include the design procedures for pre-
dicting the semi-rigid behaviour of the considered
joints.

2 REVIEW OF EXISTING STUDY ON

THE CONSIDERED CONNECTIONS

Experimental and analytical studies on the

behaviour of bolted endplate composite beam-to-
column connections have been carried over the past
twenty years, notable among them are the research
groups led by Anderson at the University of
Warwick, Aribert at INSA de Rennes, Nethercot at
the University of Nottingham. However, these stud-
ies are limited to the conventional composite joints
with open section columns. The study on the com-
posite joints with CFST or hollow section columns
only receives significant attention from the research
community upon the development of innovative
blind-bolting techniques which allow the bolt can
be installed from one side or the outer side of steel
tubular columns. This review focuses on the experi-
mental, analytical and numerical studies on bolted
endplate composite joints with CFST columns.
Unlike the conventional bolted endplate
composite joints with open section columns, studies
on the composite joints with CFST columns are very
limited. Early experimental study on the considered
joints was performed by Loh et al. (2006a) to exam-
ine the effect of partial shear connection on the
ductility of joint. Five cruciform specimens of flush
endplate composite connections were tested. The
results indicated that the use of partial shear con-
nection can enhance the rotation capacity of the
connections. The seismic performance of compos-
ite joints was examined experimentally and numeri-
cally by Mirza & Uy (2011) as shown in Figure 2.
They concluded that the bolted flush endplate con-
nections satisfy the required strength and ductil-
ity. Ataei et al. (2015, 2016) recently examined the
performance of bolted flush endplate composite
joints for demountable composite frames by using
bolted shear connectors instead of the conventional
headed shear connectors. Very recently, Thai et al.
(2017) tested the static behaviour of four specimens
of composite joints to investigate the effect of end-
plate types (flush versus extended endplates) and
the shapes of CFST columns (circular versus square
columns).
Early analytical study on bolted endplate com-
posite joints was carried out by Loh et al. (2006b) by
developing an analytical model for parametric study
Figure 2. Seismic performance of bolted flush endplate
composite connections (Mirza & Uy 2011).
Figure 3. Modelling of blind bolt (Thai & Uy 2015).
of composite joints. Their model was extended from
their previous one for composite beams (Loh et al.
2004) based on the cross-sectional analysis. Thai &
Uy (2015) proposed an analytical model for con-
sidered composite joints by extending the one pro-
posed by Aribert & Dinga (2000) for conventional
composite joints with open section columns. Their
model can predict rather well the moment-rotation
curve of composite joints up to failure. This model
was recently modified by Thai et  al. (2017) to
account for the joint with multi bolt rows in tension.
Numerical modelling of considered joints was
conducted by Ataei et al. (2014) using ABAQUS.
However, their model is unable to fully capture
the local buckling of the flange. In addition, it
cannot predict accurately the initial stiffness and
stiffness degradation of composite joints due to
the improper modelling of the blind bolt as well as
its contact with the endplate and infilled concrete.
These limitations were overcome in the numerical
model developed by Thai & Uy (2015) in which the
solid C3D8R element was replaced by the shell S4R
element for a better prediction of the flange local
buckling. Thai & Uy (2015) also modelled properly
the shape of blind bolts after tightening as shown
in Figure 3, and thus it is capable of accurately pre-
dicting the initial stiffness of connections.

240
3 ROTATIONAL STIFFNESS coefficients of the column face in compression and
the column side walls in compression as illustrated
According to Eurocode 3  Part 1–8 (EN 1993-1-8 in Figure 4a. For a joint with a CFST column, k1
2005), the rotational stiffness S for a moment M and k2 are assumed to be infinite due to the pres-
less than the design moment Mu of a joint is calcu- ence of infilled concrete (Wang et al. 2009). For a
lated from the initial stiffness Sini as joint with hollow section column, k1 and k2 can be
calculated using empirical equations proposed by
Sini Thai & Uy (2016) based on the results of finite ele-
S= (1) ment simulations of hollow columns under trans-
μ
versely compressive loads as
where μ is the stiffness ratio defined as follows:
k1 ( )
ttt 2 d + 0 09 ⎡⎣175 tan ( g + 0 674) − 330 ⎤⎦ (4)
⎧μ = 1 if M ≤ 2 / 3M u
⎪
⎨ ⎛ M⎞
2.7
(2)
k2 t ⎡⎣3.3 − 2.6 g ( )
d + 1.3 h − 1 ⎤⎦ (5)
⎪ μ = 1 .5
⎜⎝ M ⎟⎠ i 2 / 3M u < M ≤ M u
if
⎩ u where

The initial stiffness of a composite joint can be ⎧1.00 for single-sided joint
predicted using the component method in which κ =⎨ (6)
the joint is considered as a set of individual compo- ⎩0.88 for double-sided joint
nents represented by springs as shown in Figure 4. d d /h g = g h, t t/h, h = h/b (7)
For a composite joint with more than two bolt
rows in tension, the initial stiffness is given as
in which d, b, g, h and t are defined in Figure 5 with
g and d being the dimensions of the loaded area.
Ezeq2
Sini = (3) The equivalent stiffness coefficient keq and the
1 1 1 corresponding equivalent lever arm zeq are calcu-
+ +
k1 k2 keq lated as follows

where E is the Young modulus of the struc- ∑k z + ks ,red zr

efff i i
tural steel. k1 and k2 are respectively the stiffness keq = i =1
(8)
zeq

Figure 4. Stiffness model for a composite joint with two

bolt rows in tension. Figure 5. Geometric model for k1 and k2.

241
 ∑k z + ks ,red zr2
2
efff i i
zeq =i =1
(9)
∑k
i =1
z + ks ,red zr
efff i i

in which zi and zr are respectively the distances

from the bolt row i and the reinforcement to the
centre of compression as shown in Figure 4b. The
effective stiffness coefficient keff,i of the bolt row i
and the stiffness coefficient of the reinforcement
accounting for the slip of the shear connection ks,red
are obtained as follows

1 1 1 1 1
= + + + (10)
kefff i k3,i k4,i k5,i k10
1 ,i

1 1 1
= + (11)
ks ,red
red ks ,r K sc / E s

in which the stiffness coefficients of the endplate in

bending k5 and the bolt in tension k10 are given in
Table  6.11 of Eurocode 3  Part 1–8 (EN 1993-1-8
2005), whilst the stiffness coefficients of the reinforc- Figure 6. Geometric model for k3 and k4.
ing bar in tension ks,r and the slip of shear connection
Ksc/Es are given in Annex A of Eurocode 4 Part 1–1
(EN 1994-1-1 2004). They are summarised in Table 1. for a hollow section column, and
The stiffness coefficients of the column side
walls in tension k3 and the column face in bending k3 ξt ⎡⎣2.9t
9t 0 4 ( )
. d + 0.3 h − 1 ⎤⎦ (14)
k4 can be predicted using empirical equations pro-
posed by Thai & Uy (2016) based on the results of
k4 tt 2
5dd ( g − 278t 2 ) t g
(15)
finite element simulations of columns under trans- g 3
g + (0 464 + t ) g + 0.092 − t
2
verse bolt forces as

( )
for a CFST column, in which the coefficient
k3 ξt ⎡⎣3.55 2.3g 2 0t 1.6 h 1 ⎤⎦ (12) ξ is defined in Equation  16 and the remaining
parameters are given in Equations 6 and 7 based
k4 ttt 2
5dd ( g ) tan g
(13) on geometric dimensions defined in Figure 6.
1.5 g 3
g + g 0 023 / t 0.2
2

⎧1.0 for single-sided joint

ξ=⎨ (16)
Table 1. Stiffness coefficients. ⎩0.5 for double-sided joint
Stiffness
Component Parameter coefficient* It is worth noting that the stiffness coefficients
of the column face in bending k4 can be predicted
Endplate in k5 0.9lefff t p3 using the stiffness model developed by Neves &
bending m3 Gomes (1996) and Neves et  al. (2005) for minor-
axis joints based on the finite strip method. How-
Bolts in tension k10 1.6 As
ever, Thai & Uy (2016) evaluated Neves model
Lb based on the experimental results of 44 tests and
Reinforcements ks,r As ,r concluded that the model proposed by Thai & Uy
in tension 0.5h (2016) is more reliable than the one developed by
Neves et al. (2005).
Slip of shear Ksc Nkksc
connection ⎛ ν − 1⎞ hs
ν −⎜
⎝ 1 + ξ ⎟⎠ d s 4 MOMENT CAPACITY

*Definitions are given in Eurocode 3 Part 1–8 (EN 1993- The moment capacity of a bolted endplate compos-
1-8 2005) and Eurocode 4 Part 1–1 (EN 1994-1-1 2004). ite connection under hogging moment is contributed

242
mainly from the reinforcement in the concrete slab
Fr and partially from the bolt rows in tension Fbi.
Therefore, the moment capacity of the joint can be
calculated from its equilibrium condition as shown
in Figure 7b as
n
Mu Fr zr ∑F
i =1
z
bi i (17)

where zr and zi are respectively the distances from

the reinforcement and bolt row i to the centre of
compression zone which is assumed to be the cen-
tre of the compression flange of the steel beam.
The tensile resistance of the reinforcement Fr
can be predicted using Eurocode 4  Part 1–1 (EN
1994-1-1 2004). The tensile resistance of each bolt
row Fbi should be taken as the smallest values of
the design tensile resistances of the following basic Figure 8. Resistance model for the column face in bend-
components: (a) column side wall in tension, (b) ing component (Gomes et al. 1996).
column face in bending, (c) beam web in tension
and (d) endplate in bending. The tensile resistances
of the endplate in bending, beam web in tension where
and column side wall in tension can be calcu-
lated by a well defined procedure given Section 6 ⎧ 1 if ( + ) > 0.5
k=⎨ (19)
of Eurocode 3  Part 1–8 (EN 1993-1-8 2005) in ⎩ 0 .7 + 0 .6 ( + ) if ( + ) ≤ 0.5
which three different zones as shown in Figure 7a
are taken into consideration. However, the tensile
resistance of the column face in bending compo-
η=
4
1− β
(π β + 2α ) (20)
nent is not available in any existing codes of prac-
tice. Therefore, the model developed by Gomes M pl f ytc2 (21)
et  al. (1996) for minor-axis joints is adopted to c b
calculate the tensile resistance for the column face α β= (22)
in bending component due to its simplicity and L L
accuracy. The tensile resistance of the column face
in which fy is the yield stress of column; L, tc, b and
in bending component under a flexural failure
c are defined in Figure 8.
mechanism is given as

F4 M pl kη (18)
5 ROTATION CAPACITY

In order to enable redistribution of moment to

Figure 7. Resistance model for a composite joint with
two bolt rows in tension.
occur in composite joints, available rotation capac-
ity or ductility is required at the joint so that its
bending moment can reach the design moment
capacity at the failure stage. The available rota-
tion capacity is dependent on the failure mode of
the joint. It should be noted that the calculation
of the rotation capacity of bolted endplate joints
under hogging moments is not addressed in Euroc-
ode 3 Part 1–8 (EN 1993-1-8 2005) and Eurocode
4 Part 1–1 (EN 1994-1-1 2004).
There are several methods to calculate the rota-
tion capacity of composite joints proposed by
Aribert & Lachal (1992), Xiao (1994), Ahmed
& Nethercot (1997) and Anderson et  al. (2000).
Among them, the method proposed by Anderson
et al. (2000) is widely used to predict the rotation
capacity due to its accuracy.

243

Figure 9. Moment-rotation behaviour of a joint.
According to Anderson et  al. (2000), the rota-
tion capacity of a composite joint depends on (i)
the elongation of the reinforcing bar Δus and (ii)
the slip at the interface between the beam flange
and concrete slab s due to the deformation of shear
connectors
Δ us s Aribert, J.M. & Lachal, A. 1992. Experimental investiga-
φu = + b (23)
db dr db
where db and dr are respectively the depth of the
steel beam and the distance from the top of the steel
beam to the centre of the reinforcing bar. The cal-
culation of the elongation of the reinforcing bar Δus
and the slip s can be found in details in Anderson
et al. (2000). Once the initial stiffness Sini in Eq. (3),
the moment capacity Mu in Eq. (17) and the rotation
capacity φu in Eq. (23) are predicted, the moment-
rotation behaviour of a joint can be easily plotted as
in Figure 9 in using Eq. (1).
6 CONCLUSIONS
A detailed guideline for the application of the
component method to predict the complete
moment-rotation curve of bolted endplate com-
posite connections was presented for the design
of bolted endplate composite joints. The design
rules are based on not only the recommendation
given in Eurocode 3 Part 1–8 (EN 1993-1-8 2005)
and Eurocode 4 Part 1–1 (EN 1994-1-1 2004), but
also the numerical and experimental research on
the semi-rigid behaviour of the considered joints.
The present guideline is applicable for composite
joints with either CFST or hollow section columns.
Through a comparison between the predictions
of the present model and experimental results of
44 available tests on steel and composite joints
with hollow or CFST columns, Thai & Uy (2016)
244
concluded that the present guideline predict rela-
tively well the moment capacity and the initial stiff-
ness of the considered connections.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work in this paper was supported by La
Trobe University and the Australian Research
Council (ARC) under its Discovery Early Career
Researcher Award scheme (DECRA140100747).
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Engineering approaches to estimate effective notch stresses

for welded circular hollow section joints

M.R. Pradana, X. Qian & S. Swaddiwudhipong

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Offshore Research and Engineering,
National University of Singapore, Singapore

ABSTRACT: This paper presents two different approaches in estimating the effective notch stress,
namely the extrapolation method and the method based on the geometric scaling of the existing
hot-spot stress solution, for welded circular hollow section X-joints subjected to three different brace
loadings. The  extrapolation method aligns with the extrapolation approach to determine the hot-sot
stress approach in the design recommendations, and eliminates the requirement to model a 1 mm notch
radius as prescribed in the fatigue design code. The method based on the existing hot-spot stress solution
further reduces the mesh requirement in computing the notch stresses, by using a mesh required for
convergent hot-spot stresses, or based on existing parametric equations for the structural hot-spot
stresses. The  comparison of the effective notch stress assessment against existing fatigue test results
collated from the literature re-affirms the close agreement of both methods in assessing the fatigue lives
of welded tubular joints.

1 INTRODUCTION et al. 2015, Sosino et al. 2012). The effective notch

Welded tubular joints represent a common type of
structural connections in a wide range of engineer-
ing structures, including bridges, large-span roof
structures and offshore platforms. Fatigue assess-
ment for such tubular joints often utilize the hot-
spot stress approach with the corresponding S-N
curves in the design guidelines (Hobbacher 2004,
Marshall & Tang 2014). These hot-spot stresses
derive from an extrapolation of the surface stresses
at a pre-defined distance away from the weld toe
(e.g., 0.4t to 1.4t where t denotes the member thick-
ness) to the position of the weld toe. Being a ficti-
tious extrapolated surface stress, the hot-spot stress
is incapable of reflecting the stress gradient over the
thickness of the joint, which leads consequently to
the thickness correction factors in different design
codes (Hobbacher 2004, API 2007, Schumacher
et al. 2009). The hot-spot stress assessment based
on the existing S-N curve may not be able to fully
reflect the effect of some fatigue strengthening
methods, e.g., the weld toe grinding, the concrete-
filling of the chord member, etc. (Musa et al. 2016,
Qian et al. 2013, 2014, Wang et al. 2013) Instead, a
separate compendium of hot-spot S-N curves for
such fatigue-enhanced tubular joints becomes nec-
essary to provide an accurate fatigue assessment.
The effective notch stress approach, on the other
hand, has observed substantial developments over
the recent decades (Pederson et al. 2010, Pradana
stress refers to the stress at the weld toe or root
and thus represents the true driving force for the
fatigue failure in welded connections. This leads to
a single notch stress S-N curve for different types
of welded connections in the engineering stand-
ards (Fricke 2012, DnV 2011), namely, the FAT
225 curve.
Numerical calculations of the effective notch
stress requires detailed modeling of a fictitious
notch radius of 1 mm in radius. This 1 mm notch
radius originates from the hypothesis that the
stress driving the fatigue crack initiation is equal
to the average notch stress over a microstructural
support length beneath the notch. The fictitious
notch rounding theory thus introduces an equiv-
alent notch radius to estimate the reduced notch
stress averaged over the microstructural support
length (Fricke 2012). Theoretical and experimental
evidences (Oliver et al. 1989, 1994) indicate that the
1 mm radius represents an average notch radius in
welded plate connections with a thickness larger
than 5 mm.
The requirement to include a 1 mm notch radius
in the finite element modeling for tubular joints
poses significant challenges in pre-processing the
topologically complex tubular joints. Reliable and
simplified procedures to estimate the effective
notch stress in welded tubular joints thus become
essential to facilitate the engineering application of
the effective notch stress for tubular structures.

247
 This paper presents two alternative approaches
to estimate the effective notch stress at the weld
toe of tubular X-joints, namely the extrapolation
approach and the hot-spot stress derived notch
stress, followed by the assessment of fatigue test
data for X-joints using the two different approaches
in estimating the effective notch stresses.
2 EXTRAPOLATION APPROACH
In line with the extrapolation method to determine
the hot-spot stress in welded joints, Prada et al.
(2015) have proposed an approach to extrapolate
the near-toe stresses to estimate the effective notch
stress at the weld toe for welded plate connections.
Figure 1 illustrates the basic principle in this linear
extrapolation method performed on the near-toe
stresses in the logarithmic scale.
The detailed finite element analyses for welded
plate and tubular joints with a notch radius of
1  mm at the weld toe reveal that the maximum
principal stress or the stress perpendicular to the
weld line reaches a plateau near the weld toe, due to
the presence of the notch radius. The stresses near
the weld toe varies linearly over a distance of 0.02t
to 0.2t from the weld toe for welded plate connec-
tions with a wide range of geometric dimensions,
where t denotes the member thickness. Subsequent
experimental evidences demonstrate the existence
of this extrapolation zone for an X-joint subjected
to brace in-plane bending (Pradana et al. 2017),
as indicated in Figure 2. The circular hollow sec-
tion (CHS) X-joint specimen shown in Figure  2
has an outer chord diameter of 457 mm, with the
brace-to-chord diameter ratio β = 0.71, the chord
outer radius to wall thickness ratio γ  = 143 and the
brace-to-chord wall thickness ratio τ = 10.
Based on the extrapolation approach, the effec-
tive notch stress becomes,
Figure 1. Extrapolation method to determine the effec-
tive notch stress in welded joints (Prada et al. 2015).
248
Figure 2. Validation of the extrapolation zone in large-
scale CHS X-joint under brace in-plane bending (Prada
et al. 2017).
σ
= A(C )B (1)
σ nom
where A and B denote the coefficients determined
from the extrapolation, while C defines the inter-
section between the extrapolation curve and the
numerical results, as illustrated in Figure 1. σnom in
Eq. 1 refers to the nominal stress in the tubular joint.
This study computes the effective notch stress
in for CHS X-joints using Eq. (1) based on the
same extrapolation zone of 0.02t to 0.2t from the
weld toe for welded plate connections, and the
maximum principal stresses calculated from linear-
elastic finite element analysis.
The accurate estimation of the effective notch
stress sets a stringent requirement on the near-toe
meshes. The recommended element size in the thick-
ness direction, for 20-node hexagonal elements with
reduced integration, is around 0.25 mm for tubular
joints with a thickness larger than 20 mm, and an
element size of (t/20  mm)  ×  0.25  mm for tubular
joints with the thickness less than 20 mm (Pradana
et al. 2015). Figure  3 illustrates the typical, one-
eighth finite element model for a CHS X-joint under
brace axial loading, with details near a sharp weld
toe and a rounded weld toe with a 1 mm radius.
The linear-elastic numerical analysis employs
the general purpose finite element code ABAQUS
(2014). The Young’s modulus assumes a constant
value of 205 GPa with a Poisson’s ratio of 0.3.
The present study compares the numerically
determined effective notch stress using the above
extrapolation method and that computed from a
finite element model with a 1 mm notch radius at
the weld toe [as per IIW requirement (Fricke 2012)],
for CHS X-joints under brace axial loading, brace
in-plane bending (IPB) and brace out-of-plane
bending (OPB). Table  1 lists the dimensions of
CHS X-joints considered in the parametric study.
Figure 3. Typical finite element meshes for a sharp weld
toe and a rounded weld toe.
Table 1. Geometric parameters considered in the finite
element analysis for CHS X-joints.
Figure 5. Comparison of the extrapolated σens with that
computed from a FE model with a 1 mm notch radius at
the brace saddle for CHS X-joints.

Parameter Values Table 2. Statistical comparison between the extrapola-

tion method and FE calculations for CHS X-joints.
β 0.18, 0.23, 0.33, 0.38, 0.48, 0.64, 0.7, 0.8
γ 8, 10, 12.5, 18.45, 25.4, 29, 32 σens,estimated /
τ 0.2, 0.5, 1.0 σens,r= 1mm
α 16 No. of
θ 90o Loading Location data Mean COV
d0 (mm) 273, 406, 508, 682, 914
Axial Chord saddle 121 1.004 0.057
Brace saddle 121 1.004 0.025
IPB Chord crown 121 1.000 0.044
Brace crown 121 1.003 0.050
OPB Chord saddle 121 1.001 0.039
Brace saddle 121 0.009 0.036

through both approaches at the chord saddle and

Figure 4. Comparison of the extrapolated σens with that
computed from a FE model with a 1 mm notch radius at
the chord saddle for CHS X-joints.
the brace saddle in CHS X-joints subjected to brace
axial loading. In Figures 4 and 5, σ ens ,extra denotes
the effective notch stress determined from the
extrapolation method, while σ ens ,r =1mm defines effec-
tive notch stress computed from a finite element
model with a 1 mm notch radius at the weld toe.
Table  2 shows the statistical comparison
between the extrapolated effective notch stress and
that computed from finite element models with a
1 mm notch radius for X-joints subjected to brace
axial loading, in-plane bending and out-of-plane
bending, respectively.

Since the engineering procedure recommends a

fixed notch radius of 1 mm for welded connections
with different absolute dimensions, the computed
effective notch stress thus anticipates an increasing
value for joints with a larger absolute dimension.
The parametric investigation thus covers different
joint dimensions characterized by the chord outer
diameters in Table 1.
Figures  4 and 5 illustrate the close agreement
between the effective notch stresses computed
3 EFFECTIVE NOTCH STRESS FROM
HOT-SPOT STRESS SOLUTIONS
As described in the introduction, engineering stand-
ards prescribe standard procedures to determine
the structural hot-spot stress, which is often less
computational demanding than does the effective
notch stress for welded tubular joints. Many engi-
neering guidelines provide parametric formulae to

249
estimate the structural hot-spot stresses for welded Table 4. Coefficients in Eq. (2) determined from regres-
CHS joints, e.g., the Efthymiou’s formula, derived sion analysis for the σhs based on Efthymiou’s equation.
from regression analyses of an extensive numerical
database (Efthymiou 1988). This study thus aims Loading Location k c1 c2 c3 c4
to develop a relationship between the hot-spot Axial Chord saddle 4.29 −0.43 0.12 −0.24 0.28
stress values and the effective notch stresses. Brace saddle 1.03 0.29 −0.05 0.12 0.10
The effective notch stress over the hot-spot IPB Chord crown 7.91 −0.13 −0.01 −0.38 0.35
stress assumes a power law relationship on each of Brace crown 2.39 −0.07 −0.12 −0.22 0.20
the geometric parameters,
OPB Chord saddle 2.86 −0.36 −0.20 −0.15 0.28
c4 Brace saddle 0.90 0.24 −0.32 0.07 0.11
σ ens c ⎛ d ⎞
= k ( β ) (τ ) 2 (γ ) 3 ⎜ 0 ⎟
c c
(2)
σ hs ⎝ drrefe ⎠

where k, c1 to c4 denote the coefficient and expo-

nents determined from the regression analysis, dref
refers to the reference outer diameter of 508 mm,
and σhs represents the hot-spot stress.
This study uses two different approaches to
estimate the hot-spot stress, namely the extrapo-
lation method outlined in the design guidelines
by the International Institute of Welding (IIW)
(Hobbacher 2004) and the Efthymiou’s equation
(see Appendix). The extrapolation approach calcu-
lates the hot-spot stress by extrapolating linearly
the maximum principal stresses calculated from
0.4t to 1.4t away from the weld toe to the weld toe.
This study uses the same mesh used in calculating
the effective notch stress to compute the hot-spot
Figure  6. Comparison of the σens based on hot-spot
stresses. stresses with that computed from a FE model with a
Tables  3 and 4 list the coefficients in Eq. (2) 1 mm notch radius at the chord saddle for CHS X-joints.
determined from nonlinear regression analyses
for X-joints subjected to three different brace
loading conditions based on the extrapolated hot-
spot stress and the Efthymiou’s hot-spot stress,
respectively.
Figures  6 and 7 compare the effective notch
stress estimated based on the hot-spot stress solu-
tions and the σens,r = 1 mm value for the chord sad-
dle point and the brace saddle point of X-joints
under brace axial loading. In general, the effective
notch stresses computed using Eq. (2) based on the
extrapolated hot-spot stress and the Efthymiou’s
equation yield good agreement with the effective
notch stress value computed in FE models with

Table 3. Coefficients in Eq. (2) determined from regres-

sion analysis for the extrapolated σhs.

Loading Location k c1 c2 c3 c4 Figure  7. Comparison of the σens based on hot-spot

stresses with that computed from a FE model with a
Axial Chord saddle 10.3 −0.21 0.02 −0.50 0.28 1 mm notch radius at the brace saddle for CHS X-joints.
Brace saddle 2.49 −0.06 0.18 −0.18 0.10
IPB Chord crown 14.9 −0.22 0.05 −0.60 0.35
Brace crown 4.27 −0.04 0.29 −0.21 0.20 a notch radius of 1 mm. Tables 5 and 6 show the
OPB Chord saddle 9.61 −0.24 −0.01 −0.49 0.28 statistical comparison in the estimated effective
Brace saddle 2.19 −0.02 0.15 −0.13 0.11 notch stress based on the two different hot-spot
stress solutions, respectively, for X-joints subjected

250
Table  5. Statistical comparison between the estimated Table 7. Fatigue test details on CHS X-joints.
σens based on extrapolated hot-spot stress for X-joints.
Reference d0 (mm) β γ τ Load
σens,estimated/
σens,r = 1mm Dijkstra et al. (1980) 914 0.5 14.4 0.5 Axial
No. of Senz et al. (1981) 473 0.27 8.6 0.3 Axial
Loading Location data Mean COV 682 0.50 10.4 0.55 IPB
949 0.54 11.4 1.0
Axial Chord saddle 121 0.993 0.045 1280 0.72
Brace saddle 121 1.002 0.092 Maeda et al. (1970) 165 0.54  13.8 0.67 Axial
IPB Chord crown 121 0.993 0.057
Brace crown 121 0.992 0.024
OPB Chord saddle 121 0.993 0.066
Brace saddle 121 0.997 0.096

Table  6. Statistical comparison between the estimated

σens based on Efthymiou’s hot-spot stress for X-joints.

σens,estimated/
σens,r = 1mm
No. of
Loading Location data Mean COV

Axial Chord saddle 121 0.996 0.092

Brace saddle 121 1.013 0.185
IPB Chord crown 121 1.001 0.071
Brace crown 121 0.995 0.082
OPB Chord saddle 121 0.996 0.104
Brace saddle 121 1.005 0.171 Figure 8. Fatigue assessment of CHS X-joint test data
using the extrapolated effective notch stress.

to three different loading conditions. The extrapo-
lated hot-spot stress exhibits a lower scatter in the
estimated σens value than that based on Efthymi-
ou’s estimation.
4 COMPARISON AGAINST FATIGUE
TESTING DATA
indicates that the lower-bounder S-N curve derived
from the test data based either on the extrapolated
effective notch stress, σens,extra, or the computed
effective notch stress with a 1  mm notch radius,
σens,r=1 mm, corresponding to the 97.7% survivability
or mean minus three times the standard deviation,
matches closely with the design lower-bound FAT
225 curve.

This section compares the above two approaches

in estimating the effective notch stresses with
the existing fatigue test results for CHS X-joints.
Table 7 lists the dimensions and loading conditions
for a total of 33 X-joint fatigue tests reported in
the literature.
4.1 Extrapolated σens
Figure 8 shows the fatigue assessment based on the
effective notch stress for 33 X-joint tests. Figure 8
also includes the comparison of the design S-N
curve, FAT 225 and the mean S-N curve FAT
347. The extrapolated effective notch stress agrees
closely with the effective notch stress computed
from FE models with a 1 mm notch radius, as also
reflected by the mean value and the coefficient of
variation (COV) value. The comparison in Fig.  8
4.2 Estimated σens from hot-spot stresses
The existing hot-spot stress solution coupled with
Eq. (2) provides an alternative, simplified approach
to estimate the effective notch stress. Figure  9
shows the fatigue assessment of the experimental
CHS X-joint data using σens estimated from the
extrapolated hot-spot stress over the extrapolation
zone (0.4t to 1.4t away from the weld toe as per
IIW recommendation).
Figure  10 illustrates the fatigue assessment of
the CHS X-joint specimens using the effective
notch stress estimated from Eq. (2) based on the
Efthymiou’s hot-spot stress equations. Both hot-
spot stress results in Figures 9 and 10 lead to close
assessment of the fatigue test data reported in the
literature. The S-N curve corresponding to 97.7%
survivability based on the effective notch stress

251

Figure 9. Fatigue assessment of CHS X-joint test data
using the effective notch stress estimated from the hot-spot
stress extrapolated following IIW recommendations.
Figure 10. Fatigue assessment of CHS X-joint test data
using the effective notch stress estimated from Efthymi-
ou’s hot-spot stress equation.
estimated from both hot-spot stress solutions
matches well with the design S-N curve FAT 225.
5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
This study presents two different approaches to esti-
mate the effective notch stress in welded circular hol-
low section X-joints. The first approach estimates
the effective notch stress via linearly extrapolating
the maximum principal stresses computed over the
extrapolation zone from 0.02t to 0.2t away from
the weld toe in the logarithmic scale to the weld
toe. This approach aligns with the commonly used
extrapolation method to determine the hot-spot
stresses implemented in engineering guidelines.
252
The second approach estimates the effective
notch stress from the existing hot-spot stress
solutions, through a geometric dependent rela-
tionship between the effective notch stress and
the hot-spot stress determined from regression
analyses. This study examines two hot-spot stress
solutions, namely the extrapolation approach in
IIW (Hobbacher 2004) and Efthymiou’s hot-spot
stress equations (Efthymiu 1988). The effective
notch stress derived from both hot-spot stress
solutions demonstrate close agreement with the
numerically computed effective notch stress val-
ues using FE models with a 1  mm notch radius
at the weld toe.
Compared to the fatigue experimental data
reported in the literature, the proposed methods in
estimating the effective notch stress leads to con-
sistent estimations of the fatigue life correspond-
ing to the mean S-N curve FAT 347 developed
from a wide range of welded connections. The
lower-bound S-N curve with 97.7% survivability,
derived from the estimated effective notch stresses,
matches well with the design S-N curve FAT 225.
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Dijkstra, O.D., & De Back, J. 1980. Fatigue strength of
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assessment of welded structures by notch stress analy-
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of welded joints and components. IIW document
XIII-1965003/XV-1127-03.
Maeda, T., Uchino, K., and Sakurai, H. 1970. Experimen-
tal Study of the Fatigue Strength of Welded Tubular
X-Joints With and Without Ring Stiffener Rings. Sup-
plement to IIW Doc. XV-270–69.
Marshall, P.W. & Thang, V. 2014. Radical Proposals for
Hot Spot Stress Design. Steel Construction, 7(2), 84–88.
Musa, I.A., Mashiri F.R. & Zhu, X. 2016. Fatigue behav-
iour of concrete-filled steel tubular joints—a review.
International Journal of Lifecycle Performance Engi-
neering, 2, 22–60.
Olivier, R., Köttgen, V.B. & Seeger, T. (1989). Schweiß-
verbindung I (Welded Joints I), FKM Forschungshefte
143, Frankfurt/M, FKM.
Olivier, R., Köttgen, V.B. & Seeger, T. 1994. Schweiß- APPENDIX
verbindung II, Schwingfestigkeitsnachweise (Welded
Joints II, Fatigue Assessments), FKM-Forschungsheft The Efthymious’s equation to estimate the hot-
180, Frankfurt/M, FKM. spot stresses in circular hollow section X-joints
Pedersen, M.M., Mouritsen, O.Ø., Hansen, M.R.,
Andersen, J.G., & Wenderby, J. 2010. Re-analysis of
derive from the regression analyses of the stress
fatigue data for welded joints using the notch stress results computed from finite element models made
approach, International Journal of Fatigue, 32(10), of shell elements.
1620–1626. For CHS X-joints subjected to brace axial load-
Pradana, M.R., Qian, X. & Swaddiwudhipong, S. ing, the hot-spot stress at the chord saddle follows,
2015. An extrapolation method to determine the
σ hs
effective notch stress in welded joints. Fatigue &
τ (
= 3.877γτβ β )sin1.7 θ (A1)
Fracture of Engineering Materials & Structures, 38, σ nom
1118–1135.
Pradana, M.R., Qian, X. & Swaddiwudhipong, S. 2017.
An extrapolation method to determine the effec- and that at the brace saddle equals,
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Qian, X., Jitpairod, K., Marshall, P., Swaddiwudhipong,
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Mar-shall, P.W., Ou, Z. & Nguyen, C.T. 2013. Fatigue = 1.45 βτ 0 85γ ( β)
i 07
θ (A3)
performance of tubular X-joints with PJP+ welds: I— σ nom
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F.R. 2013. Fatigue behavior of welded T-joints with σ hs
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253
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Numerical analysis of concrete-encased tubular base connections

A. Albareda-Valls, J. Maristany Carreras & S.S. Zaribaf

Technical University of Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

ABSTRACT: Tubular columns, filled with concrete or not, are usually assumed encased to the founda-
tion, although typical base plate connections are not always as rigid as supposed, due to the rotation of
the plate and the deformation of the anchor bolts. Besides, the degradation of the rigidity after seismic
loading leads to other alternatives like embedding the whole tube in the concrete base. The benefits of
embedding the base vary depending basically on two parameters: the length of embedment and the filling
or not of the tube. This study proposes a numerical analysis of this typology of connection, by focusing
on the benefits of filling the tubes over the global stiffness. A set of different tubes of 100 and 200 mm of
outer diameter, with different embedded lengths, have been analyzed monotonically and cyclically in order
to see the influence of the core infill inside the tube on the rotational rigidity.

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Base plates of tubular sections

In the past decades, tubular sections have been
intensively used for columns, especially in seismic
areas due to their performance under all kinds of
loading. This is the reason why tubular sections are
widely used in Japan since decades ago.
When using these sections for columns in seis-
mic areas, it is needed to propose base connections
that also could satisfy the same rigidity and ductil-
ity as the sections. The base plate connection which
is usually used and considered by the Eurocodes
could be not enough under specific cyclic situ-
ations: after the earthquakes which occurred in
1978 in Japan, a new typology of base connection
was introduced: to encase the tube into the foun-
dation (Roeder et  al., 2008), (Grauvilardell et  al.
2005), (Li et al. 2002).
The embedment provides extra rigidity and duc- Figure  1. Base plate (a) and embedded base connec-
tility to the base than usual base plates supported tion (b).
by anchor bolts. Despite the significant advantages
of the embedded connection, this solution is less
used due to the standard timings in construction 2 THE HYPOTHESIS
works. This is the reason why also a new typology
of semi-embedded sections has become also used 2.1 The infill of the tube as a stiffener
in Japan (Wang et al., 2009), (Morino et al. 2003), The main hypothesis of this analysis is based on
(Kim et al. 2015), (Qiao et al. 2012). the idea that filling the base of tubular columns
The two cited typologies for base tubular col- with concrete contributes to enhance the
umns are represented in the following Figure: stiffness of encased base connections (Fig.  2).

255

Figure 2. Stress distribution over concrete in embedded
base connections, hollow tube (a) and filled tube (b).
This enhancement should be even more evident in
case of cyclic loading, since the capacity of absorb-
ing energy by concrete helps to diminish the dam-
age process over the whole system.
3 FINITE ELEMENT MODEL
3.1 Model geometry and meshing
A complete numerical model has been developed, by
using Abaqus software, version 6.13. The numerical
model considers two separate instances for steel and
concrete, with an interaction algorithm between
them. Both instances have been defined as solid
elements type C3D8, with a minimum number of
elements in the wall-thickness of 3 in case of tubes,
according to the calibration carried out by the same
authors (Albareda-Valls, 2013).
Interaction between both materials is defined
tangentially and normally; tangential contact
works with a friction coefficient of 0.20 while nor-
mal contact is defined by using the “hard contact”
algorithm, available in Abaqus software.
A tetrahedral mesh has been used for both ele-
ments, in order to fit with the needed geometrical
transition from a circular hole to a rectangular
base (Fig. 3). The global size of the selected mesh
is also enough to fulfill the precision needed in the
analysis, and according to the calibration processes
cited before.
All the forces have been introduced as lateral
displacements, by fixing other translations or rota-
tions at the upper face of the analyzed tubes. The
fact of using displacements instead of forces is in
order to achieve more precision in the resulting
256
Figure 3. General view of the numerical model used.
curves Moment-rotation, especially when plastic-
ity takes place. This method is much more natural,
since it reproduces exactly the way of loading of a
similar test at laboratory.
3.2 Material properties
An elastic-plastic model, an according to the von
Mises yield criterion, has been used in steel. A
complete stress-strain curve with strain harden-
ing effect has been defined, obtained from uniaxial
experimental tests. For the elastic Poisson’s ratio, a
value of 0.29 has been chosen, while for the elastic
Young modulus, 200000 N/mm2.
On the other hand, the “DPC” model (Dam-
aged Plasticity model for Concrete), available in
Abaqus software and based on the postulates of
(Lubliner et  al., 1989), has been used to simulate
the complex behaviour of concrete. This constitu-
tive model consists in a three-dimensional contin-
uum plasticity-based damaged model, capable of
simulating both tensile and compressive responses,
even in case of high confining pressures.
Two different strain hardening laws (depending
on plastic strain rates) have been defined separately
into tension and compression. The “DPC” model
defines the yield surface by means of two param-
eters, Kc and σb0/σc0: while the former describes the
shape of the deviatoric plane, the latter establishes
the ratio between the initial equibiaxial to the
uniaxial compressive yield stress. A non-associated
flow rule is used, and the flow potential follows the
Drucker-Praguer hyperbolic function. The dila-
tion angle which is proposed is 31º (Albareda-Valls
et al., 2015), and the viscosity parameter is really
small (close to zero), in order to allow stresses out-
side the yield surface and to avoid possible conver-
gence difficulties.
 actuator which generates a moment rotation at the
embedded base of a large scale CFT.
Geometry and mechanical properties of the
proposed test for calibration are specified in the
Table 1.
After reproducing the same loading condi-
tions in the Abaqus model as the experiment, the
obtained resulting curve is quite similar to the
experimental one, as it can be seen in the following
Figure 7.
A good agreement between both curves can
be observed in the Figure  8 below; therefore, the
results coming from this analysis can be used to get
Figure 4. Evolution of concrete stiffness, (Karsan et al. conclusions about the rigidity and strength of base
1969). connections.

Figure 5. Evolution of damage ratio, (Karsan et al. 1969).

Figure  6. General view of the experiment tested by
(Kingsley, 2005), used for calibrating the numerical model.
The maximum tensile yield stress in case of con-
crete has been considered as the 9% of the maxi- Table 1. Specimen tested by (Kingsley, 2005).
mum characteristic compressive stress (30  MPa),
while for the Poisson’s ratio, an initial value of 0.18 Specimen D t l fy fc le
has been chosen. In the same way, the initial modu-
I 508 6.35 1800 526 70.3 304.8
lus of elasticity is defined as 25700 MPa for C30
concrete. *Dimensions expressed in [mm], stress in [N/mm ]. 2

For cyclic loading, a damage criterion for con-

crete has been also taken into account. Specifically,
the evolution of damage ratio obtained by Karsan
et al. (1969) for a 30 MPa concrete (Figs. 4 and 5)
has been implemented in the numerical model.

4 VALIDATION OF THE MODEL

4.1 Calibration with real experiments

A calibration of the numerical model with similar
experimental tests is always needed, in order to ver-
ify the results. In order to reproduce numerically
a similar test than those proposed in this study,
an experiment carried out by (Kingsley, 2005) has
been chosen. A general view of the experiment is Figure 7. General view of the Abaqus numerical model,
shown in the following Figure, with a lateral load carried out only for calibration.

257
 6 ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

6.1 Embedded base versus base plate

According to literature, (Hitaka et  al., 2003), the
rotational stiffness of a typical base plate connec-
tion KBS, can be approximated by means of the fol-
lowing expression:

E nt ⋅ Ab (ddt + dc )2
K BS = (1)
2l b

where E = Young’s modulus; nt  = number of bolts

on the tension side; Ab  = Anchor bolt’s section area;
Figure  8. Curve obtained from the numerical model lb  = embedded length of the anchor bolt; dt defines
(in grey) and the original experimental one tested by the distance between the centroid of the base and
(Kingsley, 2005) (in black). the bolts on the tension side, while dc defines the dis-
tance of the compressed area of the base, that is D/2
Table 2. Specimens analyzed. of the tube (D, diameter of the tube) (see Fig. 9).
Under this assumption, and with a diameter
Specimen D h D/t Infill of the tube of 100 mm, a base plate of two times
the diameter (200 mm) and 4 anchor bolts at the
H100h100 100 100 66.6 – perimeter, the stiffness would be:
H100h200 100 200 66.6 –
H100h300 100 300 66.6 – 2 ⋅ 105 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 200, 96 ⋅ (100 + 50 )2
F100h100 100 100 66.6 x K BS =
2 ⋅ 600 (2)
F100h200 100 200 66.6 x
= 15, 072 ⋅ 108 Nmm
F100h300 100 300 66.6 x
H200h100 200 100 66.6 –
H200h200 200 200 66.6 - As it can be seen in the diagrams below, the
H200h300 200 300 66.6 – more the tube is encased in the foundation, more
F200h100 200 100 66.6 x rigid becomes the connection (Figures 10 and 11).
F200h200 200 200 66.6 x
F200h300 200 300 66.6 x

*Diameter and depth of embedment in mm.

5 PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS

5.1 Definition of the specimens

A set of 12 different tubular specimens have been
analyzed by using the numerical model described
in previous sections. All the specimens have been
subjected to lateral displacement, with and with- Figure 9. Base plate scheme (Hitaka et al., 2003).
out the filling of concrete, and according to the
experimental test carried out by (Kingsley, 2005)
(Fig. 6). Table 3. Global stiffness depending on base plates.
The decisive variables in this parametric analysis Tube B d K
are the embedment depth of the tube, together with
the filling of concrete. Both parameters mainly 100 mm 150 10 9,46 ⋅ 108
defines the stiffness of the base connection against 100 mm 200 10 11,68 ⋅ 108
rotation, and one of the goals of this research is 100 mm 250 10 14,13 ⋅ 108
just to analyze the influence of this filling. 200 mm 300 10 37,84 ⋅ 108
In Table 2, all the geometrical data of the ana- 200 mm 400 10 46,72 ⋅ 108
lyzed tubes are specified: 200 mm 500 10 56,53 ⋅ 108
The steel of all specimens has been considered
with an elastic limit of 275  MPa, while concrete *B: base plate width, [mm]; d: diameter of bolts, [mm].
with a compressive strength of 30 MPa. K, stiffness.

258
 completely surrounded by concrete, so that a new
passive force appears thanks to the filling.
This new stress distribution of stresses over con-
crete (see Fig.  12) allows a clear enhancement of
the global rigidity of the connection (Figs. 13–18).

Figure 10. Moment-rotation diagrams, 100 mm diam-

eter tube.

Figure 12. Stress distribution in case of filling the base.

Table 4. Enhancement of stiffness thanks to filling.

Tube K, hollow K, filled % Enhancement

H100h100 715.90 872.72 21.90%

H100h200 1042.66 1106.66 6.13%
H100h300 1428.07 1608.77 12.65%
H200h100 877.27 956.81 9.06%
H200h200 1106.00 1198.00 8.31%
H200h300 1882.14 2021.42 7.40%

Figure 11. Moment-rotation diagrams, 200 mm diam- *K: Stiffness against rotation.

eter tube.

Besides, and according to the obtained results, the

embedded tubes are more rigid against rotation
than the usual base plates. If we compare rota-
tional stiffness in Figures 10 and 11, and according
to the obtained results, the embedded connection
is more rigid, except for the case of 100 mm diam-
eter tube with an embedment of 100 mm.

6.2 Effect of the filling under monotonic loading

The filling of the base of the tube in embedded con-
nections have a clear beneficial effect over the global
stiffness, as it can be derived from this analysis. The
mechanism of resisting against the bending moment
at the base is different from the one in case of hollow Figure  13. Moment-rotation curve. 100  mm diameter
tubes (see Fig. 2): the walls of the filled tube become tube, encased 100 mm.

259
Figure  14. Moment-rotation curve. 100  mm diameter
tube, encased 200 mm. Figure  17. Moment-rotation curve. 200  mm diameter
tube, encased 200 mm.

Figure  15. Moment-rotation curve. 100  mm diameter

tube, encased 300 mm. Figure  18. Moment-rotation curve. 200  mm diameter
tube, encased 300 mm.

Table 5. Enhancement of strength thanks to filling.

Tube Mu, hollow Mu,filled % Enhancement

H100h100 6.44 6.53 1.39%

H100h200 8.95 9.45 5.58%
H100h300 10.30 10.90 5.82%
H200h100 49.10 55.50 13.03%
H200h200 65.00 69.30 6.61%
H200h300 63.80 64.70 1.41%

*Mu: Ultimate bending moment under rotation.

Figure  16. Moment-rotation curve. 200  mm diameter

tube, encased 100 mm.
As it is derived from the specimens analysed
above, an enhancement of stiffness about 8–9%
takes place when considering the filling inside the
tubes.
As regarding stiffness, the filling of the tubes
provides also an increment of strength. This
increment is more evident in larger pipes, especially
when they are not deeply encased.
According to Table 5, the increment of strength
is between 4 and 5% of the ultimate bending
moment in the specimens tested in this analysis.

260
6.3 Effect of the filling under cyclic loading This phenomenon may be diminished due to
the infill, as it can be seen in the next sequence of
Embedded connections were initially thought for
images (Fig. 22).
seismic areas in order to make column bases more
First column belongs to point “1” in Figure 20,
rigid. The fact of filling the tubes has also a benefi-
while the second belongs to point “2” in the same
cial effect on the global stiffness, as it can be derived
diagram. Both points correspond to the same
from the analysis which has been carried out.
loading conditions, but at different cycles. At the
A total of 3 cycles of lateral loading have been
same time, the first row corresponds to the stress
implemented to a 200 mm diameter tube, with an
distribution with the hollow tube, while the second
embedment of 200 mm. The first cycle reaches the
row corresponds to the distribution with the infill.
ultimate bending moment of the base, while the
It is clear that the stress area on concrete is
second and the third cycles go beyond, as it can be
much more important in the second row, as there is
seen in the following Figure.
concrete in both faces of the tube.
Cyclic loading damages concrete in a percent-
At each cycle of loading there is a loose of
age at each cycle, according to Karsan et al. (1969).
stiffness due to the crushing of concrete of the
The damage becomes explicit through a reduction
of the rotational stiffness of the connection at each
cycle (see Figure below), by crushing of concrete in
the nearby of the tube.
However, as in case of monotonic loading,
the infill of concrete provides more stiffness and
strength to the base. In this case, this enhancement
is even more decisive because the stiffness is less
degraded at each cycle, thanks to the filling.
When the tube is subjected to increasing cycles
of loading like the ones of Figure  19, the con-
crete of the surroundings of the embedded tube
becomes partially crushed (see Fig. 12). This con-
crete is not available for the next cycle, so the stiff-
ness degrades every time more.

Figure  21. Lateral load-displacement diagram under

cyclic loading of a 200  mm diameter hollow (in black)
and filled (in grey) tube, embedded 200 mm.

Figure 19. Cyclic lateral displacements applied to the tube.

Figure  22. Stress distribution over concrete in cycle 1

Figure 20. Cyclic lateral loading applied to the tube. and 2, by considering the tube with and without the infill.

261

Figure 23. Evolution of stiffness under cyclic loading,
with and without the filling of concrete.
perimeter (blue areas in the Figures above). This
reduction can be quantified, and it grows together
with the cycles (see Fig. 23). This decrement is sig-
nificantly lower in filled tubes.
7 CONCLUSIONS
Embedded base connections of tubular columns
are generally more rigid against rotation than the
usual base plates, commonly used and typified by
Eurocodes. This alternative for base connections
is especially interesting under cyclic loading, as it
reduces the effects of stiffness degradation of typi-
cal solutions dealing with anchor bolts.
As it can be derived from the results and dia-
grams of this study, the filling of concrete inside
the steel tube at the base enhances both the stiff-
ness and the strength of the whole connection.
Specifically, it may improve up to 8–9% the rota-
tional stiffness of the base joint, and up to 4–5%
the strength by means of the ultimate moment for
diameters up to 200 mm.
When the filling has a clear beneficial influ-
ence is under cyclic loading; the degradation of
rotational stiffness of embedded base connec-
tions is mainly due to the crushing of concrete at
the perimeter of the tube. The filling of the tubes
with concrete distributes the damage process over
a larger area of concrete, while at the same time
guarantees a higher rotational rigidity.
Embedded base connections not only work bet-
ter in terms of rigidity and strength, but also makes
constructive solutions easier in terms of reducing
steel components; the suppression of base plates,
stiffeners and tensile anchor bolts makes these con-
nections clearly simpler; independently if tubular
sections are entire concrete-filled tubes or not.
262
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Damage analysis of doubler plate reinforced T-joints under uniaxial

tensile load based on stress triaxiality

W.N. Sui
Department of Civil Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang, China

Z.F. Wang
Department of Transportation Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang, China

K. An & O.C. Peter

Department of Civil Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang, China

ABSTRACT: Finite element analysis software ABAQUS is used to simulate the damage response of
doubler plate reinforced tubular T-joints subjected to uniaxial tensile loads in previous experimental
investigation, the damage initiation criterion used in this study is based on the Bao-wierzbicki locus which
is about the relationship between equivalent plastic strain and stress triaxiality. All of the parameters of
Bao-wierzbicki locus come from the metal tubular bar tensile test. The comparison of the analytical and
experimental results indicates that the finite element analysis curves, considering the damage criterions,
match well with the experimental curves, which proves that the proposed damage criterions could accu-
rately simulate the degraded characteristics of strength and stiffness of tubular joint under uniaxial tensile
load. But the failure mode of tubular joints during simulation and experiment process are different, a
further research will be given in the following study.

1 INTRODUCTION cracking phenomenon is the main reason for losing

By increasingthe structural height and span, and
the complexity in structure design, the fracture
of the structure happens occasionally. The sud-
den fracture of the structure is often caught off
guard, and causes huge casualties and economic
losses. Connection design is a very important part
in steel structure design. Most of the times, the
collapse of the whole steel structure is caused by
the rupture of connection areas. Through simu-
lations to get the plastic mechanical property of
steel, gaining control of plastic development and
the fracture process is helpful for structure design
and engineering safety. Steel tubular joints have
advantages on the appearance, load transferred
path, being convinience and saving material. Lit-
erature reviews show that the doubler plate rein-
forcement method is very useful for strengthening
tubular joint (G.J. Van der Vegte, et al. 2005, Y.S.
Choo et al. 2004, T.C. T.K. Fung et al. 1999, F.Gao
et al. 2015, H. Nassiraei et al. 2016) and this is one
of the most effective technologies to improve the
static capacity of tubular joints under axially com-
pressive load. On the other hand, the experimental
results of doubler plate reinforced tubular T-joints
under the axially tension load show that the weld
load bearing capacity when the relative convex and
concave deformation of chord is observed. Test
results of doubler plate reinforced tubular T-joints
under axial tension load show that weld cracking
phenomenon is observed when the T-joints relative
convex and concave deformation increased or load
bearing capacity decreased. Presently, the research
about doubler plate reinforced tubular T-joints
is mainly based on the experimental analysis and
macro-mechanics method, and these methods are
often rough and cannot acquaint analysis destruc-
tive properties of the joint accurately; whilst using
micro damage model to simulate the fracture of
steel structure connection will be more effective in
evaluating the mechanical properties and describ-
ing strengthen effect of doubler plate of tubular
T-joints. On the other hand, the micro damage
mechanics method of steel connection, is still
unkown.
McClintock 1968 and Rice & Trancey 1969 have
shown that fracture of ductile metals are strongly
dependent on hydrostatic stress by studying growth
of long cylindrical voilds and spherical voids,
respectively. Atkins in 1996 also pointed out that
the criteria for fracture initiation should depend-
ent on hydrostatic stress. In the study of Bao Y.B.,

263
et  al. 2004, a series of tests including upsetting
tests, shear tests and tensile tests on 2024-T351
aluminum alloy providing clues to fracture ductil-
ity for a wide range of stress triaxiality was car-
ried out. Based on the experimental and numerical
results, the relationship between the equivalent
plastic strain and stress triaxiality are quantified
and shown that there are three distinct branches of
this function with possible discontinuous slope in
the transition regime. For negative stress triaxiali-
ties, fracture is governed by the shear mode. Large
triaxialities may develop as a combination of shear
and void growth modes. H.L.Yu et  al. 2010 used
for the fracture locus are similar to that calibrated
by Y. W. Lee and T.Wierzbicki 2004 for industrial
aluminum and steel. Nonlinear dynamic finite ele-
ment analysis (FEA) are conducted to simulate the
fracture of unnotched charpy specimens of steel
under pendulum impact, by loading a dedicated,
and oversized nonstandard bulk fracture charpy
machine. The elements on the impact surface
appear to experience shear or mixed mode fracture,
whereas the elements on the free surface appear to
experience ductile fracture. As the specimen thick-
ness decreases, the fracture modes appear to shift
toward those with higher stress triaxialities. This
study is focused on the application of the Bao-
wierzbicki criterion because it covers the fracture
modes across the full stress triaxiality spectrum.
Also, the Bao—wierzbicki model parameters can
be calibrated from basic material test data for
industrial applications.
2 FINITE ELEMENT MODEL
FE models were used to simulate the failure mode
and the initial damage position in the doubler
plate reinforced tubular T-joints. In addition to
elastic-plastic behavior, material failure by frac-
ture initiation and evolution was incorporated in
modeling. All analyses were conducted using the
nonlinear dynamic FEA codes ABAQUS/Explicit
(ABAQUS V6.8  Analysis User’s Manual). The
constitutive relations employed in the analyses are
presented in this section, followed by descriptions
of the FE model development.
2.1 Elastic-plastic behavior
The elastic behavior is assumed to be linear and iso-
tropic with Young’s modulus E and Poisson’s ratio
υ. Once the elastic limit is reached, the plasticity
behavior modeled by incremental theory using Von
Mises yield surface and isotropic strain hardening
are suitable for steels under monotonic load. The
standard round bar tensile test for obtaining stress-
strain data, the extensometer is usually removed
264
when the bar starts to neck in an unstable mode
and the strains are no longer uniform across the
gauge length. However, it was necessary to recover
the strains when extensometer was removed since
the strains at ductile crack initiation were much
larger than those at necking stage. The true stress
and strain at fracture point are calculated accord-
ing to the Equations  1 and 2 which were derived
from the conservation of Kanvinde et al., 2004.
ε f = ln [ d d f ] (1)
σf (
F f π d 2f /4 ) (2)
where d0 and df are the initial and failure diameter
of the bar. The last point of the true stress versus
plastic strain curve shown in Figure 1 was obtained
by such method. The true stress versus plastic strain
curve before extensometer are removed and fitted
by Holomon relationship as indicated in Figure 1.
Since the calibrations of the material toughness
parameters are sensitive to the stress-strain proper-
ties, a unified and representative stress-strain curve
(such as the one shown in Figure 1) is required in
FEA, the true stress versus plastic strain curves for
Q345 steel base metal, weld metal and weld HAZ
in FEA of this study (shown in Table 1) were based
on the standard round bar tensile tests performed
by Liao et al. 2010.
As the yield stress evolves to its peak level, frac-
ture or damage is assumed to initiate when the
equivalent plastic strain ε Pl reaches to the frac-
ture initiation strain ε 0Pl , and the initiation strain
depends on the stress triaxiality η and stress state ξ.
ε 0pl F (η ξ ) B1e − B2η
− ( B1e B2η B3e B4η ) (1 − ξ 1 n )
n
(3)
where η is defined as the ratio of the hydrostatic
mean stress (σH) to the Von Mises equivalent
stress ( )
Figure 1. True stress—true strain relationship.
Table 1. Data for trus stress versus plastic strain curve. S S′
AR = (9)
Base Weld Weld S
Material metal metal HAZ
where S is the original cross section area, and S′ is
E(Mpa) 208000 207000 194000 the cross section area after fracture.
v 0.3 0.3 0.3 The hypothesis of a maximum shear stress
σy(Mpa) 320.8 380.4 358.7 fracture condition gives C1 as
ε1 0.0067 0.0230 0.0105
σ1(Mpa) 341.0 416.6 374.7 1

ε2 0.06 0.0567 0.0628 ⎛ 3⎞ n

C1 C2 ⎜ ⎟ (10)
σ2(Mpa) 522.9 491.3 520.2 ⎝ 2 ⎠
εf 1.3260 1.3240 1.2930
σf(Mpa) 1224.6 1168.4 1186.2 where n is the hardening exponent of a power law
K(Mpa) 926.7 932.5 908.9 for isotropic strain hardening which can be writ-
n 0.216 0.219 0.200 ten as
C1 0.685 0.688 0.633
C2 1.333 1.328 1.299 σ Kε n (11)

The strength coefficient K and hardening expo-

η σ H /σ (4) nent n may be calculated from the material con-
stants E, σy, σu using “progressive damage and
where failure” material model in ABAQUS/Explicit to
simulate the fracture behavior. With a predefined
σH (σ 1 + σ 2 + σ 3 ) / 3 (5) facture initiation criterion expressed in Equation
(2), damage is assumed to be initiated upon meet-
ing the following condition:
and
d ε pl
ωD = ∫ =1 (12)
⎡(σ ) + (σ ) + (σ ) ⎤
2 2 2
σ −σ −σ ε 0pl
σ= ⎣ ⎦
2 (6)
where ωD is a state variable that increases monot-
ξ is defined as the stress state parameter, onically with plastic deformation. This equation
ξ = 272 σ33 , and J3 is the third invariant of the stress
J
indicates that the plastic deformation history can
deviator J3  =  σ1σ2σ3, and σ1σ2σ3 is the principal influence the fracture initiation.
stress.
The effect of temperature or strain rate are not
2.2 Fracture evolution
considered because of the lack of experimental
data. Figure  2  shows a typical stress-strain curve with
A fracture locus similar to that calibrated by Lee the fracture process starting at ωD  =  1. With the
and Wierzbicki Y. W. Lee & T. Wierzbicki 2004
for industrial aluminum and steel are stated and
expressed as

⎧ ∞ η≤ η0
⎪ C1 / (1 3η ) −η0 ≤ η ≤ 0
⎪
ε 0pl =⎨ (7)
(C2 − C1 ) (η η0 )
2
⎪C1 0 ≤ η ≤ η0
⎪ C2η0 / η η0 ≤ η
⎩

where C1 is ε 0pl in pure shear (η = 0) and C2 is ε 0pl

in uniaxial tension (η = η0), η0 = 1/3, and C2 can
be calculated from the reduction in area AR of
the cross section of an uniaxial tensile round bar
specimen.
Figure 2. Typical uniaxial stress-strain response under-
C2 l (1 AR ) (8) going stiffness reduction due to damage evolution.

265
onset of damage, the yield stress softens and the
elastic modulus degrades until the equivalent
plastic strain reaches its failure limit at ε fpl . the
damage evolution is monitored by an overall vari-
able D, which is activated upon fracture initiation
(D  =  0) and progresses to 1 at complete failure.
Various damage evolution forms are available in
ABAQUS, and a linear softening law was adopted
in this study for simplicity. Post-peak softening
component in the stress-strain curve helped to
indicate the residual load carrying capability of a
cracked ductile material.
To reduce the mesh dependency inherent in
softening responses, ABAQUS adopted a fracture
energy method originally proposed for modeling
the quasi-brittle fracture of concrete and intro-
duced stress-displacement curves for softening in
lieu of stress-strain curves. An equivalent plastic
displacement u pl is defined according to the fol-
lowing equation:

u l
Leε pl (13)

where Le is an element characteristic length defined

as the square root of the integration point area for
2-D elements and the cubic root of the integration
point volume for 3-D elements. Once u pl reaches
u f pl upon complete failure, elements represent-
ing failed material points may be removed. Direct
experimental measurement of the parameter u f pl
was unavailable, and calibrated as the elongation
Le multiplied by the gauge length in an uniaxial
tensile test.

2.3 Mesh generation procedure

In order to guarantee the mesh quality, a sub-zone Figure 3. Sketch of FEA models.
mesh generation method was used during the FE
modeling. In this method, the whole structure is
divided into several different zones according to
the computational requirement. The mesh of each
zone is generated separately using different den-
sities and element types. The mesh to complete
the model is produced by merging the sub-zones
together with the same element type or coupling
the shell element sub-zone with solid element sub-
zone. In this study, S4R shell elements and C3D8R
solid elements are used. The simulation of frac-
ture initiation is expressed by the stiffness degrade
and element deletion in Abaqus program. The Figure 4. Boundary condition.
shell element has thickness in cross section, it can-
not simulate the partial stiffness degrade and ele-
2.4 Loading and boundary conditions
ment deletion in thickness direction. On the other
hand, the simulation of contact problem should be The load and boundary conditions of analysis
applied on solid elements, the solid elements had model are the same with experimental specimen
been applied directly on the connection area. The which is shown in Figure 4. In Figure 4, the both
other parts of the brace and chord uses solid ele- ends of the chord are fixed and an axial tension
ment like shown in Figure 3. load is done on top of the brace.

266
3 ANALYSIS

3.1 Verification of FE results based on

experimental data
In order to validate numerical modeling of doulber
plate reinforced T-joints under axial tension load,
the experimental data used by Sui (Sui, 2013) were
followed. All the data used for modeling the joints
in the verification phrase are listed in Table 2 whilst
the material parameters are list in Table 1. Figure 5
depicts the comparison between the experimental
data and numerical results. In Figure  5, the X-axis
represents the ovalization of chord which is the dif-
ference in displacement between the chord crown
position and saddle position. It can be concluded
that both of the FE models are accurate enough in
predicating the initial stiffness and ovalization of
unreinforced and doubler plate reinforced tubular
joint in elastic and elastic-plastic stage. For the FE
models based on equivalent strain and stress triaxial-
ity fracture criteria provided a maximum load bear-
ing capacity for the equivalent plastic strain when it
reaches to the fracture initiation strain. The brace end
and the chord bottom center defined by subtracting
the transducer reading at the chord bottom the center
of the joint from the average value of the four trans-
ducer reading near the chord brace intersection.
The comparisons of the test results and analy-
sis result of 3 test specimens are shown in Table 3.
Considering the damage condition, the FEA
results of the load bearing capacity in the initial
fracture start point is slightly less than the test
result, and the error is 4.4%, 5.3%, 1.6% (SJ1 SJ2,
SJ3), respectively. It is visible that the ultimate
load bearing capacity of FEA model considering
the damages are in good agreement with the test
results. For the corresponding displacement in the
stage of the initial damage, SJ-1 tubular joint anal-
ysis results are larger than the test results, that is to Figure  5. Force and ovalization of unreinforced and
doubler plate reinforced tubular joint.
say the deformation capacity obtain from analysis
result is better than the test results. The load bear-
ing capacity of the anaysis result is greater than
Table 3. Compare of the FEA with test.
the test evaluation results by 21.6%. For the cor-
responding displacement in the stage of the initial Spe. Test FEA Error%
damage, SJ-1 and SJ-2 doubler plate reinforced
tubular joint analysis results are smaller than the δ(mm) SJ1 9 10.94 21.6
test results, that is to say the deformation capacity SJ2 37.1 30.37 18.1
obtain from analysis result is more safe and reliable. SJ3 44.8 35.6 20.5
P(kN) SJ1 236 225.59 4.4
SJ2 580 549.38 5.3
Table 2. Geometrical parameters of experimental data.
SJ3 618 608 1.6
D d T t 2δ + d tp
Spe. mm mm mm mm mm mm
The load bearing capacity of the analysed results
SJ-1 302.25 89.8 5.7 7.1 — —
SJ-2 302.25 89.8 5.7 7.1 201 9.5
of model SJ-2 and SJ-3 are smaller than the test
SJ-3 302.25 89.8 5.7 7.1 201 9.5
evaluation results by 18.1% and 20.5 respectively.
Although there are certain error margine between

267
simulation results and experimental results, finite
element analysis methods are able to give a safer
cracking bearing capacity and the corresponding
deformation capacity.
3.2 Verification of the damage modes
Figure 6 is the comparation of the damage mode
which is gotten from FEA and experimental
results. The damage mode which is observed in the
experiment is the cracking at heat affected zone
on top of the chord wall which causes the joint to
lose its ultimate bearing capacity, while the dam-
age mode observed in finite element analysis is the
cracking of the weld seam between chord and the
brace, the damage mode don’t confirm with each
other. The initial damage include ductile damage
in high triaxial stress condition, shear damage
in low stress triaxial, and the combination dam-
age influenced by the shear and ductility damage.
Figure 7 shear damage and ductility damage fac-
tor distribution nephogram is shown in Figure 7.
In Figure 7, DUCTCRT = 1 means initial damage
of the elements caused by the ductile damage, and
SHRCRT  =  1  means initial damage of elements
caused by the ductile damage. It is observed that
not only ductile damage factor but also shear
damage factor is close to 1, and the ductility dam-
age and shear damage holds the same dominant
Figure  6. Comparation of the damage modes of the
analysis results and FEA.
268
Figure 7. The shear damage and ductility damage fac-
tor distribution nephogram.
position in this study. Figure 8 is the ductile dam-
age evolution process which is expressed by the
equivalent plastic strain and stress triaxiality rela-
tionship curve in position A and B in Figures  7.
In Figure 8, it is observed that the stress triaxiality
in position A has the largest value in initial stage.
With the increase of the load level, the equivalent
plastic strain increases and the equivalent stress tri-
axial degree decreases, from the stress condition,
the damage develops from ductile damage to com-
pound damage of ductile and shear, then triaxial
stress degree fall continuely on until the negative
stress triaxial decreases. It is visible that the stress
development order of chord wall is the ductile
damage which happened ahead of ductile and
shear compound damage, only shear damage can
be observed in the finial stage. The equivalent plas-
tic strain and stress triaxiality curve in position B is
the stress development of deposit metal. Different
from weld heated area, the equivalent plastic strain
and stress triaxiality increases alongside with the
loading immediately. The break line in the figure
is the critical damage line, the value of equivalent
plastic strain and stress triaxiality lay beyond the
damage curve which mean that the steel material
starts to fracture, which is caused by the expansion
of micro holes. In Figure 8, there are only fractures
of deposit metal in the high stress triaxiality state.
3.3 Error reason
In addition to the possible existence of initial
defects, the main possible reason caused by the dif-
ferent failure mode are due to the adoption of the

Figure 8. Ductile damage evolution process.
damage constitutive model which is obtained from
tensile experiment of metal round bar about the
ductile damage parameters. In the study of H.L.
Yu 2010, parameter C2 which is gotten from tensile
experiment of metal round bar is used to calculate
the pure shear parameter C1 in formula 9. However,
in this study, the chord wall thickness is thinner, the
heat influence is serious, the ductility of the mate-
rial will be worse than before, further study must be
done to check if this assumption which obtained
from the study of H.L. Yu 2010 is suitable or un-
suitable to solve the thin wall structure problem.
4 CONCLUSIONS
In this study, finite element simulation of the dam-
age response of previous experimental investiga-
tion of doubler plate reinforced tubular T-joints
under uniaxial tensile loads has been done. In the
analysis model, the true stress versus plastic strain
269
Holomon relationship curve are used to define the
elastic-plastic characteristic and fracture locus sim-
ilar to that calibrated by Lee and Wierzbicki Y. W.
Lee & T. Wierzbicki 2004 for industrial aluminum
and steel. From the comparation of the analysitic
results and experimental results, the following con-
clusions can be drawn from this study:
The comparison of the analysis and experimen-
tal results indicated that the finite element analysis
curves, considering the damage criterions, cor-
respond well with the experimental curves, which
proves that the proposed damage criterions could
accurately simulate the degraded characteristics of
strength and stiffness of tubular joints.
The failure mode observed in the experiment
modal caused by the crack at heat affected zone
on top of the chord wall which causes the joints to
lose its ultimate bearing capacity, and the failure
mode observed in finite element analysis caused
by the crack of the welding seam between chord
and brace, are not conformed with the phenomena
observed in the experiment.
The main possible reason caused by the differ-
ent failure mode are due to the adoption of the
damage constitutive model, a further study will be
done.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to the supports of Nationl
Science Foundation of China (Grant 51108278)
and the education department of Liaoning Provi-
ence (LJQ2013063).
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Strength estimation of CHS column to H-beam connections stiffened

by exterior diaphragms

M. Okamoto, T. Tanaka & H. Asada

Department of Architecture, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan

ABSTRACT: This paper proposes the new strength formula for the CHS column to H-beam connec-
tions stiffened by exterior diaphragms in which the effect of material strength and geometric properties
are unified. In order to derive the strength formula, limit analysis based on upper bound theorem was
performed. Since the theoretical solution is too complicated to use in practice, the unknown variable to
define the yield line in collapse mechanism was approximated by means of parametric study to develop
the practical strength formula. The validity of the strength formula was verified in comparison to FEA
and previous test results.

1 INTRODUCTION results for the connection consisting of ultra high

Exterior diaphragm connection as shown in
Figure  1 is one of the configurations of circular
hollow section column (CHS) to H-beam connec-
tion which is commonly used in Japan for seismic
application. The exterior diaphragm connection
must be designed to provide sufficient strength for
achieving the fully plastification of the beam during
large earthquake without premature failure at the
connection according to weak beam-strong column
concept. For this purpose, it is necessary that the
connection strength must be rationally evaluated.
On the other hand, ultra high strength steel which
has nominal yield strength of more than 700 MPa
has been recently developed and utilized in building
construction in Japan. Current Japanese design pro-
vision (AIJ 2002) specified the connection strength
given by empirical formula which was established
based on previous test results for the connection
consisting of normal strength structural steel hav-
ing nominal yield stress of less than 490 MPa. Pre-
vious experimental study conducted by the authors
(Tanaka & Asada. 2015) showed that the current
design provision significantly overestimated the test
Figure 1. CHS column to beam connection stiffened by
exterior ring diaphragms.
strength steel. The results indicated there was need
to establish unified design formula as alternative to
the empirical formula with the range of application
to the normal strength steel connection.
This paper presents the new strength formula of
exterior diaphragm connection in which effect of
material strength and geometric properties are uni-
fied. Proposed strength were derived by means of
limit analysis and assessed by comparison to FEA
and previous test results.
2 LIMIT ANALYSIS
The collapse mechanism (Okamoto et  al. 2016)
of the external diaphragm connection is shown in
Figure 2. The mechanism consists of multiple yield
lines and regions including bending yield lines a-a,
a’-a’, b-b, b’-b’, the punching shear yield lines a-b
and b’-a’ in column wall and the in-plane yield
lines b-c in exterior diaphragms. In the mechanism,
the unknown variables are X and the intersectional
angle β to define the yield line.
From the principle of virtual work, the upper
bound of collapse load Np is expressed in the
following equation. Detail induction process is
described in previous paper (Tanaka et al. 2015)
⎡ d
Np ndy R { + + }
⎣ R
ncy ⎧ 8R ⎛ α ⎞  t + X ⎫⎤
+ ⎨ 2 sin 2 − sin α 2 ⎟ + c ⋅ d ⎬⎥
ndy ⎩ X ⎝ 2 ⎠ R tc ⎭ ⎥⎦
(1)
where, R: the radius of the column (  =  (Dc–tc)/2),
ndy  =  td .dσy, ncy  =  tc .cσy, td: diaphragm thickness,

271
Figure 2. Collapse mechanism for column wall and exterior diaphragm.

tc: column thickness, dσy: yield strength of diaphragm,

tc ⎛ α ⎞
cσy: yield strength of column, d: the length of in-plane X 2 2R 2 sin 2 − sin α 2 ⎟ (4)
yield lines b-c as shown in Fig. 2(b), c: the length of c ⎝ 2 ⎠
punching shear yield line b-d as shown in Fig. 2(b), α1:
the intersectional angle of lines c-o and o-m (∠com), By substituting Eq. (4) into Eq. (1), the upper
α2: the intersectional angle of lines b-o and o-m bound of Np can be expressed as
(∠bom), β: the intersectional angle between yield line
b-c and line c-o (∠bco). The angle α1 is expressed as ⎡ d
N p ndy R {+ + }
⎣ R
⎧⎛ B ⎞ ⎛ Dc ⎞⎫
α 1 = sin −1 ⎨⎜ f ⎟ + hd ⎬ (2) ncy ⎧⎪  ⎛ α ⎞  t ⎫⎪ ⎤
⎩⎝ 2 ⎠ ⎝ 2 ⎠⎭ + ⋅ ⎨ 4 2 c ⎜ 2 sin 2 − sin α 2 ⎟ + c ⋅ d ⎬ ⎥
ndy ⎩ tc ⎝ 2 ⎠ R tc ⎪ ⎥
⎭⎦
where, Dc: column diameter, Bf: width of the beam (5)
flange, hd: depth of the exterior diaphragm. Besides
α2, d and c are obtained by determining the inter- The best upper bound of Np can be determined
sectional angle β with geometric relationships. by trial and error using numerical calculation for
The upper bound of Np may be reduced by mini- various β.
mizing the solution with respect to the unknown
the length X and the intersectional angle β
3 PRACTICAL STRENGTH FORMULAE
∂N p ∂N p
= 0, =0 (3) The aforementioned calculation procedure is too
∂β ∂X complicated to use in practice. Thereby, the practi-
cal strength formula has been further developed by
From the second formula of Eqs. (3), X is obtaining approximation of intersectional angle β.
obtained as In order to approximate β, parametric study was

272
conducted varying with key parameters: depth
of exterior diaphragm hd, beam flange width Bf,
strength ratio of diaphragm to column per unit
length ndy/ncy.
From the parametric study, approximation of β
is given by the following equations.

⎧ 1 ⎛ ndy ⎞ π
⎪− + − γ − α1 ( β a α1 )
β a = ⎨ 3 ⎜⎝ ncy ⎟⎠ 2 (6)
⎪−α β a ≤ −α 1 )
⎩ 1

where,

⎧( + ) cos α1 − Dc ⎫
γ = tan−1 ⎨ ⎬ (7) Figure 4. Comparison of exact and approximated plas-
⎩ Bf ⎭ tic strength (Np and Np,a).

Comparison of exact and approximate inter-

sectional angle β with respect to ndy/ncy is shown sii (α 1 β a ) ⎫
⎧ B f hd ⋅ sin
in Figure 3. It can be seen that the approximation ⎪ − ⎪
⎪ 2 cos β a ⎪
give a close estimate to exact β through the wide α 2,a = sin −1 ⎨ ⎬ (10)
⎪ Dc ⎪
range of ndy/ncy, regardless of depth of diaphragm,
regardless of beam flange width. In addition to ⎪⎩ 2 ⎪⎭
this, yield line length d, c and its angle α2 are also
approximated and, rewritten by following forms: By substituting approximations by Eq. (6)~(10)
into Eq. (5), the approximated collapse load Np,a is
hd given by
 d ,a = (8)
cos β a
⎡ hd
 c ,a =
tc
(9)
N p a ndy R ⎢
R cos βa
{ + sin( + a )}
cos α 2,a ⎣
⎧ α ⎫⎤
ncy ⎪⎪ 2 sin 2,a sin i α 2,a t ⎪⎪ ⎥
⎬⎥
+ 2 + d
⎨4 2
ndy ⎪ cos α 2, R cos α 2,a ⎪ ⎥
⎪⎩ ⎪⎭ ⎥⎦
(11)
Comparison of the exact and approximated col-
lapse load Np is shown in Figure 4. The mean value
of Np,a/Np equal to 1.00 with COV of 0.008. Np was
approximated by Np,a with absolute accuracy.

4 FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

4.1 FE model
To examine the validity of proposed strength
formula, pullover analysis was performed using
ABAQUS version 6.9. Figure  5  shows simplified
FE models to simulate the one side of beam-
diaphragm connection subjected to tensile force.
All components include beam flange, column and
external diaphragm were modelled with a hexa-
hedral 8-node linear brick, reduced integration
with an hourglass control solid element. Previ-
Figure 3. The approximation of β. ous study (Okamoto et al. 2016) verified that the
results of simplified FE model used in this study

273
 Table 2. Parameter matrix (unit: mm).

Column Diaphragm
Dc × tc hd × td Beam
FE model (steel grade) (steel grade) Bf × tf

s54-S0.4-M 216.3 × 4 15 × 9 (SN490) 100 × 9

s54-R0.4-M (SN490) 30 × 9 (SN490)
s54-L0.4-M 45 × 9 (SN490)
s36-S0.7-M 216.3 × 6 15 × 9 (SN490)
s36-R0.7-M (SN490) 30 × 9 (SN490)
s36-L0.7-M 45 × 9 (SN490)
s27-S0.9-M 216.3 × 8 15 × 9 (SN490)
s27-R0.9-M (SN490) 30 × 9 (SN490)
s27-L0.9-M 45 × 9 (SN490)
s36-R1.0-M 216.3 × 6 30 × 6 (SN490) 100 × 6
s36-R0.5-M (SN490) 30 × 12 (SN490) 100 × 9
s36-R0.7-N 30 × 9 (SN490) 75 × 9
s36-R0.7-W 125 × 9
Figure 5. FE models. s36-R0.7-M/1.4 216.3 × 6
(SA440) 100 × 9
s36-R0.7-M/1.6 216.3 × 6 30 × 9 (SA440)
Table 1. Mechanical properties. (H-SA700)

σy σu
2
Steel grade N/mm N/mm2

SN490 325 490

SA440 440 580
H-SA700 700 780

Note: Material properties are nominal values.

were comparable with the local behavior of tensile 4.2 Overview of analysis results
region in entire beam-to-column connection sub-
FEA results are summarized in Table  3. From
jected to lateral loading.
the obtained load-local deformation (connection
Two stress-strain relationships for the steel
deformation) responses, three strength capaci-
material: elastic-perfectly plastic (EPP) and tri-
ties: yield strength ANy, plastic strength ANp and
linear strain-hardening (SH) model with yield
ultimate strength ANu were defined with due
strength shown in Table  1 were considered in
considerations to deformation limit as shown in
order to discuss the validity of theoretical solu-
Figure 6. Here, yield and ultimate strength follow
tion with/without effect of strain hardening on
an allowable stress design and ultimate limit state
strength capacity. von-Mises yield criterion and
design format respectively, which are compatible
the Prandtl–Reuss flow rule with isotropic hard-
with current Japanese design provision. Here, the
ening rule was adopted to model the material
yield strength is defined as the load at which tan-
nonlinearity.
gent stiffness become one-third of the initial elas-
Parameter matrix is shown in Table 2. A total
tic stiffness. The ultimate strength was defined as
of fifteen models were analyzed. All of models
the 0.75% offset load. This limitation corresponds
had same column diameter of 216.3 mm. In the
to allow 1% residual beam rotation when assum-
analysis, column thickness tc, depth of the dia-
ing beam depth is 1.5 times column diameter. The
phragm hd, diaphragm thickness td, width of the
plastic strength was defined as the load at the time
beam flange Bf and the column-to-diaphragm
when the residual deformation of 1.5% of the col-
yield strength ratio cσy/dσy were varied in the
umn diameter for the analysis results when apply-
ranges as follows;
ing the EPP material. Figure 7 shows load N versus
local deformation responses of all models. In the
27 ≤ Dc tc ≤ 54 0.07
07 hd c 0.21 figure, bold solid and thin solid lines represent the
0.44 tc td 1.0 0.35 ≤ B f Dc ≤ 0.58 results with SH material and that with EPP mate-
1.0 ≤ c σ y d σ y ≤ 1.6 rial respectively.

274
Table 3. FE results.

A K A Np Ny
A Nu
A Np

FE model kN/mm kN kN kN kN A Np/Np ANy/ANp Nu/ANy

A

s54-S0.4-M 150 142 112 151 152 0.94 0.79 1.34

s54-R0.4-M 264 193 147 201 196 0.97 0.77 1.37
s54-L0.4-M 394 235 181 250 241 0.97 0.77 1.38
s36-S0.7-M 224 200 159 212 193 1.04 0.79 1.34
s36-R0.7-M 357 243 186 260 231 1.05 0.77 1.40
s36-L0.7-M 502 284 204 306 272 1.04 0.72 1.50
s27-S0.9-M 312 263 204 281 227 1.16 0.77 1.38
s27-R0.9-M 459 297 223 320 258 1.15 0.75 1.44
s27-L0.9-M 615 334 241 360 296 1.13 0.72 1.50
s36-R1.0-M 289 191 141 208 175 1.09 0.74 1.48
s36-R0.5-M 403 289 224 303 280 1.03 0.77 1.36
s36-R0.7-N 296 214 165 228 190 1.13 0.77 1.38
s36-R0.7-W 436 275 205 296 277 0.99 0.75 1.44
s36-R0.7-M/1.4 357 278 194 295 261 1.06 0.70 1.52
s36-R0.7-M/1.6 357 392 275 398 375 1.04 0.70 1.44
Mean 1.05 0.75 1.42
COV 0.063 0.039 0.041

satisfactory accuracy. An example of out-of-plane

deformation and equivalent plastic strain distribu-
tion of the connection are shown in Figure 9. Out-
of-plane deformation of column face and plastic
strain occurred at the diaphragm are comparable
to the collapse mechanism proposed in this study.

4.4 Yield and ultimate strength estimation

Figure 6. Definition of connection strength.
It is confirmed that the yield strengths and the
deformations at the time when the load reached
yield strengths were not affected by strain hard-
ening effects. And also, the ultimate strength
obtained from the results with SH material is
30%∼52% larger than the plastic strength obtained
from the results with EPP material.
Since proposed strength formula is based on upper
bound theorem, it is not suitable for the evaluation
of yield strength in practice. In order to explore
the possibility of the evaluation based on the pro-
posed strength formula aforementioned, analytical
yield strengths were compared to plastic strengths
in Table 3. The ratio ANy/ANp ranged from 0.70 to
0.79 and mean value of ANy/ANp equaled to 0.75
with good coefficient of variation of only 3.9%.
Based on the consistency of the ratio of yield to
plastic strength observed in FE results, reduction
factor of 0.75 to the collapse load Np is adopted for
the evaluation of yield strength cNy. That is, yield
strength is given by:
c Ny 0 75N p (12)

In the same manner, ultimate strength was

4.3 Comparison between collapse load and FEA
The collapse load Np,a obtained by Eq. (11) com-
pared with the analytical plastic strength in
Figure  8. The ratio ANp/Np ranged from 0.94 to
1.16 for all FE models. Proposed strength for-
mula showed good agreement with FE results with
compared to yield strength. The ratio ANu/ANy
ranged from 1.34 to 1.52 and mean value of ANu/
ANy equaled to 1.42 with good coefficient of varia-
tion of only 4.1% as shown in Table 3. Amplifica-
tion factor of 1.4 for ultimate strength is adopted.
Ultimate strength thus is given by:

275
Figure 7. Load versus local deformation curves.
Figure 8. Comparison of ANp and Np.
Figure  9. Deformation state and equivalent plastic
strain distribution.
276
c Nu 1 4 c N y = 1.4 × 0.75N
75N p 1 05N p (13)
5 COMPARISON TO PREVIOUS TEST
RESULTS
The validity of the proposed strength formulae were
further discussed by comparing with three previous
test results on CHS column-to-H-beam connection
stiffened by external diaphragms. (Okamoto et al.
2016, Kamba et al. 1986, Nakayama et al. 2010).
The comparison of experimental (eNy) and esti-
mated yield strength (cNy) is shown in Figure  10.
The ratio eNy/cNy for all test specimens ranged from
0.89 to 1.33, and mean value of equal to 1.15 with
Standard Derivation of 0.11.
The comparison of experimental (eNu) and
estimated ultimate strength (cNu) is shown in
Figure  11. The experimental maximum strengths
are also plotted here. Note that all of test speci-
mens except one specimen in Test (a) finally frac-
tured due to the crack occurred at the intersection
between diaphragm and beam flange as expected
in the design. The ultimate strength defined in
this study is not identified for the other two tests
(Test (b) and (c)) conducted by Kamba et al. and
Nakayama et  al. So, the experimental maximum
loads were only compared to the estimations,
 compared to FE results and previous test results.
Following conclusions are made:
1) The collapse load Np of connection was derived
by means of limit analysis based on upper
bound theorem showed good agreement with
FE results with satisfactory accuracy.
2) Based on the collapse load, the practical formu-
lae for yield and ultimate strength of the con-
nection were developed.
3) The estimation by proposed formulae provide rea-
sonably conservative estimate for the both yield
and ultimate strength of previous test results.

SYMBOLS
Figure 10. Comparison of eNy and cNy.
Bf Width of beam flange
Dc Diameter of column
hd Depth of exterior diaphragm
AK Analytical initial stiffness for load versus
local deformation curves
c Length of punching shear yield line b-d
shown in Fig. 2(b)
c,a Approximated length of punching shear
yield line c
d Length of in-plane yield lines b-c shown
in Fig. 2(b)
d,a Approximated length of in-plane yield
line d
Np Collapse load
Np,a Approximated collapse load
ncy  = tc.cσy
ndy  = td.dσy
ANp Analytical plastic strength obtained from
FEA
A Nu Analytical ultimate strength obtained
Figure 11. Comparison of eNmax(eNu) and cNu. from FEA
A Ny Analytical yield strength obtained from
while the ultimate strength and maximum load are FEA
both available for the test (Test (a)) conducted by cNu Estimated ultimate strength
Okamoto et al.. The maximum loads observed in cNy Estimated yield strength
most of specimens were evaluated in safe side by eNmax Experimental maximum strength
the estimation. Especially, the ratio eNmax/eNy for eNu Experimental ultimate strength
the test results (b) ranged from 1.8 to 2.1, since all cNy Experimental yield strength
of those test specimens withstood extensively large R Radius of the column ( = (Dc–tc)/2)
local deformation until fracture that significantly tc Thickness of column
larger than the deformation limit as defined in this tf Thickness of beam flange
study. Overall, the proposed evaluation provide td Thickness of diaphragm
reasonably conservative estimate for the both yield X Length of punching shear yield line a-b
and ultimate strength of previous test results. (a’-b’) shown in Fig. 2(a)
α1 Intersectional angle between lines c-o
and o-m (∠com) shown in Fig. 2(b)
6 CONCLUSIONS α2 Intersectional angle between lines b-o
and o-m (∠bom) shown in Fig. 2(b)
This paper proposes the new strength formula α2,a Approximated angle α2
of CHS column-to-H-beam connection stiffened β Intersectional angle between yield line b-c
by external diaphragm and the estimation was and line c-o (∠bco) shown in Fig. 2(b)

277
βa Approximated angle β
γ Intersectional angle between line c-e and
line c-f (∠ecf) shown in Fig. 2(e)
δ Virtual displacement in limit analysis
cσy Yield strength of column
dσy Yield strength of diaphragm
REFERENCES
Architectural Institute of Japan 2002. Recommendations
for Design and Fabrication of Tubular Structures in
Steel. Japan (in Japanese).
Kamba T., Kanatani H. & Tabuchi M. 1986. Local
Strength of Tubular Column to H-Beam Connec-
tions: Study of Connections Subjected to vertical
Horizontal Loading, Journal of Structural and Con-
structional Engineering, 360: 147–156 (in Japanese).
Kamba T., Kanatani H., Fujiwara K. & Tabuchi M.
1983. Empirical Formula For Strangth of Steel Tubu-
lar Column to H-Beam Connections: A Study on the
278
Tubular Column to Beam Connections Part 2, Journal
of Structural and Constructional Engineering, 325:67–
73 (in Japanese).
Nakayama Y., Sato A., Matsuo S., Kimura K. & Suita K.
2010. Strength of Beam Flange to Circular Tube Col-
umn Joint by Exterior Diaphragm Type Connection,
Journal of Structural and Constructional Engineering,
656: 1917–1925 (in Japanese).
Okamoto M., Tanaka T. & Asada H. 2016. Strength of
CHS Column to H-Beam Connections Stiffened by
Exterior Ring Diaphragms, Proceedings of Construc-
tional Steel, 24: 277–284 (in Japanese).
Okamoto M., Tanaka T. & Asada H. 2016. Structural
Behavior of Ultra High Strength Steel CHS Column
to H-Beam Connections Stiffened by Exterior Dia-
phragms, Proceedings of the 11th Pacific Structural
Steel Conference, 559–566.
Tanaka T. & Asada H. 2015. Study on CHS Column with
780 N/mm2 High Strength Steel to Beam Connections
Stiffened by Exterior Ring Diaphragms, Proceedings
of Constructional Steel, 23:195–202 (in Japanese).
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Effect of reinforcement on punching shear strength in embedded

column base connections

K. Hirano, T. Tanaka & H. Asada

Department of Architecture, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan

ABSTRACT: In this study, cyclic lateral loading tests were performed with eight simply-supported SHS
column to reinforced concrete grade beam subassemblages to investigate the effect of rebars surrounding
column on ultimate resistance determined by punching shear failure. In the tests, embedment lengths of
column, presence of U-shaped and/or hoop rebars were taken as test parameters. From the test results, the
specimens whose columns were surrounded with U-shaped and/or hoop rebars exhibited larger strength
capacity, smaller strength deterioration compared to the specimens whose columns were not surrounded
with rebars. Static equilibrium at column face cross-section revealed that the rebars surrounding the col-
umn mostly resisted to resultant bearing force in the loading direction in post-punching shear crack resist-
ance. The results provided fundamental insight on the developments of more reliable strength estimation
model and concise reinforcement details.

1 INTRODUCTION

It has been recognized that column bases signifi-

cantly affect inelastic response in steel moment
resisting frames (Yamada & Akiyama 1997). It is
therefore, necessary to properly consider the col-
umn base properties represented by stiffness and
strength. Deeply embedded column base connec-
tions are in general used to achieve a rotationally
fixed condition having sufficient strength over
the column. On the other hand, it is concerned
that punching shear failure of the concrete on
free edge occurs and significantly deteriorate the
strength (Akiyama et al. 1984, Morita et al. 1985,
Nakashima & Igarashi 1988), if column is located
near the free edges. Previous studies have reported Figure 1. Lateral loading resistance mechanism for esti-
the arrangement of U-shaped rebars surrounding mating plastic strength.
column greatly improved the strength and ductility
capacity and decreased the strength deterioration
in large story drift.
Based on the finding from previous experimen- as minimum distance between the column face
tal research, Japanese design provision (AIJ 2012) (flange) and free edge of foundation (i.e. edge
provides the estimation of plastic strength of exte- distance), amount of rebars surrounding the col-
rior column base connection assuming the lateral umn and their positions must be specified. Mean-
resistance mechanism on the premise of presence while, In addition to U-shaped and hoop rebars
of U-shaped rebars as shown in Figure 1. The pro- are arranged around column in the construction
vision however, does not specify detailing of the practice of Japan, the quantitative contribution of
connection to completely avoid punching shear hoop rebars to the strength model would lead to
failure and achieve the desirable performance. In more concise reinforcing details around column.
order to develop the more reliable column base For this motivation, this paper presents cyclic
connection design, the estimation of the strength lateral loading tests of square hollow section (SHS)
determined by punching shear failure must be column-grade beam subassemblages to investigate
established, otherwise, reinforcement details such the effect of reinforcements including U-shaped

279
and hoop rebars surrounding the column on the Table 1. Test matrix.
ultimate resistance determined by punching shear
failure. Embedment length pu** pv ***
Specimen mm % %
2 TEST PROGRAM EC-2.0-0-0 300(=2.0Dc*) – –
EC-2.0-1.02-0 300(=2.0Dc) 1.02 –
Figure  2  shows configuration of test specimen. EC-2.0-0-0.69 300(=2.0Dc) – 0.69
The test specimen comprised a cold formed SHS EC-2.0-1.02-0.69 300(=2.0Dc) 1.02 0.69
column and reinforced concrete foundation struc- EC-3.0-0-0 450(=3.0Dc) – –
tures. The test specimen was fabricated at approxi- EC-3.0-1.02-0 450(=3.0Dc) 1.02 –
mately one-half scale in the test. The column base EC-3.0-0-0.69 450(=3.0Dc) – 0.69
plate connection embedded comprised SHS col- EC-3.0-1.02-0.69 450(=3.0Dc) 1.02 0.69
umn (150  mm in the depth, 12  mm in the thick-
ness), a shop-welded, square base plate (170 and *Width of the column, **U-shaped rebar ratio (rebars
12  mm in the width and thickness). The portion surrounding column were only considered), ***Hoop
of SHS column around top surface of grade beam rebar ratio.
was reinforced with welded cover-plate (9  mm in
thickness, 400 mm in the length), so that the plasti-
fication of column would not control the ultimate
resistance. The reinforced concrete grade beam
(350 mm in the width, 500 mm in the depth) was
reinforced with longitudinal rebars of D19 (19 mm
in diameter) whose end on beam side were welded
to the steel end plate, and stirrup rebar of D10
(10  mm in diameter). The dimension of column
footing was 450 × 600 in plan and same depth as
grade beam.
Table  1 lists the test specimen. In the test,
embedment length of column d, arrangement of
Figure 3. Arrangement of rebars around column.
U-shaped and/or hoop rebars around column were
taken as parameters. A total of eight specimens
were tested. Embedment length of column d was
two or three times column width Dc which satis- surrounding the column. In the specimens that
fied minimum requirement in current design pro- U-shaped rebars expected to considerably resist to
vision. Figure 3 illustrates arrangement of rebars the bearing force from column, the end of longitu-
dinal rebar at the top and/or the bottom on column
footing side were bent into U-shaped and arranged
around the column. In addition to aforementioned
rebars, supplemental U-shaped rebars with suffi-
cient anchorage length were provided at the top
and bottom of column embedded, as shown in
Figure  3 (b), (d), (f) and (h). In other specimens,
to minimize the contribution of U-shaped rebar
to the ultimate resistance determined by punch-
ing shear failure, longitudinal rebars were bent
into U-shaped, and arranged so as not to sur-
round the column, as shown in Figure 3 (a), (c), (e)
and (g).
Besides, hoop rebars were arranged surrounding
column in some specimens as shown in Figure  3
(c), (d), (g) and (h).
Figure  4  shows test setup and arrangement of
displacement transducers (DTs), lateral load were
applied by oil jack, supporting beam ends on left
side and the bottom of column footing with pin
and pin-roller jigs respectively. Test subassemblages
Figure 2. Configuration of test specimen. were sequentially subjected to cyclic lateral loading

280
 3 TEST RESULTS

3.1 Failure modes and cyclic responses

Figure 5 and Figure 6 show the observed cracking
patterns together with ultimate states and lateral
load-drift angle responses respectively. All speci-
mens initially developed small bending and radiat-
ing cracks initiated from the column footing-beam
intersection and column-footing interface respec-
tively (Figure  5 (a)-(i) and -(iii)). Subsequent to
this, all specimens developed punching shear cracks
(diagonal crack) initiated from column face on the
free edge under positive loading in the cycle of 1%
or 2% drift angle (Figure 5 (a)-(ii)). The extensions
Figure 4. Test setup and arrangement of displacement of punching shear cracks were observed and con-
transducers (DTs). sequently lead to strength deterioration except for
specimen EC-3.0-1.02-0.69. Among the specimens
Table 2. Material properties. failed by punching shear failure, specimens EC-2.0-
1.02-0.69 and EC-3.0-0-0.69  sustained 4.7% and
Yield Tensile Com 4.9% drift angle respectively without strength
strength strength pressive deterioration, whereas other specimens exhibited
strength the ultimate resistance, up to the loading cycle of
3% drift angle. In some specimens, punching shear
Portion Grade N/mm2 N/mm2 N/mm2 cracks propagated from the vicinity of base plate
Longitudinal SD345 376 554 – under negative loading was also observed (Fig-
rebar/U- ure  5 (a)-(iv)), but they were not critical for the
shaped rebar ultimate resistance. Maximum loads of all speci-
Stirrup rebar/ SD295A 367 508 – mens observed in negative loading were larger than
hoop rebar that observed in positive loading. This indicated
Column STKR400 406 442 – that the ultimate resistance of column base con-
Cover plate SM490A 388 526 – nection reinforced around the top and bottom of
Concrete Fc21 – – 28.5 column embedded in same manner were controlled

and pushover loading to very large story drifts to

investigate the hysteretic behavior up to drift angle
of 3% and the ultimate resistances which may be
exhibited in large drift angle. The drift angle was
obtained by the following equations:

δ
R= (1)
H

δ 1 θ 0 ⋅ H − d2 (2)

d3 − d 4
θ0 = (3)
L

where, R was drift angle, H was distance from cen-

troid of grade beam to loading point ( = 1500 mm),
δ was relative displacement between loading point
and centroid of grade beam, and L was distance
between D3 and D4. d1, d2, d3 and d4 were displace-
ment measured by DTs (D1, D2, D3 and D4)
respectively. Mechanical properties of used mate- Figure  5. Observed cracking patterns and ultimate
rial are summarized in Table 2. states.

281
Figure 6. Lateral load-drift angle responses.

by the failure when subjected to positive loading

(i.e. loading toward free edge). Specimen EC-3.0-
1.02-0.69 whose column was surrounded with both
U-shaped and hoop rebars, showing the largest
strength capacity in the test, developed extensively
large bending deformation of grade beam occurred
as a consequence of the yielding of longitudinal
rebars. This specimen achieved excellent ductility
performance with the occurrence of not only yield-
ing of longitudinal rebars but also yielding of SHS
column. In comparison of cyclic responses, speci-
mens EC-2.0-0-0 and EC-3.0-0-0 whose columns Figure 7. Response envelopes.
were not surrounded with rebars exhibited more
severe pinching response and strength deteriora-
tion, as compared to the other specimens.

3.2 Response envelopes and comparison

to current design provision
Figure  7  shows response envelopes in positive
loading. Overall, the specimens whose columns
were surrounded with U-shaped and/or hoop
rebars exhibited better performances, showing
larger strength capacities and smaller strength
deterioration. For only the responses up to 2% Figure 8. Comparison of ultimate resistances and AIJ
drift angle in which deign practicing are usually design provision.
interested, the behavior of specimens whose col-
umns were surrounded with only hoop rebars whose columns were surrounded with U-shaped
were comparable to those with only U-shaped and/or hoop rebars were at least evaluated on the
rebars, regardless of embedment length of col- safe side by AIJ provision.
umn. This indicates that there is a potential to
incorporate not only U-shaped but hoop rebar
3.3 Static equilibrium
in strength model. Plastic strength of embed-
ded exterior column base connection according The contribution of rebars to the lateral resistance
to AIJ provision was calculated and compared of column base connection was investigated. Prior
to the experimental ultimate resistance for each to investigation, lateral load resistance mechanism
specimen. Figure 8 shows the results. In the figure, under positive loading are schematically shown in
plastic strength of SHS column is also plotted by Figure 9. The mechanism was developed after the
chain line. The ultimate resistances of specimens punching shear cracks occurred, and hence sup-

282
poses that bearing force CU and reversed bearing where ΣuTR, ΣuTL are sum of the tensile resistance
force CL are completely resisted by rebars. From of U-shaped rebars, ΣhTR, ΣhTL are sum of the
this hypothesis, CU and CL were given by the fol- resistance of hoop rebars, (L and R denote beam
lowing forms: side and free edge side respectively. See Figure 9.)
Internal force distributions of column face cross-
CU ∑ u TR + ∑ h TR (3) section at the peak of 2% drift angle are shown
in Figure  10. In the Figure, previous test results
of interior column base connection (Asada et  al.
CL ∑ u TL + ∑ h TL c Q (4) 2015) are also shown and compared to the tests
presented. Internal force of rebars was calculated

Figure 9. Lateral load resistance mechanism.

Figure 10. Internal force distributions at column face cross-sections.

283

Figure 11. Comparison of bending moments calculated
by internal and external forces.
by using measured strain profile assuming elastic-
perfectly plastic stress-strain relationships. Black
and gray arrows show internal forces acting on
U-shaped and hoop rebars respectively and trian-
gles show the estimated positions of resultant bear-
ing forces CU and CL that were calculated by static
equilibrium at each column face cross-section.
The internal forces that acts on the U-shaped
and hoop rebars were linearly distributed along
the embedment length and varied from maximum
at the top to almost zero at the bottom of beam.
It should be noted that bearing force CU of
exterior column base connection was substantially
located at deeper position than those observed in
interior column base connection, while reversed
bearing resistance CL was consistently located
around the end of the column embedded. This is
because CU is transferred by rebar on the free edges
in the case of exterior column base connection,
whereas CU is balanced with compression force due
to the bending of corresponding beam in the case
of interior column base connection.
To examine the validity of the resistance mecha-
nism shown in Figure 9, bending moment in steel
column at the top surface of grade beam was
calculated by using internal forces (i.e. cMin), and
compared to bending moment calculated by using
external force cMex, when exhibiting the ultimate
resistance. Figure 11 shows the results.
CMin agreed with cMex well, that means contri-
bution of concrete to post-punching shear crack
resistance was negligibly small. The observation
supports that there is a potential to estimate the
strength based on proposed resistance mechanism,
284
while taking into consideration permissible defor-
mation range of the frame.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This paper experimentally investigated the effect of
rebars surrounding the column on ultimate resist-
ance determined by punching shear failure. Obser-
vations from the test program are as follows:
The specimens whose columns were surrounded
with U-shaped and/or hoop rebars exhibited better
performances showing larger strength capacities and
smaller strength deterioration, compared to the spec-
imen whose column was not surrounded with rebars.
The ultimate resistances of specimens whose
columns were surrounded with only hoop rebars
were comparable to those of specimens whose col-
umn was surrounded with only U-shaped rebars,
regardless of the embedment length of column.
The mechanism of post-punching shear crack
resistance was proposed and validated based on
static equilibrium at column face cross-section.
ACKNOWLEGEMENT
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI
Grant Number 15K06295.
REFERENCES
Akiyama, H., Kurosawa, M., Wakui, N. & Nishimura,
I. 1984. Strength and deformation of column bases
embedded in base concrete. Journal of Structural and
Construction Engineering, 335: 45–53. (in Japanese).
Architectural Institute of Japan 2012. Recommenda-
tions for Design of Connection in Steel Structures (in
Japanese).
Asada, H., Tanaka, T. & Tomitani, Y. 2015. Experimental
Investigation of Embedded column base connection
in Interior column, Proc. of 8th International Sympo-
sium on Steel Structures (ISSS-2015), 289–292.
Morita, K., Kato, B., Tanaka, A. & Fujita, N. 1985.
Experimental studies on the ultimate strength of the
embedded type steel column-to-footing connections.
Journal of Structural and Construction Engineering,
347: 65–74. (in Japanese).
Nakashima, S. & Igarashi, S. 1988. Behavior of steel
square tubular column bases for corner columns
embedded in concrete footings under bending
moment and shearing force. Journal of Structural and
Construction Engineering, 388: 86–99. (in Japanese).
Yamada, S. & Akiyama, H. 1997. Influence of the
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113–118. (in Japanese).
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Axial compressive strength of CHS T-joints reinforced with external

stiffening rings

L. Zhu, Y. Wei & K. Yang

Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing, China

Y. Bai
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

H.L. Sun
China Architecture Design and Research Group, China

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the axial compressive loading capacity of CHS T-joints reinforced
by external stiffening rings. Joint specimens were experimentally investigated under axial compressive
loading on bracing. FE models were established to simulate the mechanical responses of the T-joints and
further verified by experimental results. A numerical parametric analysis involving 160 FE joint models
was conducted. Four parameter scenarios (ratio of brace to chord diameter β, ratio of chord diameter to
twice the chord wall thickness γ, ratio of external stiffening ring width to chord radius βr, ratio of ring wall
thickness to chord wall thickness τr) were taken into account and their effects on the joint’s mechanical
responses were investigated. The failure modes were classified as brace buckling, joint plastification, and
chord bending failure. Finally, a formulation to calculate the ultimate joint strength was established and
examined by numerical results and theoretical derivation.

1 INTRODUCTION (2010) investigated the joint can reinforcement of

T-joints of circular hollow sections are extensively
used in structures such as offshore oil platforms,
bridge structures, long-span structures. Steel tubu-
lar members (chord and brace) are usually regarded
as being in an axially loading condition and their
buckling is crucial to structural safety when they
are loaded in compression (Shi et al. 2014a, b, Jiao
et  al. 2015 and Zhao et  al. 2000). A wide variety
of CHS joints including T-joints, X-joints, and
Y-joints have been investigated. It is known that
the circumferential strength of the chord is usually
much weaker than the axial strength of the brace.
For that reason, chord plastification can occur and
the joint may fail when the brace is under load.
Selected studies of enhancing tubular joints to
avoid unexpected failure are summarized below.
Lesani et  al. (2013, 2015) experimentally and
numerically investigated Fiber Reinforced Poly-
mer (FRP) strengthened tubular T-joints and con-
cluded that such reinforcements could significantly
improve the joint behavior. Aguilera et  al. (2013)
bonded FRP plates to strengthen RHS T-joints
and found the maximum extent of the enhance-
ment to be 25%. Yang et al. (2012) and Shao et al.
T-joints and Y-joints. Shao et al. (2010) proposed a
parametric equation to estimate the static strength
of reinforced joints based on 240 FE models and
numerical results. Li et  al. (2010) found that the
length of the inner plate had a greater effect than
the thickness on improving the static strength.
Yang et al. (2014) analyzed the efficiency of inner
plate reinforcement and proposed design con-
siderations for inner-plates strengthened tubular
joints. Ahmadi et  al. (2013), Thandavamoorthy
et  al. (1999), and Lee and Llewelyn-Parry (1999,
2004, 2005) studied the use of an internal ring to
reinforce tubular T-joints. All their results showed
remarkable enhancement of joints reinforced by
internal rings. Although the reinforcements intro-
duced above have been studied in-depth, their
obvious defects cannot be ignored. For example,
FRP reinforcement is efficient but costly, and
methods involving internal stiffeners are not easy
to implement on a structure in service. In view of
these matters, Choo et  al. (2005), Van der Vegte
et  al. (2005), and Nassiraei et  al. (2016 a, b, c)
investigated tubular joints reinforced by dou-
bler and collar plates. Their results showed sig-
nificant strength enhancement with both doubler

285
and collar plate configurations in contrast to the
corresponding unreinforced joints. Choo et  al.
(2004a, b) also studied tubular X-joints reinforced
with collar plate and doubler plate under in-plane
bending loading and concluded that the collar
plate reinforcement could be more effective than
its doubler plate counterpart when suffer in-plane
bending. Zhu et al. (2014) and Zhao et al. (2014)
first conducted an experimental study to analyze
the axial strength of CHS T-joints with exter-
nal stiffeners. The results showed that the plastic
zone of strengthened joints expanded due to the
support of external stiffeners and concluding that
stiffener length could be more effective than stiff-
ener height. Mina et al. (2017) investigated a new
technique using through-bolts to increase the joint
capacity and delay joint failure. Zhu et  al. (2016) Figure 2. Weld modeling.
presented a study on using an external ring to
reinforce T-joints. Three pairs of reinforced and
unreinforced T-joints was invesgated. The results
indicated that an external stiffening ring can sig-
nificantly increase the axial compressive strength
of the T-joints. Their reinforced T-joint is shown
in Figure 1.
This paper focuses on the numerical analysis of
T-joints with external stiffening rings. A new equa-
tion was proposed based on numerical results and
theoretical derivation for external ring stiffened
CHS T-joints under axial compression.

Figure 3. FE model.

2 FINITE ELEMENT STRATEGY

This paper used the finite element software ANSYS

Figure  1. Reinforced T-joint with external stiffening
ring.
12.0 to complete numerical analysis for both rein-
forced and unreinforced CHS T-joints. Element
SHELL181 was used to model the joints. SHELL181
is an element type with four nodes in each element
and six degrees of freedom for each node.
Previous study (Van der Vegte, 1995) has shown
that the weld can affect the joint strength, suggest-
ing that researchers must pay attention to weld
modeling. However, modeling weld geometries pre-
cisely is rather difficult on account of the complex
three-dimensional shapes. On that account, in this
paper we find a substitution method. As shown in
Figure 2, where a = t1 and b = 0.5t0+t1, this study sets
the thickness of the weld elements equal to 0.1t1.
Figure 2 also shows the modeling of fillet weld for
T-joints. The meshed model was shown in Figure 3.
It can be seen that the mesh is dense around the
joint but becomes more expanded further from the
joint. Uniform pressure was used to apply axial

286
compressive load to the brace’s end plate. The Table 1. Specimen parameters.
direction of XYZ axis in the coordinate system
were shown in Figure  3. The Z displacement of l0 d0 d1 t0
the brace end was constrained and the simulation (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)
of simple supports of the chords constrained the T1 1803.7 298.88 77.53 7.95
Y and Z displacements on both chord end plates. T2 1802.7 298.98 77.55 7.85
The X displacement of one side was unconstrained T3 1803.0 298.75 152.33 7.92
whereas the other side was constrained. T4 1805.3 298.88 152.50 8.13
T5 1802.3 298.42 220.33 7.75
T6 1803.0 299.10 219.82 8.18
3 VERIFICATION OF NUMERICAL
RESULTS t1 (mm) l1 (mm) br (mm) tr (mm)
T1 6.47 367.8 – –
Figure 4 shows load-displacement curves obtained T2 6.67 368.0 149.96 8.38
from experiments and numerical analysis. A total T3 10.42 748.5 – –
of six CHS T-joints were tested as shown in T4 9.75 748.2 151.67 8.05
Figure 1. The parameters and material properties T5 8.27 1121.5 – –
were shown in Tables 1 and 2, in which three speci- T6 8.90 1125.7 151.41 7.90
mens (T2, T4, T6) were reinforced with external
stiffening rings and three specimens (T1, T3, T5)
were unreinforced for comparison. Because the Table 2. Material properties.
current study considers the ovalization of the over- E0 E1 Er fy0 fy1 fy,r
all chord cross section (as a diametrical reference), (GPa) (GPa) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
Lu’s deformation limit is modified to a chord
T1 218 184 325 307 –
T2 218 184 198 325 307 279
T3 218 204 – 325 395 –
T4 218 204 198 325 395 279
T5 218 – – 325 343 –
T6 218 – 198 325 343 279

Table  3. Comparison between numerical and experi-

mental results.

Fu,e Fu,n Fu,n/Fu,e

T1 178.28 153.42 0.86

T2 502.3 504.55 1.00
T3 275.82 279.62 1.01
T4 542.5 557.33 1.03
T5 402.3 403.3 1.00
T6 569.7 576.05 1.01

ovalization of 6% d0 by Choo (2005) and van der

Figure  4. Comparison between numerical and experi-
mental load-displacement curves.
Vegte (2005), as compared to the 3% d0 indentation
(relative to the chord centerline) originally recom-
mended by Lu (1994). Since all the joint deforma-
tions at the peak point were less than 6% d0, where
d0 was the chord diameter, the peak points were
regarded as the ultimate strengths for these joints.
The numerical curve and the experimental curve
of T1 have similar slopes. The numerical peak load
is 14% lower than the experimental load. The exper-
iment for T2 ended when the brace slightly tilted to
one side and there was actually a kind of brace fail-
ure. Table 3 gives the comparison and ratio between
the numerical and experimental results.

287
4 NUMERICAL PARAMETRIC
INVESTIGATION

4.1 Numerical study program

Because of the limitation of experimental speci-
mens, we conducted a numerical analysis using
ANSYS software to explore the effect of the
external stiffening rings on the axial compressive
strength of the CHS T-joints. The material proper-
ties of the stiffening rings were the same as those
of the chords, and the Young’s moduli of the
chords were set as 206 GPa, the yield stresses of
the chord, brace, and external stiffening ring were
all set at 345 MPa. The parameters of the investi-
gation are given in Table  4. This numerical para-
metric study contained 16 unreinforced joints and Figure 5. Three typical failure modes.
144 reinforced joints.

4.2 Failure modes subjected to axial force. Because it is a member

failure, this failure mode is not discussed further.
Three types of failure modes were found in the 144
Failure mode C is a chord bending failure
T-joints enhanced with external stiffening rings.
that occurs with large rings. The large size of
Failure mode A occurred in 80  models, failure
the external stiffening ring ensures that the con-
mode B occurred in 4  models, and failure mode
nection between the brace and the chord is suf-
C occurred in 60  models, accounting for 55.5%,
ficiently strong. The reinforced T-joint specimen
2.7%, and 41.7% respectively of the failures in the
under axial compression load acts like a simply
144 models.
supported beam. The chord finally fails when the
Failure mode A is a kind of joint plastification
crown section reaches full plasticity. The plastic
failure. When the chord tube is no longer capable
bending moment is M p 1 f y 0 [ d03 (d0 − 2t0 )3 ],
of resisting the axial compression force trans-
and the bending moment is M p 0.25F1 (l0 d1 )
ferred from the brace, the connection area between
Zhu et al. (2016).
brace and chord weakens. The connection region
deforms, as shown in Figure  5  A(a). This failure
mode occurred when the external stiffening ring 4.3 Results and comparison
was small. The ring could not provide sufficient
In this part, we analyze the effect of different
strength to the connection part, so that the joint
parameters as shown in Table  4 on the ultimate
showed ovalization. This ovalization appear simul-
strength enhancement coefficient Rr. The 144
taneously with brace buckling as shown in Fig-
reinforced T-joint models demonstrated different
ure 5 A(b). Failure mode A(b) occurred only when
failure modes. In this part, we exclude results from
β = 0.2 with a relatively large ring.
failure modes B and C, retaining only the results of
The failure mode transferred to brace member
the 70 models exhibiting failure mode A.
failure when the ring size increased. The transition
is shown in Figure 5 failure mode A(b) and failure
4.3.1 Effects of β on Rr
mode B. The larger ring provides enough strength
The parameter β equals the ratio of brace diameter
for the connection part of brace and chord, so
to chord diameter. Therefore, because d0 remains
that the small brace diameter leads to brace buck-
at a constant value, increases in β reflect increase
ling and the joint does not show ovalization when
in brace diameter. Figure  6(a), (b), and (c) show
the effect of parameter β when γ, τr, and βr take dif-
ferent values. As can be seen from these figures, the
Table 4. Specified values of parameters. coefficient Rr is greater than 1, indicating that the
reinforced T-joints have higher ultimate strength
l0 (mm) l1 (mm) d0(mm) than unreinforced T-joints.
The four curves in Figure 6(a) show the relation-
1800 5d1 300 ship between β and Rr when βr = 0.33 and τr = 1.
β γ βr τr Those four curves have similar trends and approxi-
0.2,0.4,0.6,0.8 10,15,20,25 0.33,0.67,1 0.5,1.0,1.5 mate slopes. The spacing between the curves is
small, indicating that the parameter γ is correlated

288
 draw the conclusion that all the reinforced joints
with different brace diameters have an increased
ultimate joint strength. When the value of β
increases from 0.2 to 0.8 linearly, the enhancement
ratio Rr decreases accordingly, which means the
reinforcement effect of stiffening ring is reduced.

4.3.2 Effects of γ on Rr
The parameter γ equals the ratio of radius to thick-
ness of the chord. Therefore, because the radius of
the chord remains at a constant value, decreases in
γ reflect increments in the thickness of chord.
Figure  7(a), (b), and (c) show an increas-
ing trend and their slopes are greater than zero.

Figure 6. Effects of β on Rr.

with Rr Figure  6(b) shows the effect of β on Rr

when γ = 20 and τr = 1, with βr taking different val-
ues. The slopes of the three curves are different and
indicate that parameter βr hasgreater relevance to
Rr and is more obvious when β has a smaller value.
The three curves in Figure 6(c) show the relation-
ship between β and Rr when τr takes different val-
ues. Comparing Figure 6(b) and 6(c), we find that
the curves in two figures have similar trends. That
means that the parameter τr is also correlated to Rr.
From the figures in Figure 6, we find that the
relationship between β and Rr is negatively corre-
lated. Moreover, the influence of β on Rr is not
independent but is also related to γ, τr, and βr. We Figure 7. Effects of γ on Rr.

289
With increments of γ, the value of Rr significantly
increases. This phenomenon indicates that with
lower joint thickness, the external stiffening ring
can perform better in enhancing the efficiency
of the ultimate strength. Comparing Figure 7(b)
and 7(c), we conclude that parameters τr and βr
each have a more pronounced effect on Rr when
t1 is small. The external stiffening ring connects
the brace and chord and ensures that they can
work together. This important role of the external
stiffening ring results in the increase in ultimate
strength of joints with higher values of γ.
4.3.3 Effects of βr on Rr
Figure 8 shows the relationship between the param-
eter βr and the ultimate joint strength enhancement
coefficient Rr. An increase in the width of the ring
can improve the ultimate strength enhancement coef-
ficient and the curves are almost linearly increased as
shown in Figure  8. The three curves in Figure  8(a)
show an obviously increasing trend and the three
curves in Figure 8(b) also have an upward trend but
with a lower slope value. We conclude from Figure 8
that parameter βr has a positive correlation with Rr
and the influence is also related to parameters β and γ.
4.3.4 Effects of τr on Rr
In this part we discuss the relationship between τr
and Rr when β and γ take different values, as shown
Figure 8. Effects of βr on Rr.
290
in Figure  9(a) and 9(b). The four curves in Fig-
ure 9(a) have different slopes. When the parameter
β = 0.2, the slope of the curve is the greatest. The
four curves in Figure 9(b) display a slower growth
trend and similar slope values. Although the effect
of γ is not as obvious as that of β, it cannot be
ignored.
We conclude from Figures 8 and 9 that, with the
same size of the external stiffening ring (including
width and thickness), a T-joint with smaller brace
diameter and thinner chord wall thickness will be
more effective.
4.4 Formulation of static strength of T-joints
reinforced with external stiffening rings
In this section, a formula was derived for the ulti-
mate strength coefficient Rr . A modified yield line
model considering the contribution of stiffeners
for predicting the ultimate strength of external ring
stiffened CHS T-joints was proposed. In the ulti-
mate state of unreinforced joints, it was assumed
that only the intersecting line between brace and
chord (l1 in Figure  10) yields. And for the ring
stiffened joints, both the intersecting line between
brace and chord and the intersecting line between
ring, chord and brace (l2 in Figure 10) yield. The
strength enhancement of ring reinforced joints
Figure 9. Effects of τr on Rr.
 d1
β θ,θ β (5)
d0

According to Taylor’s expansion, arcsin β can

be replaced as follows:

1
arcsin β β+ β3 (6)
6

Because the intersection line between the chord

and the brace is a saddle, it cannot be calculated
Figure  10. Yield lines in unreinforced and reinforced directly. An approximate method is used to solve this
T-joints. problem. The yield line l1 can be expressed as Eq. (7)

⎛ d1 d0 ⎞
l1 = π + β⎟ (7)
⎝2 2 ⎠

Taking Eq. (2)–(7) into Eq. (1), Rr can be

expressed as:

1 2 1
βr + βr + π − β − β 3
Re = 1 + 2 6 (8)
1 1
π 2 β + β 3)
2 6

However, the results from Eq. (8) compared to

the numerical analysis results are not ideal. This
may be due to careless dealing with yield line l2. It
is not the case that the entire circle can provide the
same reinforcement effect. The bottom of the cir-
Figure 11. Parameters in yield line l2 model.
cle should correctly be weakened. In this paper, a
correction factor k is introduced to the equation,
correlated to parameters γ and τr
therefore comes from the increase in length of
yield line in comparison to the unreinforced joints. k k1λ + k2γ c1 (9)
A reduction coefficient k was introduced because
the ultimate strength enhancement coefficient (Re) Besides parameter k, four other parameters are
calculated in this way was larger than the value taken into account:
obtained from finite analysis. According to the
results of numerical analysis, the reduction coef- ⎡( + c )n
1
⎤
ficient k is positively correlated with γ and τr. Τhe Re k⎢ r n + c3 ⎥ (10)
parameters in yield line l2 are shown in Figure 11. ⎢⎣ β 2 ⎥⎦

l2 A regression analysis was conducted using soft-

Re = 1 + (1)
l1 ware Origin 8.6. This yielded −0.41 for c1, −0.16
for c2, −0.1 for c3, 0.030 for k1, 0.71 for k2, 0.54 for
l2 x1 + x2 (2) n1, and 0.79 for n2 when β was increased from 0.2
to 0.8, γ from 10 to 25, and βr from 0.33 to 1.0.
The final formulation for the ultimate strength
2 2 2 2 enhancement coefficient could be expressed as:
⎛ d ⎞ ⎛d ⎞ ⎛d ⎞ ⎛d ⎞
x1 b + 0 − 1 − ⎜ 0 ⎟ − ⎜ 1⎟ (3)
⎝ r 2 ⎟⎠ ⎜⎝ 2 ⎟⎠ ⎝ 2⎠ ⎝ 2⎠
⎡( − )0.54 − 0.1⎤⎥
Re = 1+ (0.03γ + 0.771λ − 0.41) ⎢ r

⎢⎣ β 0.79 ⎥⎦
d0
x2 = (2 2 ) (4)
2 (11)

291
 The fitting results agreed well with the finite ACKNOWLEDGMENT
element analysis results. The average value of
Re / Rr was 1.015 with a standard variation of Support from the Beijing Haiju Program, Bei-
0.0823. jing Advanced Innovation Center for Future
Urban Design (Grant No. UDC2016030200),
the JiandaJieqing Plan, and the Beijing Coop-
5 CONCLUSIONS erative Innovation Research Center on Energy
Saving and Emission Reduction is gratefully
This paper used external stiffening rings to acknowledged.
reinforce CHS T-joints. Software ANSYS 12.0
established FE models for both reinforced and
unreinforced T-joints. After comparison with the NOMENCLATURE
experimental results, the numerical results were
considered reliable for predicting the ultimate d1 brace diameter
strength. A numerical parametric study was then d0 chord diameter
conducted to evaluate the effect of the dimensions a weld width along chord
(size of external stiffening ring and T-joint) on the b weld height along brace
ultimate strength of axially loaded CHS T-joints. l0 chord length
The following conclusions can be drawn: l1 brace length
t0 chord wall thickness
1. The numerical and experimental load-displace-
t1 brace wall thickness
ment curves of the six joints matched almost
br ring width
perfectly. The shapes of deformation in the
tr ring thickness
numerical and experimental results agreed well
α ratio of chord length to radius 2l0/d0
with each other. On the basis of the numeri-
β ratio of brace to chord diameter d1/d0
cal parametric study, the ultimate strength of
γ ratio of chord diameter to twice the chord wall
T-joints reinforced with external stiffening rings
thickness d0/(2t0)
under axially compressive load could be up to
τ ratio of brace wall thickness to chord wall
478% of the corresponding value in unrein-
thickness t1/t0
forced joints. Finite element models were estab-
τr ratio of external stiffening ring thickness to
lished using software ANSYS 12.0. This kind of
chord wall thickness tr /tt0
method saved time and improved efficiency.
βr ratio of external stiffening ring width to chord
2. Increases in β, br and tr, implying a larger brace
radius 2br /dd0
and a wider and thicker external stiffening
Rr ratio of ultimate strength of reinforced T-joint
ring, and the decrease in γ, implying a thicker
to ultimate strength of unreinforced T-joint
chord, can all have significant effects on ulti-
Fu,r /F
Fu,u
mate strength. External stiffening rings with
Re ultimate strength enhancement coefficient cal-
large value of br and tr can be more effective. In
culated from formula
the 144 models studied in this paper there were
E0 Young’s modulus of chord
three kinds of failure mode. Failure mode A is
E1 Young’s modulus of brace
a kind of chord plastification failure and is due
Er Young’s modulus of ring
to lack of bearing capacity at the connection
Fy0 yield stress of chord
between the brace and the chord. Failure mode
Fy1 yield stress of brace
B occurs in this paper when β = 0.2. The small
Fy,r yield stress of ring
brace diameter leads to brace buckling when the
Mp plastic bending moment of chord
T-joint is subjected to axial force. Failure mode
F1 compressive loading at brace end
C is a chord bending failure.
Fu,e ultimate strength of T-joint from experiment
3. A theoretical model was established based on
result
the modified yield line model. Considering the
Fu,n ultimate strength of T-joint from numerical
effect of the increased yield line caused by the
result
external stiffening ring, a formula was derived
Fu,u ultimate strength of unreinforced T-joint
for predicting the ultimate strength coefficient
Fu,r ultimate strength of reinforced T-joint
Rr. The coefficient Rr was positively correlated
to γ, βr, and τr and negatively correlated to β.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Compressive strength of square hollow section T-joints reinforced with

novel collar-plate

H.F. Chang & J.W. Xia

State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Deep Underground Engineering, China University of Mining
and Technology, China

G.H. Tian
Jiangsu Institute of Architectural Technology, China

Y.L. Qian & W. Xu

School of Mechanics and Civil Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, China

ABSTRACT: A Novel Collar-Plate (NCP) is introduced to reinforce the flange as well as the web of
the chord for Square Hollow Section (SHS) joints. The compressive behaviors of the Novel Collar-Plate
Reinforced (NCPR) Square Hollow Section (SHS) joints are studied by finite element parametric analysis.
A set of experimental tests is conducted to verify the reliability of the numerical model, and the simulated
results agree well with that of the experimental ones. The behavior of NCPR SHS T-joint is further dis-
cussed by parametric studies, by which the width ratio of the brace and the chord, as well as the thickness
of the collar-plate are identified as the key parameters. The role of the collar-plate is discussed and the
control failure modes of NCPR SHS joints under brace compressive loading are summarized. Finally,
formulae are proposed to build design equations for the compressive strength of NCPR SHS T-joints.

1 INTRODUCTION

Doubler or collar Plate reinforcement does not

impinge on the appearance of the hollow section
tubular joints, and thus is widely used to improve
their strength (Choo & Van, 2005; Van & Choo,
2005; Nassiraei & L-Yaghin, 2016a, b). Fig. 1 dem-
onstrates the width of the plate is confined to the
surface range of the square hollow section (SHS)
chord and thus the welding of the plate always
commence at the corner of the chord, which leads
to the welding difficulties as well as a high residual
stress at the corner zone (Chang & Xia, 2014). A Figure  1. SHS joints reinforced with double or collar
novel collar-plate (NCP) is introduced to coping plate.
with the above problem as shown in Fig. 1 (c), in
which the NCP is welded with fillet weld on the Van (2005) on plate reinforced circle hollow sec-
web of the chord, and with filled weld on the flange tion (CHS) joints indicated that the enhancement
of the chord. Therefore, the NCP is expected to of doubler or collar-plate joints for compressive
reinforce the flange as well as the web of the chord. strength was up to 53%. The doubler-plate or
Moreover, the NCP is adaptable for the reinforce- collar-plate was also introduced for the reinforce-
ment of exist or new designed structures. ment of SHS joints (Korol, 1977, 1982; Chang
Various studies have carried out on the behavior & Xia, 2014; Wang & Chen, 2015), Korol (1977,
of doubler-plate (DP) or collar-plate (CP) rein- 1982) firstly reported their flexural tests of DP
forced joints (Choo & Van, 2005; Van & Choo, reinforced SHS T-joints and proposed the formu-
2005; Nassiraei & L-Yaghin, 2016a, b), and the lae for flexural and compressive strength of DP
plate has been proved to enhance the strength of reinforced SHS joints. The compressive strength
the joint effectively. The test results of Choo & model for DP reinforced SHS joints were also

295
proposed by Chang & Xia, (2014) and Soh & Chan
(2000). Recently, Wang & Chen (2015), Chen &
Chen (2015), Chen & Chen (2016) reported their
tests and numerical results of plate reinforced SHS
X-joints, and proposed the design formulae for the
joints under in-plane bending.
To study the compressive behaviors of the novel
collar-plate reinforced (NCPR) square hollow sec-
tion (SHS) joints, the numerical model of NCPR
joints is built and verified by the experimental
tests. Extensive parametric studies are conducted
to check the influence of the novel collar-plate on
NCPR SHS joints, and formulae are proposed for
the compressive strength of NCPR SHS T-joints.

2 NUMERICAL MODEL AND

EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION

2.1 Numerical model of plate reinforced

SHS joint
The finite element (FE) package of ANSYS was
introduced to model the plate reinforced SHS
joints. The applicability of ANSYS for the simu-
lation of welded steel hollow section joints were
extensively reported (Van & Choo, 2005; Chang &
Xia, 2014; Lesani & Bahaari, 2013). The chord, the
brace and the plate were modeled using 20-node
solid elements (Van & Choo, 2005; Chang & Xia,
2014), the contact between the plate with the chord
was modeled with the surface-to-surface contact
element. A bilinear material model was used for
the steel, and the hardening modulus was assumed
as 1/100th of the elastic modulus (Shao & Li,
2011). The meshing of the specimens is shown in Figure 2. FE meshing details and test setup.
Fig. 2 (a), in which a quarter of the T-joint is mod-
eled, and the mesh is refined near the intersection
of the joint. The chord is fixed on both ends, and Table 1. Geometries of the specimens/mm.
a displacement is applied on the end of the brace.
The linear search algorithm was adopted to solve Chord Brace DP or NCP
the problem, and the auto time stepping was acti- Specimens (b0-h0-t0-L0) (b1-h1-t1-L1) (b2-h2-t2-l2)
vated to decrease the iteration.
URT-40A 100-100-5-650 40-40-4-300 –
DPT-40A 70-0-7-75
2.2 Verification of finite element results by NCPT-40A 110-50-5-140
experimental data
To verify the reliability of the FE model, three
specimens are designed as shown in Table  1, in 6–7 mm. Coupon tests were conducted before the
which the notations are defined as follows: “URT” joint test and the material properties of the chord,
denotes an unreinforced T-joint, “DPT” denotes a the brace and the doubler-plate are listed in Table 2.
doubler-plate reinforced T-joint, “NCPT” denotes The material of the novel collar-plate was the same
a novel collar-plate reinforced T-joint, “40” and as the chord since it was cut from the chord.
“80” denote a brace width of 40 mm and 80 mm, The setup of the test is shown in Fig. 2 (b), in
“A” denotes a compressive load is applied on the which the two ends of the chord were fixed on the
brace. The brace, the chord and the plate was con- support, and the brace was connected to an electro-
nected by manual fillet welding with the height of hydraulic servo actuator. A displacement controlled

296
Table 2. Material properties of the tubes and the plate. Table 3. Strength of the specimens by test and FEM.

Yielding Ultimate Elastic N1%(kN) N3%(kN) Nult(kN)

Tube or strength/ strength/ model/ Elongation Nu-FE
plate MPa MPa GPa ratio/% Specimens EX FE EX FE EX FE /Nu-EX

Brace 372 460 206 24.5 URT-40A 42 48 69 67 63 67 1.07

Chord 356 422 201 27 DPT-40A 98 120 168 176 148 176 1.19
DP 285 345 193 29.8 NCPT-40A 61 75 116 123 92 112 1.22

Note: The strength is determined according to Zhao

(2000), Nult  =  N3% for joints with N3% < 1.5 N1%, and
Nult = 1.5 N1% I for joints with N3% ≥ 1.5 N1%.

The reliability of the numerical model is

checked by the failure modes and the load-
displacement curves of the joints, as shown in
Fig. 3. It can be seen from Fig. 3 that the simu-
lated failure modes of URT-40A, DPT-40A and
NCPT-40A are dominated by the yielding of the
chord surface, the doubler-plate, and the novel
collar-plate, which match well with the experi-
mental tests. The load-displacement curves of the
specimens by test and FE are also compared in
Fig. 3(b), in which the numerical curves are found
agree well with that of the experimental ones. The
compressive strengths of the specimens deter-
mined by the load-displacement curves (Zhao,
2000; Chang & Xia, 2014) are listed in Table  3,
in which the symbols “EX” and “FE” represents
the experimental or FE results. The compressive
strength by FE is average 16% higher than that of
the test, demonstrating that the accuracy of the
FE model is satisfactory.

3 PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS

3.1 Parametric study strategy

Figure  3. Comparisons of the numerical results with
that of the experimental tests.
compressive load was applied slowly on the end
of the brace, and the required axial loading can be
measured automatically by the machine. LVDT 4
and 5 were symmetrically installed near the chord-
brace intersection to measure the displacement of
the brace. LVDT 1 and 8 were placed near the ends
of the chord to measure the displacement of the
supports. LVDT 2, 3, 6 and 7 were disposed on the
upper flange of the chord to observe the displace-
ment of the chord flange. More details about the
experiment can be found in Chang & Xia (2014).
In this section, the behavior of NCPR SHS
T-joint is further discussed by parametric stud-
ies. The finite element strategies are similar as
section  2, with modifications on the material
models and the restraint of the chord. For exam-
ple, a perfect elastic-plastic material model with
the yielding strength of 345  N/mm2 is used for
the chord to eliminate the influence of material
nonlinearity. A continuous support is applied on
the bottom surface of the chord to exclude the
overall bending of the chord. The chord and the
brace are modeled without radii to reduce the
meshing difficulty as well as the computation
burden. Preliminary FE analyses indicated that
such modifications have very little influence on
the yielding or buckling behavior of the chord,
thus the models are able to produce results with
good accuracy.

297
 In the parametric study, the dimensions of 3.2 Influence of the height of the NCP
the chord, the brace and the novel collar-plate
The influence of NCP was considered by changing
are considered, as shown in Fig.  4. Firstly, three
the height, the length, the thickness and the yield-
unreinforced T-joints with β  =  0.4, 0.6 and 0.75,
ing strength of the NCP. The normalized load-dis-
and the corresponding NCPR joints with 2γ = 20,
placement curves of the specimens are compared
γ2 = 1.2, η0 = η1 = τ2 = 1.0, η2 = 0.5 and fy2 = 345 N/
in Fig. 5 to Fig. 8.
mm2 were modeled as benchmark specimens.
Then, a large number of NCPR joints were simu-
lated by changing the values of η2, γ2, τ2 and fy2.
Totally 3 unreinforced and 30 NCPR SHS T-joints
were analyzed under brace compression, as listed
in Table 4.
The influence of the aforementioned param-
eters on the axial behavior of NCPR SHS T-joints
is discussed by the load-displacement curves as
well as the failure mechanisms of the simulated
specimens. To gain a generalized discussion, the
load-displacement curves are normalized by two
dimensionless parameters of Eq. (1) and Eq. (2).

N0 Nu f y 0t02 (1)

δ0 δ b0 (2)

where N 0 and δ 0 are the normalized load and

displacement on the brace, Nu and δ are the actual
axial load and displacement on the brace of the
joints, fy0 is the yielding strength of the chord, t0
and b0 are the thickness and width of the chord.

Figure  5. Influence of the height of the novel collar

plate.

Figure  4. Novel collar plate reinforced square tubular

T-joint.

Table 4. Parametric matrix of NCPR T-joints.

No Parameters Benchmark Expanded

1 β = b1/b0 0.4, 0.6, 0.75

2 η2 = h2/h0 0.5 0.2, 0.3, 0.4
3 γ2 = l2/b0 1.2 1.6, 2.0
4 τ2 = t2/t0 1.0 1.2, 1.6
5 fy2 345 235, 420 Figure  6. Influence of the length of the novel collar
plate.

298

Figure 7. Influence of the thickness of the novel collar
plate.
Figure 8. Influence of the yielding strength of the novel
collar plate.
It can be seen Fig. 5 that the height of the NCP
has obvious influence on the compressive behav-
ior of the NCPR joints. When h2/h0 is increased
from 0.2 to 0.5, the increases of the compressive
strength are 9%, 13.7% and 16.2% for joints with
β = 0.4, 0.6 and 0.75. The increase is found higher
for the joints with a bigger β, which mainly due to
the high NCP prevents the chord web from buck-
ling, as shown in Fig. 5 (d).
299
3.3 Influence of the length of the NCP
The influences of the length of the NCP are shown
in Fig. 6, it can be seen that the strength of the joint
increases slightly with the increase of l2/b0. When
l2/b0 is increased from 1.2 to 2.0, the increases of
the compressive strength are only up to 5.1%. Thus
there is no need for a long NCP, and a NCP length
exceeds the yielding range of the chord is enough
(Chang & Xia, 2014).
3.4 Influence of the thickness of the NCP
The influence of t2/t0 on the load-displacement
curves is critical, as shown in Fig. 7. The increases
of the compressive strength are 55.7%, 35.4% and
23.8% for joints with β = 0.4, 0.6 and 0.75, when
t2/t0 is increased from 1.0 to1.6. The enhancement
of NCP decreased with the increase of β, which
mainly due to the failure of chord web buckling
will dominate. This also indicates that for joints
with a high brace-chord width ratio, a thick NCP
is unessential for the reinforcement.
3.5 Influence of the yielding strength of NCP
The yielding strength of the NCP has an obvious
influence on the compressive behavior of the joints,
as shown in Fig. 8. As fy2 is increased from 235 N/
mm2 to 420 N/mm2, the increases of the compres-
sive strength are found up to 26.6% when β = 0.4.
This indicates that the yielding of the NCP con-
tributes to the compressive strength of the joint.
4 COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH
OF NCPR T-JOINTS
4.1 Compressive strength model for NCPR
T-joints
For unreinforced joint with β < 0.85, both EC3
(2005) and CIDET (2009) recommend that the
compressive strength of the joint is dominated
by the yielding of the chord flange, and the cor-
responding design equation is quoted as following:
(η + 2 )
2 f y 0t02
Py 0 = 1− β (3)
1− β
where Py0 is the compressive strength of unrein-
forced joints controlled by chord surface yielding,
fy0 is the yielding strength of the chord steel, t0 is the
thickness of the chord, β = b1/b0 is the width ratio
of the brace and the chord, η  =  h1/b0 is the ratio
between the brace height and the chord width.
As demonstrated by the parametric studies, the
failure of the NCPR joints is dominated by the
 Table  5. Comparison of compression strength for
NCPR T-joints with FEA.

β = 0.4 β = 0.6 β = 0.75

No Parameters Nth/Nfem Nth/Nfem Nth/Nfem

1 Benchmark 0.9 0.75 0.83

2 η2 = 0.2 0.98 0.86 0.97
3 η2 = 0.3 0.93 0.8 0.91
4 η2 = 0.4 0.9 0.76 0.85
5 γ2 = 1.6 0.87 0.73 0.81
6 γ2 = 2.0 0.86 0.72 0.79
7 τ2 = 1.2 0.93 0.81 0.93
8 τ2 = 1.6 1.03 0.99 1.21
9 fy2 = 235 0.88 0.72 0.77
10 fy2 = 420 0.92 0.78 0.88
Mean 92% 79% 90%
Standard deviation 5% 8% 12%

Note: Nfem is the compressive strength by FEA, Nth is the

Figure  9. Yielding of the chord flange and the novel compressive strength by Eq. (4).
collar plate.

yielding of the chord flange and the NCP, since
the web of the chord is strengthened by the NCP
and the failure of buckling is precluded. Therefore,
the compressive strength of NCPR joints can be
primarily determined by the yielding of the chord
flange and the NCP, as shown in Fig. 9. The distri-
bution of the yielding lines on the NCP is shown
in Fig. 9 (c), which is similar to that of the chord
flange. Given the length of the NCP exceeds the
yielding length on the chord flange (Chang & Xia,
2014; EC3, 2005; CIDET, 2009), the compressive
strength of NCPR joints dominated by the yield-
ing of the NCP and the chord flange is formulated
as following:
(
2 fy t + f t
2 2
) η+2
Py NCP Py + PNCP =
0
5 CONCLUSIONS
The compressive strength of the novel collar-plate
reinforced SHS joints are studied by FE para-
metric analysis. The reliability of the FE model is
firstly verified by the experimental tests, and then
the behavior of NCPR SHS T-joint is further dis-
cussed by extensive numerical parametric studies,
in which the dimensions of the brace and the novel
collar-plate are considered, and the key parameters
are identified. The theoretical model is proposed to
build design equations for the compressive strength
of NCPR SHS joints. The following conclusions
can be made:
1. The current numerical model obtains accurate
simulations in terms of failure modes and load-

1− β
y2 2
( 1− β
(4)
where fy2 is the yielding strength of the novel
collar-plate, and t2 is the thickness of the novel
collar-plate.
4.2 Verification of the formulae
The compressive strengths by the proposed for-
mula are compared with the parametric results in
Table  5. It can be seen that the proposed equa-
tion agrees well with the numerical results. The
compressive strength by Eq. (4) is 92%, 79% and
90% of the numerical strength when β = 0.4, 0.6
and 0.75, with the standard deviations of 5%, 8%
and 12%.
) displacement curves, thus is satisfactory to be
used for the parametric study and compressive
strength evaluation of the NCPR SHS T-joints.
2. The parametric study indicates that the thick-
ness of the NCP is the key parameters influence
the compressive strength of the NCPR SHS
joints, followed by the yielding strength of the
NCP, and then the height and length of the
NCP.
3. The compressive behavior of the NCPR joints
depends on the width ratio of the brace and the
chord, as well as the dimensions of the NCP.
With a proper design of the thickness and
height, the NCP is able to preclude the buckling
of the chord web.
4. The compressive strength of NCPR SHS joints
can be determined by the failure mode of chord
flange and NCP yielding. By considering the

300
 yielding lines on the NCP and the chord flange
separately, the proposed formula is able to pre-
dict the compressive strength of the NCPR SHS
joints accurately.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The financial supports of the National Science
Foundation of China (grant number 51408596)
and the Jiangsu Province Science Foundation
(grant number BK20140195) are greatly appreci-
ated, and thanks to the Research Funds of JiangSu
Collaborative Innovation Center for Building
Energy Saving and Construct Technology (grant
number SJXTY1510).
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Extreme loading
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Post-fire behavior of cold-formed ultra-high strength steel tubular

stub columns

F. Azhari, A. Heidarpour & X.L. Zhao

Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the post-fire compressive behavior of thin-walled cold-formed
Ultra-High Strength Steel (UHSS) tubular stub columns. The nominal 0.2% proof strength of the UHSS
used in this study at room temperature is 1200 MPa. UHSS stub columns with length to diameter ratio
(L/D) of 3 are axially compressed after being cooled from different fire temperatures to room tempera-
ture. The measured temperatures across the column height during heat-up and cooling phases, the stress-
strain curves of the tested columns along with those obtained from the tensile coupon tests, residual
strength values, slenderness values, and energy absorption of the tested specimens are all discussed for
different fire temperatures.

1 INTRODUCTION member buckling is precluded, but long enough to

In recent years, due to the high strength to weight
ratio of ultra-high strength structural steels (UHSS),
steel manufacturing companies have attempted to
offer these materials to the civil engineering soci-
ety. In this regard, some researchers have recently
proposed innovative fabricated columns composed
of ultra-high strength steel (UHSS) tubes with
nominal yield strength of 1200 MPa (Javidan et al.
2016, Nassirnia et al. 2015). The superior perform-
ance of these innovative columns indicates the great
potential of UHSS to be introduced as a structural
material in production of sustainable structural
members. However, there is lack of design equa-
tions in civil engineering codes of practice address-
ing the behavior of this type of steel under extreme
structural loadings. Fire is one of the extreme haz-
ards which can significantly damage the structure
during its service life. After a structure is cooled
from fire, the residual strength of the structural
members must be accurately calculated to decide
whether or not it is possible to reuse them. In recent
years, the authors performed an extensive experi-
mental study to investigate the post-fire tensile
mechanical behavior of Grade 1200 UHSS under
fire (Azhari et al. 2015, Azhari et al. 2016, Azhari et
al. 2017). The results showed a considerable reduc-
tion in residual strength of this material after being
cooled from certain fire temperatures.
In this paper, it is attempted to study the post-
fire compressive mechanical behavior of thin-
walled cold-formed ultra-high strength steel
(UHSS) tubular stub columns. A stub column
is a member which is sufficiently short such that
contain similar initial residual stress pattern as a
much longer member cut from the same steel tube
(Ziemian 2010). While the stub-column test has
much lower costs compared to the full-scale tests,
it is an important tool for investigating the strength
of full-length columns which may be expressed as
a function of the tangent modulus obtained from
the stress-strain relationship of the stub-columns
(Heidarpour et al. 2014, Ma et al. 2016). The Grade
1200 UHSS stub columns are heated up to fire tem-
peratures of up to 800°C and after being cooled to
room temperature, quasi-static compression testing
of the columns are performed. The stress-strain
curves, strength, slenderness and energy absorp-
tion of the columns cooled from different elevated
temperatures are evaluated.
2 EXPERIMENTAL TESTS
2.1 Tensile coupon tests
The post-fire material properties of Grade 1200
UHSS are measured by the results of tensile cou-
pon tests. Using the waterjet cutting facility, the
dog-bone specimens are extracted from two strips
located at right angles (90º) to the tube weld line
of UHSS tubes with nominal external diameter
of 38.1  mm and wall thickness of 1.8  mm. The
shape and dimensions of the coupons as well as
their location in the UHSS tubes are indicated in
Figure 1.
The specimens are mechanically flattened to
be gripped inside the tensile loading machine.
Then, they are heated up to elevated temperatures

305
Figure  1. a) Tube section and b) dimensions of test
specimens.

ranging from 470°C to 800°C inside a split furnace

(model SF-16) and once the temperatures at the
three thermocouples attached to points a, b and
c on the specimen’s gauge length (see Fig.  1) are
stabilized (after ∼20 mins), they are air cooled to
room temperature. Afterwards, using the Instron Figure 2. a) and b) Tensile coupon tests setup from dif-
5982 100  kN testing machine, quasi-static tensile ferent views, c) inside the furnace.
test is carried out at room temperature on the
cooled specimens with an applied strain rate of
0.005 ± 0.002 min−1. The test setup for the tensile
coupon tests are shown in Figure 2.

2.2 Stub column tests

In order to investigate the post-fire compressive
mechanical behavior of UHSS, cold-formed tubu-
lar stub columns are tested. The length of the
stub columns were chosen using the guidelines set
out by Johnston (Ziemian 2010) which specifies a
minimum stub column length of L  =  3D, i.e. the
aspect ratio (L/D) of 3, and maximum length of
L = 20rmin, where rmin is the least radius of gyration
( ). Since for the UHSS tubes used in this
study (D = 38.1 mm and t = 1.8 mm), 3D < 20rmin,
the length of the stub columns are considered to
be L = 3D.
In order to simulate the post-fire conditions, the
stub columns are located inside the split furnace
shown in Figure  2, and similar to the procedure
explained in the previous section for material cou-
pon tests, they are heated up to different elevated
temperatures and cooled to room temperature. The
temperature of the stub columns along their height
is recorded by three thermocouples attached to the
top, middle and bottom of the columns. The sta-
tus of the column inside the furnace and test setup
of both heat-up and cooling phases are illustrated
in Figure 3. It is worth noting that the furnace is
split into three zones and heats up the specimen
Figure 3. a) Status of the column inside the furnace and
b) heat-up and c) cooling phases of the test.
through a combination of convection and radia-
tion, dependent on the test temperature. The vari-
ation of the maximum temperature recorded by
the three thermocouples with the height of the
columns are presented in Figure  4 for different
tests. The CT curve represents the sample cooled
from temperature T to room temperature. Also,
to better illustrate the location of the temperature
recordings, the column is schematically shown in
this figure.
To apply quasi-static compression load to the
UHSS stub columns cooled from different fire
temperatures, Schimadzu testing machine with
capacity of 300 kN is used. The displacement rate
of 0.3 mm.min−1 is applied. The vertical deforma-
tion of the columns are recorded using an MTS

306
Figure  4. Temperature distribution of the heated col-
umns along their height for different maximum fire
temperatures.
Figure 5. The test setup for compression loading of the
UHSS stub-columns cooled from fire.
non-contact laser extensometer. To derive exact
strain values in both elastic and plastic region of the
stress-strain curves, the laser extensometer records
both the deformation between the reflective tapes
attached to two points with a ∼4  mm distance in
the middle of the column and those attached to the
top and bottom of anti-buckling fixtures. The fix-
tures are designed to avoid premature end failures
of the stub-columns and support the two ends of
the columns during compression loading such that
fixed boundary conditions are almost provided.
The test setup for the compression loading of the
columns is presented in Figure 5.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Stress-strain curves
In this section the stress-strain curves of both
tensile coupon tests (Fig. 6) and the stub-column
compression tests (Fig. 7) are presented for speci-
mens cooled from different fire temperatures. The
UHSS-CT and SC-UHSS-CT labels in the legend
of these two figures, represent the UHSS tensile
coupon and stub column (SC) cooled from tem-
perature T to room temperature, respectively. Also,
RT denotes the specimen tested at room temper-
307
Figure 6. The stress-strain curves of the UHSS tensile
coupons cooled from different fire temperatures to room
temperature.
Figure  7. The stress-strain curves of the UHSS Stub-
Columns (SC) cooled from different fire temperatures to
room temperature (RT).
ature (RT) without experiencing fire. Due to the
inaccurate strain readings after the necking of ten-
sile coupons and the fact that the elongation of the
material is not uniform after necking, the stress-
strain curves of Figure  6 are presented up to the
onset of necking.
From the tensile coupon tests, it can be observed
that the material properties of the UHSS are dra-
matically changed by the increase of the maxi-
mum fire temperature it had experienced prior to
cooling to room temperature. The strength of the
material is considerably reduced and the uniform
elongation of the material cooled from 800°C
increases by almost 7 times compared to the vir-
gin material. In addition, it can be observed that
the changes in material properties of the UHSS
tested in this study are stabilized after experienc-
ing fire temperature of 700°C. The reason behind
this stabilization is explained based on the thermo-
dynamic stability phase diagrams in (Azhari et al.
2015, Azhari et al. 2016). It is worth noting that
the critical temperature after which the steel mate-
rial properties are stabilized depends on its chemi-
cal composition. Thus, for different grades of steel,
this critical temperature would be different.
In Figure  7, the stress-strain curves obtained
from the stub columns (SC) tests are plotted up
to the end of the second major peak. From these Table 1. Strength and normalized slenderness values of
curves, it can be seen that by increasing the maxi- UHSS specimens cooled from fire temperatures to room
mum fire temperature up to 800°C, the maximum temperature (RT).
strength of the columns tested at room tempera-
Coupon Stub-Col.
ture are reduced up to 70%. Same reduction pat-
tern can also be observed for the second major fy fu fy,SC fu,SC
peak of these curves. It’s important to note that Test (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) ry,SC ru,SC λ
the small peaks that can be found between the
first and second major peaks are due to the local RT 1275 1414 1220 1604 0.96 1.05 0.116
buckling triggered by the local imperfections. C470 930 910 858 848 0.92 0.93 0.084
Theoretically, the curves must smoothly enter C600 671 648 337 467 0.50 0.72 0.061
their second mode of buckling after reaching C700 285 408 337 457 1.18 1.11 0.026
their first peak of strength and no such small C800 310 464 359 486 1.15 1.05 0.028
peaks are expected from the numerical simula-
tions of these tests. Comparing the stress-strain
curves of Figures 6 and 7, it can be seen that the
variations in stress and strain values of both fig- does not exhibit a dependence on stress direction.
ures with respect to temperature are similar up The possible reasons for the value of rySC being
to the maximum stress and the corresponding far from 1 (ry,SC  =  0.5) are explained in the next
strain value. In order to investigate whether or paragraph.
not the UHSS stress-strain curves obtained after In addition, from literature (Ma et al. 2016),
cooling phase of a fire can reproduce those of it is known that the columns, for which the SC
the stub-columns shown in Figure  7, finite ele- ultimate strength values match their tensile cou-
ment analysis can be employed, in which the pon ones, i.e. the ru,SC values are close to 1, are
temperature dependent constitutive material failed by cross section yielding. According to the
model is derived based on the curves of Figure 6 ultimate strength values presented in Table 1, for
and implemented into the finite element model most temperatures, it can be concluded that the
of UHSS SCs. cross sections cooled from fire is failed by yield-
ing. However, from the ultimate strength values of
the column tested after being cooled from 600°C
3.2 Strength and slenderness to room temperature, it can be seen that the ru,SC
In this section the strength values of both tensile value is 0.72. The reason behind the difference in
coupon tests and the stub-column compression ry,SC and ru,SC values for C600 test can be the tem-
tests are presented for specimens cooled from dif- perature distribution along the heated column
ferent fire temperatures. In Table 1, the 0.2% proof and the fact that this temperature is critical for the
stress (fy,SC) and the ultimate stress (fu,SC) of the UHSS steel tested here. From Figure 4, it can be
UHSS stub columns (SC) cooled from different understood that the temperature of the top of the
fire temperatures are presented and compared to column exceeds 600°C. Besides, from the investi-
the corresponding values obtained from the mate- gation conducted in (Azhari et al. 2015), 600°C is
rial tensile coupons (fy and fu) by the following defined as a critical temperature, above which the
ratios: phases present in the material are changed in iden-
tity and the mechanical properties of the UHSS
f y SC above this temperature are considerably changed.
ry SC = (1) Therefore, considering that the exact same heat-
fy up and cooling conditions are present for the ten-
f u , SC sile coupons and the stub-columns cooled from
ru , SC = (2) different fire temperatures, one certain reason for
fu this difference in their strength can be the tem-
perature distribution along the column’s height.
When the yield strength of a metal decreases It is important to note that for real fire condi-
with the change in the direction of strain, it is tions, the temperature is never uniform along the
called Bauschinger effect (Dieter & George 1988). length of the structural members. This indicates
Thus, based on the formula defined in Eq. (1), the importance of having experimental tests for
since for specimens cooled from most fire tem- fire simulations and not completely relying on
peratures except for 600°C,  ry,SC values are close the numerical simulations. Looking at the general
to 1 (Table  1), this effect is not observed from trend of the strength values reported in Table 1, it
the mechanical behavior of UHSS under cooling can be found that the reduction of both fy,SC and
phase of a fire and the UHSS cooled from fire fu,SC values increases up to 70%. The correspond-

308
ing reduction values for the coupon tests are 77%
and 68%, respectively.
Another important parameter which is given in
Table  1 is the modified slenderness parameter of
the circular hollow-section (CHS) defined as:
D ⎛ fy ⎞
λ= (3)
t ⎜⎝ E ⎟⎠
where, D and t are the outer diameter and thick-
ness of the tube, respectively. E is the elastic mod-
ulus which is obtained using the strain values of
the reflective tapes attached to the middle of the
columns. It is worth mentioning that the elas-
tic modulus of the columns exposed to different
fire temperatures are remained unchanged when
cooled to room temperature (Azhari et al. 2015).
Thus, same elastic modulus is used for columns
cooled from different fire temperatures (E  =  233
GPa). In Table 2, the values of un-modified slen-
derness limit of CHS given in different references
are presented. In order to make a reasonable com-
parison, the values of modified slenderness limit,
i.e. λlim (based on Eq. (3)), are also provied. Com-
paring the λ values presented in Tables  1 and 2,
it can be interpreted that for the virgin UHSS, λ
is greater than the limits given by the standards.
This means that if the values of slenderness limit
set out by the standards mentioned in Table 2 are
used, this section will be categorized in “Class 4”
and considered as a slender section. However, as
previously mentioned, the strength ratio ru,SC being
close to 1 shows that the failure mode of UHSS
SC is cross section yielding at room temperature.
Therefore, the limits set out by the standards are
too conservative if adopted for the design of a
UHSS CHS at room temperature and to have an
economical design, higher values of λ must be
defined to differentiate the slender columns from
compact ones. On the other hand, the λ values of
Table 2. Yield slenderness limits of cold-formed circu-
lar hollow sections defined by the available references.
References Yield slenderness limits
⎛ D⎞ ⎛ fy ⎞
AS 4100 (1998) ⎜ ⎟⎜ ⎟ ≤ 82 λlim = 0.103
⎝ t ⎠ ⎝ 250 ⎠
ANSI/AISC D λlim = 0.110
360-10 (2010) ≤ 0.11( E f y )
t material has become softer when cooled from high
⎛ ⎞
EN-1993-1-1 D λlim = 0.101
(2005) ≤ 90 ⎜⎜ 235 ⎟⎟
t ⎝ fy ⎠
AISI S100 (2012) D ⎛ fy ⎞ λlim = 0.111
⎜ ⎟ ≤ 0.111
t ⎝E⎠
*The material of their sections was Grade 700 High-
strength steel.
309
UHSS SCs cooled from fire temperatures of up
to 800°C, are well below the limits defined by the
standards. Considering the close values of ru,SC to
1, it can be concluded that these sections are failed
by cross section yielding which is in accordance to
standards. It is important to note that, in order to
define exact yield slenderness limits for the room
temperature and post-fire behavior of UHSS
CHSs, excessive experiments on various sizes of
UHSS columns are required. In this section, this
paper only aims to perform a comparison study
between the slenderness of the tested columns and
the limits set out by the standards.
3.3 Energy absorption
One of the parameters characterizing the ductil-
ity of a structural member, is its energy absorption
which is the strain energy (U*) absorbed by the
member when undergone an axial loading. This
parameter can be simply calculated by the follow-
ing equation:
ε′
U* ∫ σ dε
0
(4)
in which, σ and ε are the engineering stress and
strain values, respectively. ε ′ is the strain value, up
to which the energy absorption is being considered.
In this study, ε ′ is assumed to be the strain values
corresponding to the local minimum stresses after
the first and second major stress peaks, i.e. ε ′ = ε1
and ε ′ = ε2, respectively. On the stress strain curves
of Figure 7, the points corresponding to ε1 and ε2
strains are illustrated by hollow squares and cir-
cles, respectively. The values of U* for UHSS
stub columns cooled from different fire tempera-
tures (U*,CT) are normalized with respect to that
of the virgin UHSS stub column tested at room
temperature (U*,RT) and the variation of them with
respect to the maximum fire temperature are plot-
ted in Figure 8. It can be observed that while the
curves of the U*,CT/U*,RT for ε ′ = ε1 and ε ′ = ε2, are
closed matched, they both indicate a decreasing
trend with the increase in temperature. However,
based on the material stress-strain curves shown in
Figure 6, with a considerable reduction in strength
and increase in the uniform elongation, the UHSS
fire temperatures. In spite of that, due to the defini-
tion of U* (Eq. (4)) and the fact that it has a direct
relationship with both strain and strength values,
the significant reduction in ultimate strength val-
ues of UHSS when cooled from fire temperatures
of up to 800°C has led to the reduction of the
U*,CT values in Figure 8.

Figure 8. The normalized energy absorption values of
the UHSS Stub-Columns (SC) cooled from different fire
temperatures to room temperature (RT).
4 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the post-fire compressive behavior of
thin-walled cold-formed ultra-high strength steel
(Grade 1200 UHSS) tubular stub columns is inves-
tigated. Axial compression testing is applied to the
UHSS stub columns with length to diameter ratio
(L/D) of 3 at room temperature after being cooled
from different fire temperatures. To understand the
material behavior of the UHSS, tensile coupon tests
are also performed on dog-bone UHSS specimens
cooled from same fire temperatures. The stress-
strain curves are recorded for both material and
stub column (SC) tests and the strength values are
extracted from them. Considerable strength reduc-
tion was observed from both set of tests and the cal-
culated ratio between the yield and ultimate strength
values of the tensile coupons tests and SC tests were
fairly close to 1 for all fire temperatures except for
the critical temperature of 600°C. The failure mode
of cross section yielding was thus concluded for
these UHSS SCs. The normalized slenderness ratios
are obtained and except for the column tested at
room temperature test without experiencing fire, the
ratios set out by the available references matched the
obtained results well. As a reasonable criteria repre-
senting the ductility of the tested stub columns, the
energy absorption of the UHSS SCs cooled from
fire are calculated and showed a decreasing trend
as the maximum temperature increased. The rea-
son for this reduction was mainly the significant
decrease in the strength of the stub columns when
cooled from high fire temperatures.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research work presented in this paper was sup-
ported by the Australian Government-Department
of Education and also by Australian Research
310
Council through a Discovery Project (DP150100442)
awarded to the second and third authors.
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AISI (American Iron and Steel Institute). 2012. “North
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Eurocode 4 based method for the fire design of concrete-filled steel

tubular columns

A. Espinós, V. Albero, M.L. Romero & A. Hospitaler

Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología del Hormigón (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain

C. Renaud
Centre Technique Industriel de la Construction Métallique (CTICM), Saint Aubin, France

Y.C. Wang
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, UK

ABSTRACT: The unsafety of the current design guidelines in Annex H of EN 1994-1-2 for the calcula-
tion of the fire resistance of slender Concrete-Filled Steel Tubular (CFST) columns was highlighted in
previous investigations, which led to an addenda approved by CEN/TC250/SC4 limiting its application
to columns of a maximum 0.5 relative slenderness. As one of the outcomes from the recently concluded
RFCS European Project FRISCC, a simplified design method for the fire resistance of CFST columns
was developed, covering all the practical range of application of CFST columns and including different
cross-section shapes. The method is applicable to both axially and eccentrically loaded columns, account-
ing for minor and major axis eccentricities and considering the possibility of loads applied out of the sec-
tion. Bending moment—axial force interaction curves specially built up for the fire situation are proposed
for eccentric loads, being in line with the method in EN1994-1-1 for cold design.

1 INTRODUCTION alternative for the fire design of CFST columns.

The fire design of concrete-filled steel tubular col-
umns may be a difficult task for practitioners, unless
appropriate design guidance is given. At present, the
current rules available in Europe (Eurocode 4 Part
1–2, CEN 2005a) lack of a robust methodology
that facilitates this task. An informative method for
CFST columns is given in its Annex H. However,
due to questionable assumptions (Leskela, 2009)
and its unconservativeness for slender columns
(Romero et al. 2011), this method is not allowed
in certain countries such as France (Aribert et al.
2008, Renaud et al. 2004) or the United Kingdom
(Wang 2014), where it has been replaced by alterna-
tive design rules. In Spain, previous studies by the
authors of this paper were performed for develop-
ing a full methodology for the fire design of CFST
columns (Espinos et al. 2012, 2013).
Also, some other methods exist worldwide for
the evaluation of the fire resistance of CFST col-
umns, as those used in North America (Kodur &
Mackinnon 2000) or China (Han et al. 2003).
Additionally, the main part of Eurocode 4
Part 1–2 (CEN 2005a) presents a general method
to estimate the buckling resistance of composite
columns in braced frames, which may provide an
However, this method should be adapted for its
complete application to this type of columns.
Besides, no specification is made regarding eccen-
trically loaded columns.
Precisely, this paper takes the described frame-
work as a starting point for the development of a
new simplified fire design method for CFST col-
umns. The proposed method is developed based
on the results of the RFCS funded research project
entitled “Fire Resistance of Innovative and Slen-
der Concrete Filled Tubular Composite Columns”
(FRISCC). It includes innovative cross-sections,
such as elliptical hollow sections. The method is valid
for both concentric and eccentric load, reaching
large eccentricities. The proposal for concentric load
follows the structure of the general method in Clause
4.3.5.1 of EN1994-1-2 (CEN 2005a) for composite
columns. In turn, based on the recommendations
of the Working Group SC4.T4 of CEN/TC250, the
proposal for eccentric load is based on the approach
used in EN1994-1-1 (CEN 2004a) for room temper-
ature design, thus interaction diagrams need to be
built up at elevated temperatures. The accuracy of
the proposed method is verified against the results
of experimental tests, extending the current EC4
method limitations and correcting its inaccuracy.

311
2 PARAMETRIC STUDIES
A full database of results from numerical simula-
tions on CFST columns under fire is available from
a comprehensive parametric study carried out in
the aforementioned RFCS Project FRISCC, cov-
ering all the practical range of the relevant param-
eters for the fire design of this type of columns.
The simulations were conducted with the use of a
fully validated numerical model, which was able to
reproduce in a realistic way the fire performance of
CFST columns with different cross-section shape
and loading conditions. The numerical model is
described in detail in Albero et al. (2016).
The parameters analyzed in the parametric
study were the outer diameter (D) or larger and
smaller outer dimension (H - B) in the case of RHS
and EHS columns, the steel tube wall thickness
(t), the relative slenderness at room temperature
(0.2 ≤ λ ≤ 2), the percentage of reinforcement
(0%  ≤  ρ  ≤  5%), the concrete cover (us), the load
level (15% ≤ μ ≤ 70%) and the relative eccentricity
(0 ≤ e/D, e/B, e/H ≤ 1). In all, 4400 circular, 4400
square, 8136 rectangular and 3600 elliptical col-
umn specimens were analyzed, amounting a total
of 20536 numerical simulations.
All the specimens were designed to meet the
criteria of non-slender sections (D/t  ≤  90ε2), hav-
ing a steel contribution ratio between 0.2 ≤ δ ≤ 0.9,
in order to accomplish with the limitations in EN
1994-1-1 (CEN 2004a).
The maximum buckling load of the columns
in the fire situation (Nfi,Rd) was obtained from the
results of the numerical simulations performed
in the parametric studies. From this buckling
resistance, the normalized buckling load (χ) was
obtained by dividing its value by the cross-sectional
plastic resistance in the fire situation (Nfi,pl,Rd).
This parameter is plotted in Figure  1 against
the relative slenderness at elevated temperature
( λ ). This figure only shows the results for axially
loaded columns—about 3000 specimens including
all sections shapes—superimposed with buckling
Figure 1. Results of the parametric studies for concentri-
cally loaded columns, as compared to buckling curve “c”.
312
curve “c”, as a reference to compare with the curve
currently used in EN 1994-1-2 (CEN 2005a) for
the fire design of composite columns. As can be
noticed in this figure, if no correction is used, the
current buckling curve prescribed by the code may
lead to unsafe results, predicting higher buckling
loads that the realistic ones.
3 SIMPLIFIED CROSS-SECTIONAL
TEMPERATURE FIELD
The cross-sectional temperature field of the col-
umns after a certain fire exposure time is required
in Eurocode 4 Part 1–2 (CEN 2005a) as a previ-
ous step to calculate the buckling load of a CSFT
column. However, the current version of the code
does not provide any simplified method to facilitate
the calculation of this temperature field. Therefore,
in order to help designers in this task, a simple
method is proposed here. This proposal is valid for
CHS, SHS, RHS and EHS columns and fire expo-
sure times ranging from 30 to 240 minutes.
A single equivalent temperature is provided
for each part of the cross-section (see Figure  2):
an equivalent temperature for the whole concrete
core (θc,eq), another one for the steel tube (θa,eq) and
finally one for the reinforcement (θs,eq).
The main benefit of this method is that designer
can evaluate the fire resistance of the column by
using a single strength and stiffness value for each
component of the composite cross-section corre-
sponding to its equivalent temperature, which sim-
plifies significantly the design process.
Figure 2. Simplification of the temperature field.
 The calculation procedure described in Espinos γM,fi,I is the partial factor for the relevant material
et al. (2012) was followed to obtain the expres- property of part i, for the fire situation, defined
sions for evaluating the equivalent temperatures. in the relevant National Annexes of EN1992-1-2
For the ease of presentation, this procedure is (CEN 2004b) and EN1993-1-2 (CEN 2005b).
not described here, but the reader may refer to In second place, the effective flexural stiffness
the aforementioned paper. By using a non-linear should be calculated as the summation of the con-
regression analysis over the results of the whole tribution of the three cross-section components
temperature profile database of the parametric (steel tube, concrete core and reinforcing bars):
studies, the following expressions were derived for
the equivalent temperatures (θi,eq) in [ºC], where all ( ) fi ,efff = a ,θ E a,, ( ,eq )I a + ϕ c,
c θ Ecc,, ( c,eq )I c
section shapes were merged into a single and com- (5)
+ ϕ s,θ E ss,, (θ s,eq )I s
pact formulation as a function of the section factor
(Am/V) in [m–1] and fire exposure time (tfi) in [min].
For the concrete core: where:
ϕi,θ is the reduction coefficient depending on the
θ c ,eq = 81 8 − 5 05 ⋅ t fif 0 003 t fi 2 effect of thermal stresses of part i;
− 15. Am / V + 0.. ( Am / V )2 Ii is the second moment of area of part i of
V + 43⋅ t fi 0.842 ⋅ ( )
0.714
− 0.88⋅ t fi ⋅ Am /V the cross-section. It is assumed that concrete is
(1) uncracked;
Ei,θ(θi,eq) is the elastic modulus of part i at the
For the steel tube: temperature θi,eq, which can be calculated through
the reduction factors kθ from Table  3.2 and
θ a,eq = −824.67 − 5.58
5 ⋅ t fi 0.007 t ffi 2
Table 3.3 in EN1994-1-2 (CEN 2005a). In the case
645.08 t fi 0.269 ⋅ ( )
0.017
− 0.
0. fi m /V / of concrete, the secant modulus shall be used.
(2)
Following the structure in Equation (5) for eval-
For the reinforcing bars: uating the effective flexural stiffness of the column,
it was necessary to develop a set of flexural stiff-
( ) ( )
3 2
θ s,eq χ 3 ⋅ t fi us2 + χ ⋅ t fifi us2 ness reduction coefficients ϕi,θ. Through the results
(
+ χ1 ⋅ t fi 2
s )+ χ 0 (3) of the parametric studies from the aforementioned
Project FRISCC, the values of these coefficients
where the χ coefficients depend on the section were derived for the standard fire exposure times.
shape and concrete cover, and are given in Albero The value of the concrete flexural stiffness coeffi-
et al. (2016). cient was fixed to ϕc,θ = 0.8, as it is done in other
methods for composite columns (Renaud et al.
2004, Wang 2014). The procedure described in
4 METHOD FOR CONCENTRIC LOAD Espinos et al. (2012, 2013) to derive the values of
the flexural stiffness reduction coefficient for the
The proposed method for concentrically loaded steel tube was applied. Again, for the sake of brev-
columns takes as a starting point the structure of ity, this procedure is omitted here, but the reader
the general method for composite columns from can refer to the aforementioned papers.
Clause 4.3.5.1 of EN 1994-1-2 (CEN 2005a), Through a multiple nonlinear regression analy-
which is based on the elastic buckling theory. sis, the expressions in Table 1 were proposed for the
In first place, the design value of the plastic flexural stiffness reduction coefficients of the steel
resistance to axial compression Nfi,pl,Rd should be tube and reinforcement, depending on the cross-
evaluated as the summation of the contribution section shape (CHS, SHS, RHS or EHS).
of the three cross-section components (steel tube, where:
concrete core and reinforcing bars), each of them Am/V is the section factor, which for a composite
represented by an equivalent temperature. column shall be calculated as the exposed perime-
ter divided by the total area, including all the com-
N fi , pl ,Rd Aa f y, a ,eqq M , fi
f ,a Ac fc , (θ cc,eqq ) / γ M , fi ,c ponents of the cross-section [m−1];
+ As fs ,θ ( s,s, q ) / γ M , fi ,s l0 is the buckling length of the column in the fire
(4) situation [m], defined in Clause 4.3.5.1(10) of EN
1994-1-2 (CEN 2005a);
where: B is the shorter dimension of a rectangular or
Ai is the area of part i of the cross-section; elliptical cross-section [mm].
fi,θ(θi,eq) is the design strength of part i at the tem-
perature θi,eq, which can be calculated through the Once the flexural stiffness reduction coefficients
reduction factors kθ from Table 3.2 and Table 3.3 in are obtained, the effective flexural stiffness of the
EN1994-1-2 (CEN 2005a); column may be evaluated through Equation (5).

313
 The Euler buckling load should be subsequently
calculated as:
N fi ,cr π 2 ( EI
E ) fi ,efff  θ 2 (6)
The relative slenderness at elevated temperature
may be then obtained from:
λθ = N fi , pl ,R N fi ,cr (7)
where:
Nfi,pl,R is the value of Nfi,pl,Rd according to Equa-
tion (4) when the factors γM,fi,a, γM,fi,s and γM,fi,c are
taken as 1,0.
Finally, the design value of the buckling load in
the fire situation should be obtained from:
N fi ,Rd χ N fi , pl ,Rd (8)
where χ is the reduction coefficient for the cor-
responding buckling curve and depending on the
relative slenderness at elevated temperature λ θ .
Buckling curve “a” is proposed for unreinforced col-
umns and buckling curve “b” for reinforced columns,
respectively. This assumption is in line with the rec-
ommended buckling curves in EN 1994-1-1 (CEN
2004a) for CFST columns at room temperature.
5 METHOD FOR ECCENTRIC LOAD
In the proposed method for eccentric load, the
approach in EN 1994-1-1 (CEN 2004a), based on
second-order linear elastic analysis, is extended
for fire design. This requires to build up the cor-
responding M-N interaction curve at elevated tem-
perature. This approach, however, may not result
so simple to apply, as the position of the plastic
neutral axis should be obtained for each point of
the interaction curve by solving the equilibrium
of a section where the temperature distribution is
non-uniform, and therefore each layer is subjected
to a different stress level. This requires not only the
application of advanced calculation tools for the
obtaining the temperature distribution, but also
an iterative process for obtaining the plastic neu-
tral axis position for each fire exposure time and
each point of the diagram. The complexity of this
option was highlighted by Wang (2014). In order
to simplify this process, equivalent temperatures
will be used, which allow adopting a single uniform
temperature for representing each part of the com-
posite section.
Using the proposed expressions for evaluating
the equivalent temperatures of steel, concrete and
reinforcing bars, the approach from Clause 6.7.3.6
of EN 1994-1-1 (CEN 2004a) “Resistance of mem-
bers in combined compression and uniaxial bending”
may be applied for elevated temperatures.
314
For the determination of the internal forces,
the design value of the effective flexural stiffness
at elevated temperature should be evaluated. The
expression given in Clause 6.7.3.4(2) of EN 1994-
1-1 (CEN 2004a) is modified in this proposal, to
take into account the effect of temperature.
( ) fi ,efff ,II = Kθ K o ⋅ [ a,, (θ a ,eq )I
)I a + ϕ ss,θ ⋅ E s
(9)
( s,eq )I s K e ,III ⋅ ϕ c,θ ⋅ Ec (θ c,eq )I c ]
where:
Kθ is a correction factor for elevated
temperature;
Ko is a calibration factor which should be taken
as 0.9;
Ke,II is a correction factor which should be taken
as 0.5;
ϕi,θ is the reduction coefficient depending on the
effect of thermal stresses of part i. The values of
these coefficients for the different components of the
cross-section are those previously given in Table 1.
Using the parametric results available from the
previous project FRISCC, the correction factor
for elevated temperature was statistically adjusted,
obtaining a value of Kθ = 0.67.
Following from Clause 6.7.3.4(5) in EN 1994-1-
1, (CEN 2004a), second-order effects are allowed
for within the column length by multiplying the
greatest first-order design bending moment by a
factor k given by Equation (10).
β
k= , ≥1 (10)
1− N fi ,Ed / N fi ,cr ,efff
where:
Nfi,cr,eff is the critical normal force for the relevant
axis and corresponding to the effective flexural
stiffness at elevated temperature;
β is an equivalent moment factor, given in
Table 6.4 of EN 1994-1-1 (CEN 2004a).
The following expression, based on the inter-
action curve determined according to Clause
6.7.3.2(2)-(5) in EN 1994-1-1 (CEN 2004a), adapted
to elevated temperatures, should be satisfied:
Table 1. Flexural stiffness reduction coefficients for the
steel tube and reinforcement.
Steel tube Reinforcement
7 − 0.023 ⋅ ( Am / V ) ϕ s,θ = 0.8 − 0.002 ⋅ t fi
CHS ϕ a ,θ = 0.75
1 − 0.001 ⋅ ( Am / V )
SHS ϕ a ,θ = 0.15 ϕ s,θ = 0.8 − 0.002 ⋅ t fi
RHS ϕ a,θ = 0. ( θ
/ B) * ϕ s,θ = 0.7
EHS ϕ a,θ = 0. ( θ
/ B) * ϕ s,θ = 0.95
*When eccentricity is applied for bending about major
axis, B should be replaced by H.

Figure 3. Example of construction of a simplified M-N
interaction diagram and calculation of the solution.
M fi ,Ed M fi ,Ed
= ≤ αM (11)
M fi , pl ,N ,Rd μd M fi plpl ,Rd
where:
Mfi,Ed is the greatest of the end moments and
the maximum bending moment within the column
length, including member imperfections and sec-
ond order effects, in the fire situation;
Mfi,pl,N,Rd is the plastic bending resistance taking
into account the normal force in the fire situation
Nfi,Ed;
Mfi,pl,Rd is the plastic bending resistance in the
fire situation, given by point B in Figure 3.
The coefficient αM is taken as 0.9, as given in
EN 1994-1-1 (CEN 2004a) for steel grades between
S235 and S355 inclusive. This additional reduction
by the factor αM takes into account that the inter-
action curve is determined assuming full plastic
behaviour of the materials, and the possible influ-
ence of the cracking of concrete on the effective
stiffness (Bergmann et al. 1995). The effect of
the application of this reduction coefficient to
the M-N interaction diagram can be seen in the
example given in Figure 3. The calculation of the
relevant points A, B, C and D of the interaction
diagram is well explained in the CIDECT Design
Guide by Bergmann et al. (1995).
In Figure  3, it can be observed how the result
of the column capacity under combined compres-
sion and uniaxial bending is obtained as the inter-
section point (Mfi,Rd, Nfi,Rd) between the simplified
M-N interaction diagram and the loading curve,
which is built up through an iterative process. The
reason of the need of this iterative process is that
the moment magnification coefficient k in Equa-
tion (10) depend on the value of the applied axial
load, which in turn is the searched solution.
The procedure adopted for solving this prob-
lem should be as follows. The applied load Nfi,Ed
is incremented in steps starting from zero, and the
315
Figure 4. Comparison of the proposed method predic-
tions against test results.
corresponding bending moment Mfi,Ed is evaluated
in each step, multiplying it by the corresponding
value of the moment magnification coefficient k.
With this procedure, the bending moment pro-
gressively increases as the axial load does, with a
non-linear relation, which can be plotted as a M-N
curve. When the intersection of this curve with the
previously built-up simplified interaction diagram
is found, the values of axial load and bending
moment at the intersection point are taken as the
solution of the problem (Mfi,Rd, Nfi,Rd).
6 VALIDATION WITH EXPERIMENTS
The presented method is validated in this section
by comparison against the results of real fire tests
carried out by the authors of this paper in the
experimental campaign of the European Project
FRISCC, published in previous papers (Espinos
et al. 2015a,b). The tests included CFST columns
with different cross-section shape (CHS, SHS,
RHS and EHS) subjected to both concentric and
eccentric load, reaching large eccentricities.
The results of the application of the proposed
method to the tested columns are shown in Figure 4,
where they are compared with the results of the
application of the general method in Clause 4.3.5.1
of EN 1994-1-2 (CEN 2005a), assuming flexural
stiffness reduction coefficients equal to unity.
As it can be seen, the current calculation method
in EN1994-1-2 leads to unsafe predictions for most
of the cases compared. In turn, the predictions of
the calculation method presented in this paper lay
generally on the safe side. It is worth mentioning
that the conservativeness of the proposed method
is a consequence of the severe accuracy criteria
used for the development of the method, those
approved by CEN/TC250/SC4 Horizontal Group
Fire (Kruppa 1999).
Following the recommendations of this commit-
tee, it was checked that these three criteria were met:
1) the calculation result shall not be on the unsafe
side by more than 15% of the reference result, 2) a
maximum of 20% of individual calculation results
shall be on the unsafe side and 3) the mean value
of all percentage differences between calculation
results and reference results shall be on the safe side.
7 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented a complete overview of a
full design method developed for simplifying the
calculation process of CFST columns under fire,
valid for different cross-section shapes, slenderness
and all types of loading conditions (concentric and
eccentric load).
By means of a previously validated numerical
model, parametric studies were conducted in order
to create an extensive database for the develop-
ment of a full method, which solves the shortcom-
ings of the current design rules in Eurocode 4 Part
1.2, proved unsafe for slender columns.
Through the parametric studies results, simpli-
fied expressions for evaluating the cross-sectional
temperature field were developed. Design equations
were also proposed for defining the appropriate
values of the flexural stiffness reduction coeffi-
cients, needed for the determination of the column
buckling load at elevated temperature. A proposal
for eccentric load was also developed, based on the
approach from EN 1994-1-1 for members in com-
bined compression and uniaxial bending. The pro-
cedure for building up the M-N interaction diagram
at elevated temperature was explained. Finally, the
proposed method was validated by comparison
with experiments. A good agreement was found
between the proposed method predictions and the
test results, meeting the criteria for accuracy from
CEN/TC250/SC4 and significantly improving the
current limitations of Eurocode 4 Part 1.2.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to express their sincere grat-
itude to the European Union for the help provided
through the Project RFSR-CT-2012-00025, carried
out with a financial grant of the Research Pro-
gramme of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Thermal behavior of connections between concrete-filled steel tubular

columns and slim-floors subjected to fire

V. Albero, A. Espinós, A. Hospitaler & M.L. Romero

Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología del Hormigón (ICITECH), Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain

A.M. Pascual
Institut für Konstruktion und Entwurf, Universität Stuttgart, Germany

ABSTRACT: Both Concrete-Filled Steel Tubular columns (CFST) and composite steel-concrete beams
embedded in floors (slim-floors) are being increasingly used in new construction proposals. The fire per-
formance of these structural elements has been studied in recent years separately. Nevertheless, under-
standing the fire behavior of the connections between both elements may be an important issue in the
global structural response of these composite solutions. In this work, an advanced finite element thermal
model is developed to assess the behavior of these connections in the fire situation. The embedment of
the connection into the slim-floor is studied, which provides a thermal protection to the blind-bolt. The
thermal behavior of this slim-floor connection was compared against non-encased beams, reaching 600ºC
difference in the lower bolt at 60 minutes of fire exposure. It shows that the bolt temperature into the slim-
floor, which is lower than 200ºC, would have little effect on the connection structural resistance.

1 INTRODUCTION parts (Fig. 1a): a standard bolt, a sleeve with four

slots, and a cone with a threaded hole where the
1.1 Thermal behavior in blind-bolted connections bolt is screwed. The fastener has got the attention
to concrete-filled steel tubular columns of several researches. Elghazouli et al. (2009) devel-
oped a experimental study of angle connections
The advantages of CFST columns are well-known,
at room and at elevated temperatures. Under fire
conditions concrete infill of the CFST decreases
temperature in the steel section due to its lower
conductivity, while steel works as a shield and
maintains the integrity of the element. The ther-
mal analysis of CFST columns has been covered
in several researches, nonetheless, the study of
the connection itself is more recent. Traditionally,
the connection was been considered as part of the
column or beam, providing the same protection as
in the elements joined. However last years cata-
strophic fires have proved the crucial role of con-
nections in the building failure and the necessity of
its further study.
The studies of fire behavior of end-plate bolted
connections are quite limited to joints between
I-section beams and open sections columns, Al-
Jabri et al. (2005), Wang et al. (2011) and Dai et al.
(2010). In this research a blind-bolted connection
is under investigation. This type of connection uses
special fasteners able to be tightened from one side
of the tube. Among the different types of blind-
bolts, the Hollo-bolt system (Lindapter Interna-
tional, UK) was chosen due to its easy assembly and
its feasibility of resisting bending moments (Tizani Figure  1. a) Hollo-bolt; b) Extended Hollo-bolt
et al., 2013). The fastener consists mainly of three (Pascual et al., 2015a).

317
between beam and tubular unfilled column by
means Hollo-bolt subjected to monotonic and
cyclic loads. Liu et al. (2012) assed the same type
of connections under shear and axial loads. Wang
et al. (2010) focused on the analysis of the strength
and stiffness of Hollo-bolt blind system in a T-stub
connection to obtain a theoretical expression able
to be used in the framework of the component
method. They pointed out the higher flexibility
introduced by the sleeve ductile behaviour.
In the University of Nottingham (Pitrakkos Figure 2. Shallow Floor Beam (SFB).
and Tizani, 2013) a modification of Hollo-bolt
(Fig. 1b), was created named Extended Hollo-bolt
beam called Integrated Floor Beams (IFB), which
which incorporated a longer shank with a screwed
consist of a cut symmetric I-section welded to a
nut at the end to take advantage of the concrete
plated. Nevertheless, other slim-floor beam called
infill in connections to CFST and increase the
Shallow Floor Beam (SFB), see Fig. 2, showed a
stiffness of the connection. An experimental cam-
better behavior in fire (Fellinger and Twilt, 1996).
paign of eight full-scale tests were carried out on
SFB composite beam is made of a symmetric
flush endplate connection to CFST columns with
I-section welded to a bottom plate (without cut-
the Extended Hollo-bolt. The results reported the
ting). SFB shows a better thermal behavior under
enhancement attributed to the bolt anchorage. It
fire conditions due to the air gap, which appears
prevents the tube and the sleeve from the stress
between the lower profile flange and the bottom
concentration, so that stresses distribute through
plate. A temperature difference up to 100ºC was
the concrete and enable the full development of the
observed in tests (Newman, 1995), which was pro-
tensile bolt strength.
duced by the air gap between both steel surfaces.
While at room temperature the blind-bolt per-
The work presented in this paper is focused on
formance has been addressed by several research-
the development of an integrated numerical model,
ers, under the fire conditions there is still a gap of
which includes the blind-bolted connection embed-
knowledge. In that respect, Ding and Wang (2009)
ded in a SFB slim-floor beam as SFB. The thermal
tested four different types of joints to CFST col-
behaviour of the embedded connection is studied.
umn in fire, one of them used a blind-bolt (the
The results obtained through this model are com-
Molabolt) and assessed the application of the sim-
pared with previous researches for connections
plified calculation methods of EN1993-1-2 (CEN,
with no-encased steel beams. A better isolation of
2005a) to their study cases.
the connection is expected, due to the SFB beam
The work here presented try to cover part of this
proper thermal behaviour. The thermal response is
gap with the thermal analysis of blind-bolts in end-
mainly focused on the bolt temperature.
plate connections to CFST columns and the role
Moreover the temperature numerically calcu-
of the SFB slim-floor on the temperatures of the
lated in the bolts is compared with the simplified
connection.
method of Eurocode 3 Annex D (EN1993-1-2).
In addition, this work will provide valuable
1.2 Temperature distribution in slim-floors under information for further thermo-mechanical calcu-
fire lation of the connections.
Slim-floor beams are totally contained within the
concrete floor depth, which offers various advan-
2 NUMERICAL MODEL
tages like the floor thickness reduction and the
increase of working space. Regarding to its ther-
2.1 Description of the numerical model
mal behavior, a suitable fire behavior of slim-floor
is expected due to it is exposed to fire only from the A three-dimensional finite element model of the
lower flange, in contrast with other beams which connection was developed using the commercial
are not embedded in the concrete floor. programme ABAQUS (2013) to study the behav-
EN 1994-1-2 (CEN, 2005b) provides simple ior of the connection taking into account the influ-
equations to evaluate temperatures due to standard ence of all the parts and the interactions between
fire exposure for non-encased composite beams. them. The numerical analysis of the connection
However, a simple model to evaluate slim-floors without the slim floor was already made by Pascual
temperature in the event of fire is not provided by et al. (2015b). In that investigation, the FE model
standards. Zaharia and Franssen (2012) developed of the connection at room temperatures was vali-
simple equations for the temperature calculation dated with experiments (Pascual et al., 2015a). In
within the cross-section of a particular slim-floor parallel, the thermal model of the connection only

318
considering the column was also verified with lab-
oratory tests. The simulations were able to repro-
duce with accuracy the results from the tests and
consequently are the basis to simulate the whole
connection including the slim floor system.
The FE model represents the assembly of the six
different parts involved in the connections (Fig. 3):
– Hollow square steel section column with 200 mm
of side length and 8 mm of thickness,
– SFB beam consisted of a I-shape section beam
named IPE360 welded to a bottom plate 320 mm
width and 15 mm thick.
– 6 Hollo-bolt fasteners M16 grade 8.8, in two
rows separated 100 mm in height.
– Rectangular steel end-plate with dimensions
400 × 220 × 15 mm.
– Hollow core concrete slab of 25  cm height
placed on the bottom plate of the beam
– Concrete infill inside the tube column, and the
slim-floor, which covers the connection (it is not
displayed in Fig. 3 in order to clarify).
The fastener system, consisting of 5–6 parts,
was simplified into 2: one included the shank,
the bolt head, the collar and the fastener cone,
and the second part characterized the sleeve in
the expanded state. The shank in the case of the
Extended Hollo-bolt, was longer and included a
screwed nut attached at the end. Figure  3 shows
the connection and the two parts composing the
FE model of the bolt.
In order to reduce computational cost and due
to symmetry of geometry and thermal load only
half of the connection was modelled. The fire took
place in a certain storey, so the areas under exposi-
tion were all the floor bottom surfaces.
A significant characteristic of the model are the
multiple interactions existing between the several
surfaces of different elements, which required the
detailed definition of the thermal contacts and
their properties.
Figure 3. FE model.
319
Three-dimensional eight-node heat transfer
solid elements with thermal degree of freedom
DC3D8 were used. The size of the elements
depend on the part of the assembly: finer elements
were used for bolts, around 2–5 mm, due to the size
of the piece and to guarantee accuracy on a critical
part. For the rest of the elements the mesh size was
no higher than 20 mm.
2.2 Thermal material properties
2.2.1 Concrete
The temperature dependent properties that define
the thermal behavior for concrete, were taken from
EN 1994-1-2 (CEN, 2005b), the specific heat and
the thermal conductivity. The moisture content was
considered in the peak value of the specific heat
at 115ºC. Recommendations give a peak value of
2020 J/kg K for a moisture content of 3% in con-
crete weight, and 5600 J/kg K for a moisture content
of 10%. The peak for intermediate values is linearly
interpolated, nonetheless, a moisture content of 3%
in concrete weight was actually stated. For the con-
crete thermal conductivity the upper limit provided
by EN 1994-1-2 is used from the safe side.
2.2.2 Steel
The thermal properties for structural steel were
extracted from EN 1993-1-2 which is based on mild
steel tests. The fastener system uses high strength
steel whose chemical composition and heat treat-
ment in the fabrication produces changes in the
internal structure of the material under elevated
temperatures. However, traditionally properties of
normal strength steel have been used to character-
ize high strength bolts. In this regard, Kodur et al.
(2012) proposed new equations for thermal prop-
erties of steel bolts of grade A490 and A360.
2.3 Thermal analysis
A nonlinear thermal analysis was performed, where
the thermal load was transferred to the exposed sur-
faces by convection and radiation mechanisms. The
standard curve ISO834 was applied to represent the
evolution of the temperatures during the fire.
The parameters that defined the heat transfer
problem were adopted from EN 1991 Part 1.2
(CEN, 2002):
– Coefficient of convective heat transfer at the
exposed surface: h = 25 W/m2K4.
– Configuration factor for radiation at the exposed
surface: φ = 1.
– Stephan-Boltzmann constant: σ  =  5.67E-08  W/
m2K4.
– Emissivity of the exposed surface: εf = 0.7.
– Emissivity of the fire: εf = 1.
– Initial temperature: T0 = 20ºC.
 The mechanism that governed the heating This gap radiation is modelled as follows:
through each part of the connection was conduc-
tivity, which depends on the thermal properties of q C ( θ A4 − θ B4 ) (2)
the material. In the case of interactions between
surfaces, heat transfer is produced by radiation where,
and mainly conduction. For the latter mechanism, F⋅σ
a perfect contact could be assumed, so the sur- C= (3)
face of both parts register the same, but a thermal 1 / εA + 1 / B −1
resistance is likely to appear and reduce the heat
conduction. This resistance is usually modelled by The selected view factors were F  =  1.0, as the
defining a gap conductance. Traditionally, authors void is closed. The emissivity of the edges were
have neglected this, but the influence in the temper- defined as exposed surfaces (εA, εB  =  0.7). Then,
ature field is considerably important in many cases. the radiation flux can be obtained from tempera-
tures in the interaction edges.

2.4 Gap conductance

3 THERMAL BEHAVIOR OF THE
Gap conductance can be associated with gap clear-
CONNECTION
ance or steel tube temperature. It reproduces the
heat transfer through the air gap between different Through the nonlinear thermal analysis, tempera-
elements (steel-concrete or steel-steel). In the con- ture curves were obtained for each node of the
nections reported, not only the interface between three dimensional model.
steel tube and concrete core exists, but also several The thermal response of the slim-floor cross-sec-
more contacts occurred due to the fastener system. tion and the modelling assumptions were validated
An exhaustive definition of thermal resistance for against tests from bibliography (Espinos et al.,
each interaction is difficult and would involve many 2017). Specifically, Fellinger and Twilt (1996) and
factors at the same time. In this research, based on Newman (1995) tests were used showing a good
the work of other authors, constant values of gap fitting between tests and model temperatures.
conductance were evaluated. A sensitivity study Important differences can be observed in the
was conducted to reach these assumptions: perfect temperature field on the connection between no-
contact in all contacts, except for steel of sleeve encased and slim-floor connection at 30 minutes
interaction with hole surfaces and internal surface of fire exposure time, (see Fig. 4).
of steel column contact with concrete infill, where
a gap thermal conductance was employed.
In the slim-floor the thermal interaction
between the bottom plated and the steel profile
in SFB beam is defined as gap thermal conduct-
ance.). In turn, the heat transfer in voids consist of
conduction, convection and radiation. However,
convection can be neglected in voids thin enough
(Fellinger and Twilt, 1996).
Heat flux due to conduction through the air gap
can be modelled as follows:

q k( A − b ) (1)

where θΑ, θΒ are the temperatures in the contact-

ing edges and k is the thermal conductance, which
must be defined in the model. In the steel-steel and
concrete-steel interaction, a thermal conductance
of 200 W/m2K was used for gaps.
Besides, in steel-steel interaction between SFB
bottom plate and lower flange, heat radiation was
included following Fellinger and Twilt (1996) sug-
gestion. This contact interaction is mainly impor-
tant for the thermal behaviour of the composite
floor. In this case, the gap radiation model assumes
that the air gap increases during fire, which can be
modelled through the gap radiation model avail- Figure  4. a) No-encased connection; b) Slim-floor
able in the ABAQUS package. connection.

320

Figure 5. Lower bolt temperature evolution.
While, bolts are directly exposed to fire in the
connection between CFST and no-encased steel
beam, the slim-floor provides fire protection to the
beam-column joint.
In the CFST connection with slim-floor (Fig.
4b), heating comes only from the steel tube in the
lower storey. However, the whole joint is totally
exposed to fire when it is connected to no-encased
beam, getting a higher heat flux.
Figure 5 shows the temperature evolution of the
joint lower bolt for both models (z = 97.7 mm over
the lower flange, measured from its top edge). While
temperature exceeds 600ºC at 30 minutes of fire
exposure time for no-encased connection, the bolt
infilled into slim-floor reaches a temperature under
200ºC. This lower temperature will permit a better
mechanical behaviour of the connection during fire.
4 COMPARISON WITH CALCULATION
METHOD EN 1993-1-2 ANNEX D
The performance of advanced numerical models
to calculate the temperature in connections is not
always feasible, therefore, the necessity of imple-
menting simple method suitable for connection to
CFST, that additionally might help the spread of
these connections.
EN 1994-1-2 gives some requirements that spe-
cific connections should fulfill to provide adequate
fire resistance, nonetheless, temperature distribu-
tion is not given. Alternatively, EN 1993-1-2 in
Clause D3 of Annex D (CEN, 2005a) includes a
simple method based on the behavior of steelworks,
which calculates the temperature in connections
where beam supports a concrete slab. It consists of
equations which determine the temperature θh in a
certain depth of the connection h as a proportion
of the temperature of the beam bottom flange at
the midspan θo, where D is the height of the beam:
D θ h 0 88θ 0 [ h D ]
D > 400 θ h = 0 88θ 0 when (h ≤ D/2 )
θ h = 0.88θ 0 [ − − ] when (h > D/2 )
321
The method is evaluated in this section by com-
parison with the temperatures obtained from the
FE model (see Fig. 6).
First step to apply the thermal gradient (i.e.
equation for D < 400 mm), is to determine the tem-
perature in the exposed bottom flange of the beam
θo. For that purpose the equation from EN 1993-
1-2 Clause 4.2.5.1 was utilized:
A /V 
Δθ a ,t kssh hnet Δt (4)
ca ρa
Through this equation a uniform value of tem-
perature for an unprotected steel section exposed
to fire is calculated by means of increments of
time Δt. The flux of heat hnet is divided by ca ρa,
which are the specific heat and the unit mass of
steel, respectively. The ratio Am/V section factor is
the relation of exposed area Am of the element per
unit of length, divided by V volume of the element
per unit of length in steel sections. Finally, ksh is
the correction factor for the shadow effect, whose
value was calculated following the recommenda-
tions of EN 1993-1-2.
Figure  6 shows the good fitting between the
temperature of the lower bolt (z = 97.7 mm) pro-
vided by the FE model described before and the
equation provided by EC3 Part 1.2 for connection
with no-encased beams.
However, temperature distribution along con-
nection is not provided by standards in case of
slim-floor connection. Alternatively, Zaharia and
Franssen (2012) developed simple equations for
the calculation of the temperature within the slim-
floor cross-section that can be used here.
Specifically, their developed equation to obtain
temperatures along the profile web would be useful
in this work for connection bolts:
Tw k1e k2 z (5)
This equation is hardly influenced by lower plate
and flange thickness but is strongly influenced by
Figure 6. Lower bolt temperature compared with sim-
plified methods.
the distance (z) evaluated from bottom plate. The
coefficients k1 and k2 are provided by Zaharia and
Franssen (2012) and depends on the lower bottom
thickness and fire exposure time.
These coefficients are only available for stand-
ard times and cannot be obtained for intermediate
values. Therefore, the bolt temperature is only eval-
uated for 30 and 60 minutes in the case of study
(Fig. 6-“red dot”). Through this equation, a tem-
perature value of 126ºC is obtained for lower bolt
at 30 minutes of fire exposure time, which match
with the FE model temperature evolution.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this work, an advanced thermal model is devel-
oped to assess the thermal behavior of CFST
connection with blind-bolted system. Using the
developed finite element model the temperature
evolution of connection bolts has been evaluated
comparing the temperature field in two cases:
CFST connection with no-encased beam and
CFST connection with slim-floor beam.
The main difference between both connections
comes from the higher thermal isolation in the
slim-floor joint due to all bolts are totally embed-
ded in the concrete infilled. While, the whole joint
is directly exposed to fire in no-encased beam con-
nection. The temperature difference, between both
systems, obtained for the most exposed bolt reaches
400ºC and 600ºC after 30 and 60 minutes of fire
exposure time respectively, which is very important.
The bolt temperature reached in the encased slim-
floor connection is lower than 200ºC. It shows that
the bolt temperature in slim-floor may not be evalu-
ated, because such a low temperature would have
little effect on the connection structural resistance.
The temperatures obtained through FE model
show an accurate fitting compared with simplified
equations provided by standards and bibliography.
This work provide valuable information for fur-
ther thermo-mechanical calculations, where higher
performance of CFST connection with slim-floor
beams may be expected.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Behaviour and design of a continuous concrete-filled steel tubular

column in fire for a multi-storey building

K. Ukanwa, G.C. Clifton & J.B.P. Lim

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

A. Abu
Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

S.J. Hicks
New Zealand Heavy Engineering Research Association, HERA House, Auckland, New Zealand

U.K. Sharma
Department of Civil Engineering, India Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India

ABSTRACT: Concrete Filled Steel Tubular (CFST) columns used in multi-storey buildings are gener-
ally designed as continuous members. The fire behaviour is predicted based on the results of experimental
standard fire testing where the same temperature is applied to the column over the full column height.
This paper has focused on continuous CFST columns filled with plain concrete, bar reinforced concrete
and steel fibre reinforced concrete loaded axially. The result shows that, the significant initial longitudinal
expansion of the steel tube relative to the concrete reported by many researchers did not occur, due to the
restraining effect of the unheated column. The use of steel fibre reinforced concrete increased the FRR
recorded for columns loaded concentrically while, for eccentrically loaded column, the use of rebar rein-
forcement had a higher FRR. A design guide to calculate the axial capacity of a CFST columns in fire was
validated against over 230 laboratory experiments.

1 INTRODUCTION reinforced concrete. Finite element analyses stud-

Engineers and building owners are becoming more
aware of the benefits of using concrete filled steel
tubular (CFST) columns, due to their combination
of excellent stability during construction, high
strength in service and a reduced perimeter when
compared to bare steel columns. Unprotected con-
crete filled steel tubes (CFST) can have an inherent
fire resistance, due to concrete preventing inward
buckling of the steel tube and hence increasing its
local and global buckling resistance and the steel
tube partially or totally confining the concrete, to
give the column a higher compressive strength. In
addition, the steel tube acts as a partial radiation
shield to the concrete (Yu, Zha et al. 2014). One of
the most demanding loading conditions for multi-
storey building design is the impact of severe fire.
In the literature, the performance of CFST under
ISO 834 (ISO 1999) Standard Fire conditions has
been considered by, amongst others, Romero et al.
(Romero, Moliner et al. 2011), Kodur & Latour
(Kodur, Latour 2005) and Lie & Irwin (Lie, Irwin
1995), and has covered three types of in-fill; plain
concrete, steel fibre reinforced concrete and rebar
ies have also been reported (Mago, Hicks 2016,
Espinos, Romero et al. 2010, Wang, Wu et al.
2010, Schaumann, Kodur et al. 2009) and design
guides have also been developed reported (Wang,
Zhang et al. 2016, Albero, Espinos et al. 2016,
Espinos, Romero et al. 2012, Kodur, Raut 2009).
The Eurocode 4 EN 1994-1-2 (CEN 1994) design
guide made provisions for three different meth-
ods to calculate the axial capacity of a concrete
filled steel tube column in fire; tabulated data
method, simple calculation method and advanced
calculation method. The tabulated method pro-
vided in the design guide does not give a method
to calculate the axial capacity of an eccentrically
loaded column however; this was covered in the
simple calculation method provided in Annex H
of the design guide. There are limitations given
for applying the simple calculation method given
EN 1994-1-2 (CEN 1994). The laboratory experi-
ments presented in this paper focuses on the axial
capacity of a twenty-two square CFST columns.
The design equations presented in this paper were
developed as a result of the laboratory experiment
and validated against 235 (121 square, 104 circular

323
and 13 rectangular) standard fire test experiments Table 1. Details of test specimens.
undertaken worldwide over the last 36 years. Using
the experimentally measured structural fire resist- ƒs ƒc Eccentricity Boundary
ance (R) for the tests conducted, the axial load Specimen N/mm2 N/mm2 mm condition
was calculated using the developed design guide P1 569 86.9 0 F-F
and compared with DR AS/NZS 2327 (DR AS/ P2 569 81.3 0 F-P
NZS 2327 2016) and Albero et al. (Albero, Espinos P3 525 89.6 25 F-P
et al. 2016). P4 525 78.8 50 F-P
P5 461 84.4 0 F-F
P7 461 76.8 25 F-P
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION P8 461 73.8 50 F-P
R1 569 86.1 0 F-F
2.1 General R2 525 94.5 0 F-P
The fire tests were conducted in a furnace having R3 525 88.2 25 F-P
dimensions of 2 m height × 1.5 m length × 1.5 m R4 525 90.1 50 F-P
R5 461 86.1 0 F-F
width, in accordance with EN 1364–1: 2012 (EN
R7 461 85.7 25 F-P
2012). The furnace temperature was controlled to
R8 461 90.3 50 F-P
match the ISO 834 (ISO 1999) time-temperature
F1 525 90.9 0 F-F
curve. Figure 1 shows the typical average furnace
F2 525 91.9 0 F-P
temperature to the ISO 834 fire curve for a typi-
F3 569 93.1 25 F-P
cal test. Axial loads were applied for approximately F4 569 95.1 50 F-P
30 min before each fire test and were maintained F5 461 79.7 0 F-F
throughout. F6 461 94.3 0 F-P
F7 461 101.6 25 F-P
2.2 Test specimens F8 461 97.7 50 F-P

Table  1 gives a summary of test specimens; F-F = Fixed-Fixed and F-P = Fixed-Pin.

two different cross-sectional dimensions of
square hollow section (SHS) were tested:
220  mm  x  220  mm  ×  6  mm (P, F or R; 5–8) and
1600 mm and 3100 mm from the top of the column
200 mm × 200 mm × 6 mm (P, F or R; 1–4).
with 3 facing each other at an angle of 180 degrees
The first letter for each specimen represents the
to allow the water vapour to escape.
type of concrete infill used (P  =  Plain, F  =  Steel
From Table 1 it can be seen that sixteen columns
Fibre and R  =  Rebar). All columns had a length
had fixed-pinned boundary conditions to allow for
of 3200  mm, with fire exposure only to the mid-
the load eccentricity to be applied in uni-axially. The
dle 2000 mm. It should be noted that the bottom
pin-end boundary condition was provided through
500 mm and the top 700 mm of the column were
a ball (see Figure 2). The fixed-fixed boundary was
outside the furnace. The load was transferred using
applied to the column by welding a boxed steel sec-
a 300 mm × 300 mm × 40 mm end plate at the top
tion having a depth of 200 mm to restrain the top
of the column. Six vent holes having a diameter
of the column from rotational and translational
of 15 mm were drilled in the column at 100 mm,
movement; this was discussed in details by the
authors (Ukanwa, Sharma et al. 2017). Glass wool
fibre blankets were used to seal the gap between the
column and furnace to retain the heat, while allow-
ing column movement; this was necessary to pro-
tect the sides of the furnace from damage.

2.3 Details of concrete infill

Figure  1. Measured furnace temperature (ISO 834
shown for comparison).
Three types of concrete were used for the steel tube
infill, namely: plain concrete; steel fibre reinforced
concrete; and rebar reinforced concrete. After
pouring the concrete, a poker vibrator was used to
vibrate the concrete at different levels; 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2,
2.5 and 3 m from the bottom of the column to get
good mixing of the concrete and removal of large
bubbles of entrapped air.

324
Figure 2. Pin ended boundary condition.

Table 2. Concrete mix proportions.

Coarse Fine Silica Super

Cement Water aggregate aggregate fumes plasticizers
3 3 3 3
kg/m kg/m kg/m kg/m kg/m3 kg/m3

500 150 1045 618 51 5.18

Figure 3. Concrete longitudinal reinforcement arrange-
ment.
The filled SHS columns were stored vertically
and covered at the top to allow the curing proc-
ess to occur uniformly along the length of the col-
umn, by preventing moisture escape through the
ends. Table 2 shows the mix used for the concrete
infill. The specified compressive concrete cylindri-
cal strength after 28 days was fck = 80 MPa.
For the steel fibre reinforced concrete, Dramix
hooked end steel fibre specification 5D 65/60BG
were used. The length of the fibres were 60  mm,
diameter was 0.9 mm and the dosage was 50 kg/m3.
To improve the workability of concrete, 6 kg/m3 of
polycarboxylate based super-plasticiser was also
used for the steel fibre reinforced concrete mix.
For the rebar reinforced concrete infill, longi-
tudinal reinforcement bars were tied using 6  mm
diameter stirrups, shape code 51 according to BS
8666:2005 (British Standards Institution 2005).
Figure 3a, b show the arrangements of reinforce- Figure 4. Position of thermocouples within 200 × 200
ments inside the steel tubes before pouring of the SHS.
concrete.

2.4 Instrumentation 3 EXISTING DESIGN EQUATIONS

Figure  4 shows the plan position of the thermo- Wang and Kodur (Wang, Kodur 1999), also devel-
couples (TC) which were placed at three different oped a mathematical equation to calculate the axial
levels for each column. capacity of CFST column at elevated temperatures.

325
The design approach was based on the procedure Table 3. Experiment results.
given in Eurocode 4 Part 1–1 (CEN 2005) with
modifications to the provisions for determination Eƒi,Rd Load R Failure
of the column buckling curve, column tempera- Specimen λr kN level Mins mode
ture and calculations of the squash load. Kodur P1 86.9 1378 0.37 37 Euler
(Kodur 1999), through various experimental and P2 81.3 1378 0.38 26 Euler
numerical studies, developed a simplified design P3 89.6 1068 0.38 48 Euler
equation to calculate the fire resistance ratings of P4 78.8 872 0.41 26 Plastic
a CFST column. P5 84.4 1415 0.35 38 Local
Espinos et al. (Espinos, Romero et al. 2012), P7 76.8 1127 0.38 80 Plastic
reviewed the current design guidelines available P8 73.8 912 0.38 41 Plastic
worldwide for calculating the fire resistance of R1 86.1 1485 0.37 46 Euler
CFST columns. The aim was to demonstrate a new R2 94.5 1485 0.37 23 Euler
method for calculating the fire resistance of axially R3 88.2 1120 0.39 65 Euler
loaded unreinforced concrete filled circular hollow R4 90.1 899 0.38 34 Euler
section columns. For the concrete model, it was R5 86.1 1604 0.35 72 Plastic
assumed that the flexural stiffness reduction coef- R7 85.7 1208 0.35 72 Euler
ficient be taken as 0.8 to account for the thermal R8 90.3 969 0.35 97 Euler
stresses. The steel tube required a more conserva- F1 90.9 1378 0.37 24 Euler
tive value for its reduction coefficient. The method F2 91.9 1378 0.37 25 Euler
proposed was validated against laboratory experi- F3 93.1 1068 0.36 98 Plastic
ments and it was observed that the equations can F4 95.1 872 0.37 42 Euler
predict the axial capacity of circular columns filled F5 79.7 1415 0.36 85 Euler
with un-reinforced concrete loaded concentrically. F6 94.3 1415 0.33 51 Euler
The proposed equation was further extended by F7 101.6 1127 0.33 132 Plastic
Espinos (Espinos, Romero et al. 2013) to cover F8 97.7 912 0.33 66 Euler
reinforced concrete infill and elliptical CFST
columns.
Most recently, Albero et al. (Albero, Espinos
et al. 2016), conducted a parametric study using
numerical models developed by Universitat
Politècnica de València and Centre and Technique
Industriel de la Construction Métallique. The new
method was used in calculating the fire resistance
time of unprotected CFST columns subjected to
loads under a standard fire condition. New equa-
tions were developed based on the study for cal-
culating the axial capacity of CFST columns in
fire, using the methods given in clause 6.7.3 of
Eurocode 4 Part 1–1 (CEN 2005) but, for elevated
temperature. Figure 5a. Plain concrete infill axial displacement with
time.

4 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The structural fire resistance (R) of the columns

are summarized in Table 3. The variation of axial
deflection against time is shown in Figure  5a–c
for columns filled with plain concrete, rebar rein-
forced concrete and steel fibre reinforced concrete
respectively; the structural fire resistance is the
time from commencement of test until the load
bearing capacity criterion specified in EN 1363-1
was achieved (corresponding to the limiting rate of
vertical contraction).
As can be seen from Figure 5, the initial longitu-
dinal elongation of the steel tube in all tests is less Figure  5b. Rebar reinforced concrete infill axial dis-
than 3 mm. This initial longitudinal elongation is placement with time.

326

Figure 5c. Steel fibre reinforced concrete infill axial dis-
placement with time.
much less than that previously reported in the lit-
erature, e.g. (Romero, Moliner et al. 2011, Kodur,
Latour 2005, Lie, Irwin 1995, Chabot, Lie 1992,
Ding, Wang 2008, Hong, Varma 2009, Chung,
Park et al. 2009, Yin, Zha et al. 2006), where ini-
tial longitudinal elongation values above 15  mm
are typical. The much reduced initial longitudinal
elongation can be explained by the shear bond
between the concrete and the steel in the unheated
lengths at the top being sufficient to prevent early
slip of the steel tube relative to the concrete core,
while the steel tube is still sufficiently strong to
take the entire applied axial load on its own. From
this it can be concluded that for a continuous col-
umn subjected to fire on an intermediate floor, the
tendency for the column to try and expand under
individual storey heating will be minimal. Columns
elongating in fire due to thermal heating are sub-
jected to an additional axial load which will cause
the steel tube to lose its structural integrity earlier;
this is an important consideration in design of bare
steel columns (Spearpoint, Spearpoint 2008).
As can be seen from Table 3, the steel fibre rein-
forced concrete columns had a higher R value when
compared to the plain and bar reinforced concrete
infill for columns loaded concentrically. From
Figure  5, it can be seen that for P5, R5 and F5,
the steel fibre reinforced concrete column began
its negative displacement (shortening) earlier than
both the plain and rebar reinforced concrete col-
umns. However, the steel fibre reinforced concrete
column was able to maintain its steady downward
displacement and achieve a higher R value due to
the increased ductility and tensile strength of the
concrete core.
The use of rebar reinforced concrete infill for
hollow steel section column loaded eccentrically
produced a higher FRR when compared to col-
umns filled with either plain or steel fibre rein-
forced concrete. This was in contrast with results
obtained for concentrically loaded CFST columns
where steel fibre reinforced concrete infill columns
327
recorded the highest FRR. This indicates that col-
umns having steel fibre reinforced concrete infill
depend on the evenly distributed fibres inside
the concrete core, however, when they are loaded
eccentrically, only a fraction of these fibres will
resist the applied load. Nonetheless, for rebar rein-
forced concrete infill columns, the reinforcement
will be highly utilized and relied upon to resist
the applied load to the column when it is loaded
eccentrically.
5 NEW DESIGN EQUATIONS
5.1 General
The design equations proposed in this paper were
developed from laboratory experiments conducted
by the authors and further validated using 235 lab-
oratory test(s) carried out by various researchers
(Chabot, Lie 1992, Grimault 1980, Kodur, Latour
2005, Myllymäki, Lie et al. 1994, Han, Yang et al.
2003, Espinos, Romero et al. 2015, Hong, Varma
2009, Lie, Irwin 1995, Lie 1994, Kodur, Lie 1996,
Romero, Moliner et al. 2011, Moliner, Espinos
et al. 2013, Wang, Young 2013, Kodur 1998)
found in the literature. The developed procedure
follows the same steps as the procedure given in
EN 1994-1-1 (CEN 2005) and DR AS/NZS 2327
(DR AS/NZS 2327 2016) for the design of CFST
columns, but using strength reduction factors that
are dependent on the member’s temperature and
also introducing a correction factor that accounts
for the reduction factor for higher structural fire
ratings.
5.2 Step by step design approach
This section presents the key factors used in cal-
culating the axial capacity of CFST columns in
using the developed equation. An example of how
to apply the design equations is given in a later sec-
tion to help design engineers apply the equation.
5.2.1 Cross sectional equivalent temperature
calculation
The cross sectional temperature of the CFST col-
umn members (concrete, steel and core reinforce-
ment) is presented in this section. The temperature
of the members is a key factor which influences the
axial capacity of the column in fire, the concrete
temperature is taken as the average temperature
across the whole concrete section; the steel tem-
perature is constant regardless of the steel tube
thickness, due to the high conductivity of steel and
the heat sink of the concrete; the rebar reinforce-
ment temperature is dependent on the concrete
cover. The temperature can be calculated using
Equations 1–5.
− Concrete core temperature Table 4. Columns (experiment/calculated) values.

Tc 112.35 133.194R − 0.0778R 2 Circular Square Rectangular

+ 0.000 65 R3 4.101( As Ps )
0001654 Average 1.56 1.52 2.83
≤ 650°C (Squa
S re and Rectangular) (1) St.DEV 0.51 0.43 1.57
Tc 34.617 11.845R − 0.0698R 2 CoV 0.33 0.28 0.56
+ 0.000
0001499R3 4.101( As Ps )
≤ 650°C (Circular
C ) (2)
− Steel tube temperature

Ts 448.573 9.734R − 0.0552R 2

+ 0.000106R3 (3)

− Reinforcement Temperature

Tr 28.09 5.728R − 0.0092R 2

+ 0.0003851us 3.186 (4)
Figure 6. Exp/Cal values greater than 1 are conservative.
5.2.2 Design of section compression capacity
at the fire limit state column calculated in accordance to Section  4.8.3
The section compression capacity of the column of NZS 3404 [30]. The relative slenderness is calcu-
is calculated by introducing a strength modifica- lated using Equation 11.
tion factor for the steel tube, concrete core and
reinforcement. Equation 5 is used to calculate the π 2 ( EI ) fi
section capacity while, Equations 6–8 are used to Nf omb = (10)
L2e ,T
calculate the modification factors.
Nc
λr ,T =
f , Rd
fi
Nc fii , Rd = ϕ c × Ac fc ,TT + ϕ s × As fy T (11)
Nf
+ ϕ r × Ar fssy,T (5) omb

ϕ c = ( .02945 × R 0 864 ) a × b c (6) 5.2.5 Design load in fire for concentrically and
ϕ s = ( .02793 × R 0 883 ) a × b c (7) eccentrically loaded columns
The design compression capacity of CFST col-
ϕ r = ( .02257 × R 0 889 ) a × b c (8) umns in fire loaded concentrically and eccentrically
is calculated from Equations 12 and 13 respec-
where: tively. To determine the conservativeness of the
ϕc,ϕs, & ϕr are the design compression load in fire developed equations, the compression load used
modification factor for concrete, steel & rebar in the experiments has been divided by the axial
capacity obtained using the developed equation. It
a = 1.11 − 0.04 × As/Ps is observed that the developed equation is accurate
b = − 0.17 + 0.04 × (Am/V) (CoV closer to zero) and conservative (where Exp/
Cal > 1) for 92% of the laboratory test specimen.
c = ((As/Ps)/(Am/V) − ε/D) The coefficient of variation is given in Table 4 and
shown graphically in Figure 6.
5.2.3 Column effective flexural stiffness in fire
The flexural stiffness of the column in fire is calcu- N fi ,dd c Nc fi , Rd (12)
lated using Equation 9, with the Young’s modulus
reduction factor for steel and rebar reinforcement Nuc,
uc ,ε
N fi ,d ,ε = × N fi ,d (13)
calculated. Nuc

( ) fi = Ec ,Sec ,T I c ,T + E s ,T I s ,T + Er ,T I r ,T (9)
6 DESIGN EXAMPLES
5.2.4 Euler buckling load at elevated temperature
6.1 Comparison with experimental test
and relative slenderness in fire
The Euler buckling load in fire is calculated using The design example presented was taken from
Equation 10 with the effective lengths of the laboratory fire test carried out by Espinos et al.

328
(Espinos, Romero et al. 2015) on circular CFST Effective flexural stiffness in fire
column filled with bar reinforced concrete. Dur-
ing the fire test, the column achieved a structural ( ) fi = Ec ,Sec ,T I c ,T + E s ,T I s ,T + Er ,T I r ,T
fire rating of 57 Minutes, therefore, this R value kec = 0.004 − 0.000005T T 5 10 8T 2
was used to obtain the axial capacity of the for 100 ≤ T ≤ 400°C = 0.0096
column and thereby, comparing this with the key = 0.27 − 0.000225T fo ffor 800°C ≤ T
applied load during the laboratory experiment. ≤ 1200°C = 0.08
The test data used for the calculation are given kessy = − T for 500°C
below: <= T <= 700°C = 0.824
R = 57 Minutes ( 37MPa × 0.
(( 0. ) 0. ) × 193766549 mm 4
Column Length = 3180 mm + 210000 MPa × 0.08 × 71540925 mm 4
Pin-Pin “k” = 1 + 210000 MPa × 1 × 7351933 mm 4
Circular hollow section = 273 mm × 10 mm = 3040 kNmN 2
Steel Yield strength (ƒy) = 369 MPa
Concrete Strength (ƒc) = 37 MPa Euler buckling load at elevated temperature
Reinforcement yield strength (ƒsy) = 566 MPa
Rebar diameter = 20 mm π 2 EII fi
Rebar number = 8 Nf omb =
L2e ,T
Rebar axis distance = 40 mm 2
Eccentricity = 136.5 mm ⎛ 22 ⎞
× 3040 × 109 Nmm 2
⎝ 7⎠
Member Temperature = = 2969 kN
k
( mm )2
Ts 448.573 9.734R − 0.055
0552R 2 + 0.000106
000 06R3
= 844°C Relative slenderness in fire
Tc 112.35 13 3.194R − 0.0778R 2 0.0001654
000 65 R3
− 4.101( As Ps ) ≤ 650°C = 390
3 °C Nc 1113
λr ,T = = 0.61
ffi , Rd

Nf 2969
Tr 28.09 5.728R − 0.0092R 2 000385 us 3.186
0.0003851 omb

= 276°C
Therefore,
Design compression capacity modification factor
λη ,T λr ,T × 90 = 55.1
Am 4
Section factor = = = 14.65m −1
V 273 × 1000 Member slenderness reduction factor
ϕ c = (0.02945 × R 0.864 ) × ( .11 − 0.. × s / Ps ) “αc”  =  0.83 taken from NZS 3404 Table  6.3.3(2),
× ( − .17 + 0. × Am /V ) using 0.5 as the value of αb.
≥( − ) = 0.357
ϕ s = ((0.
0.02793 × 0 883 ) × (1.11 − 0.04 × A s / s ) Design of concentrically loaded column in fire
× ( −0.17 + 0.04 × Am / V )
≥ ( s / s ) / ( Am / V ) − e / D ) .357 N fi ,dd c Nc fi , Rd 0.83 × 1113 = 924 kN
ϕr = ( . 1 − 0.0
R 0 889 ) (1.11 s / Ps )
× ( 0.17 0.04
0.04 Am / V ) Design of eccentrically loaded columns in fire
≥ ((A / ) / ( / ) − / ) 0.357
e/D .5 / .5
Design compression capacity at the fire limit state Nuc kN
Nuc ,ε kN
N c , fi,Rd =
c × Ac fc ,T + ϕ s × As f y,T + ϕ r N fi ,d kN
× Ar fssy,T Nuc ,ε
N fi ,d ,ε = × N fi ,d
kc . . T for o 200°C ≤ T Nuc
≤ 400°C = 0.76 N fi ,d ,ε =
2010 kN
× 924 kN = 305 kN
ky = 0.51 0.0005T ffor 800°C ≤ T 6087 kN
≤ 900°C = 0.088
0
ksy = 1 fo
f 0C 00 C 1 The applied load in this experiment, for which
0.357 × 47759 mm 2 × 37 MPa × 0.76 0.357 the column withstood the Standard Fire exposure
× 10775 mm 2 × 369 MPa × 0.088 + 0.357 for 57 minutes, was 392 kN, 30% higher than the
× 2513 mm 2 × 566 MPa × 1 = 1113 kN design capacity calculated using this procedure.

329
7 CONCLUSIONS
Firstly, the longitudinal expansion of the steel tube
relative to the concrete will be restrained by the
length of column above and below the floor in a
continuous column construction system. This will
minimize the increase in column axial load due to
restrained thermal expansion.
Secondly, for concentrically loaded CFST col-
umns, the structural fire ratings for columns filled
with steel fibre reinforced concrete is higher when
compared to plain concrete and rebar reinforced
concrete infills. However, for columns loaded eccen-
trically, the columns filled with rebar reinforced
concrete had a higher structural fire ratings.
Thirdly, the developed equation has shown to
be conservative to calculate the axial capacity of
CFST columns filled with either plain, steel fibre
or bar reinforced concrete in fire. A new member
section constant “αb” value was proposed for col-
umns having different infill.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to express gratitude to the
New Zealand Heavy Engineering Educational &
Research Foundation (HEERF) for their scholar-
ship support, also to the department of Civil Engi-
neering, IIT Roorkee for providing the laboratory
used for the experiment.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Behavior of T and X joints of elliptical hollow sections

at both ambient and high temperatures

E. Ozyurt
Department of Civil Engineering, Gumushane University, Gumushane, Turkey

Y.C. Wang
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the results of a numerical study to develop a method to calculate the
ultimate load carrying capacity of welded Elliptical Hollow Section (EHS) joints at elevated temperatures.
Extensive numerical simulations, using the non-linear finite element package ABAQUS v6.14-1, have
been conducted on EHS T- and X-joints subjected to brace axial compression or tension, considering a
wide range of geometrical parameters, pre-stress in chord member and different type of joint orientations.
The FE simulation results indicates that the equivalent RHS method is not appropriate for calculating
the load carrying capacity of EHS joints at ambient temperature. At elevated temperatures, for T- and
X-joints with braces welded to wide sides of chord, replacing the ambient temperature yield strength of
steel by the elevated temperature value overestimates the ultimate load carrying capacity of axially loaded
EHS T- and X-joints with compressive brace. Alternative design methods have been proposed.

1 INTRODUCTION

Elliptical Hollow Sections (EHS) have recently

become more popular for architectural applica-
tions due to their favourable aesthetics and elegant
appearances. From the architectural point of view,
these sections give a sense of slenderness since their
minor diameter is half the major diameter. Appli-
cations of these steel profiles include bridges, air-
ports, exhibition halls, etc. This paper focuses on
fire-induced elevated temperature performance of
joints which are generally the most critical part of
the structure and fire safety is an important safety
requirement for buildings.
Compared to welded tubular CHS and RHS
joints, there is a paucity of research on EHS Figure  1. EHS joint orientations (Choo, Liang et  al.
joints at either ambient or elevated temperatures. 2003).
Bortolotti et  al. (2003) and Pietrapertosa et  al.
(2003) conducted a number of tests on EHS X-
and N-joints at ambient temperature, however investigated EHS X-joints with braces welded to
the tests were terminated before joint failure was either the narrow or wide side of the chord when
reached due to a lack of capacity of the loading the braces were subjected to either compressive or
jack. Choo et al. (2003) numerically modelled EHS tensile forces. They concluded that the behaviour
X joints to examine the behaviour in various ori- of EHS X-joint types 1 and 2 (see Figure 1) were
entations as shown in Figure  1. They concluded similar to that of RHS joints, whilst EHS X-joints
that the joint capacity decreased from type 4, types 3 and 4 could be treated as equivalent CHS
3, 2 to 1. Wardenier (2007) evaluated the differ- joints. Furthermore, Haque et al. (2012) performed
ent failure modes of EHS joints and suggested twelve tests to investigate the effects of joint ori-
treating EHS joints as equivalent CHS or RHS entation, brace-chord angle and brace loading on
joints for calculation of joint strength. Shen et al. the static strength of EHS X- and T-joints. It was
(Shen, Choo et  al. 2012, Shen, Choo et  al. 2013) found that the equivalent RHS approach was able

333
to predict the capacity of these joints better than
using the equivalent CHS approach. Packer et al.
(2012) found that using an equivalent RHS joint
approach was not able to give good prediction for
all EHS joint types. They then carried out both
experimental and numerical investigations on the
behaviour of welded EHS T- and X-joints at ambi-
ent temperature, and proposed a new method to
calculate the joint strength.
In Eurocode EN 1993-1-8 (CEN 2005) or
CIDECT guide No. 3 (1992), the current design Figure 2. Typical arrangement and geometrical param-
method for calculating the ultimate load bearing eter definitions for EHS T-joint (Packer, Choo et  al.
capacity of EHS joints at ambient temperatures 2012).
is based on the equivalent rectangular hollow sec-
tion (RHS) method. Whilst simple, this conver-
sion method may not be correct for all joint types,
orientations and failure modes, as found out by
Packer et al. (2012). They have proposed alterna-
tive EHS joint strength calculation equations.
An extensive search by the authors has revealed
no direct research on EHS joints at elevated tem-
peratures. Relevant research studies on welded
tubular joints at elevated temperatures are pre-
sented in (Tan, Fung et  al. 2012, Ozyurt, Wang
et al. 2014, He, Shao et al. 2015, Lan and Huang
2016, Lan, Wang et  al. 2016, Shao, Zheng et  al.
2016). In reference (Ozyurt, Wang et  al. 2014), Figure 3. Mesh layouts for EHS T- and X-joints.
based on extensive numerical simulations of dif-
ferent types of CHS and RHS joints, the authors
proposed a design method for calculating the Figure  2  shows the geometric configuration of a
static strength of RHS and CHS joints at elevated typical EHS T-joint. To reduce computational
temperatures, by applying material modification time, only a quarter of the T-joint and an eight
factors to the ambient temperature equations. of the X-joint are modelled to take advantage of
For T, Y and X joints with the brace member symmetry in geometry and loading by applying
in tension, in which joint failure is controlled appropriate boundary conditions for symmetry.
by steel strength, the elevated temperature steel Figure 3 shows typical numerical models for T- and
yield strength reduction factor should be applied X-joint.
to modify the ambient temperature calculation The same modelling parameters, as used by the
method. For T, Y and X jonits with the brace authors in their investigations of CHS and RHS
member in compression, where excessive ovalisa- joints, were adopted to model EHS joints. In the
tion of the chord at high temperatures changes ABAQUS simulation models, quadrilateral thick
the joint geometry, the ambient temperature joint shell (S8R) elements were used for both the chord
strength equations should be modified by the and brace members for accuracy and computa-
elevated tempeature reduction factor for Young’s tional efficiency; quadratic wedge solid elements
modulus of steel. (C3D20) were used for welds for accurate meshing.
This study will investigate whether the above For the tubular T- and X-joints tested by Packer
outlined method of the authors can be extended et al. (2012), the steel grade was S355 with a nomi-
to predict the capacity of welded EHS T- and nal yield strength  =  402  N/mm2 and an ultimate
X-joints, considering different orientation types, strength  =  517  N/mm2 from their coupon test
joint configurations and brace loading at high results. The elastic modulus of steel was assumed
temperatures. to be 210 GPa. In the ABAQUS simulation model,
the true stress–strain curve was input after con-
verting the engineering stress–strain curve into the
2 NUMERICAL MODEL AND true stress and logarithmic strain curve (Boresi and
VALIDATION RESULTS Schmidt 2003).
In order to examine large deformation behav-
The experimental results of Packer et al. (2012) are ior, the RIKS method was chosen. When the arc
used for further validation of the numerical model. length increments were within the maximum and

334
minimum limitations of 0.1 and 1E-08 respectively, Table  1. Packer et  al. (2012) joint test specimens used
numerical convergence was considered to have for FE model validation.
been achieved.
A mesh convergence study, based on test T90- Joint ID D d B b T t L
1C-UT of Packer et al. (2012) was carried out to T90-1C-UT 220 110 110 220 5.94 5.94 1098
determine a suitable FE mesh size which was then T90-2C-UT 220 220 110 110 5.94 5.94 1098
applied to all models. Mesh sizes of 10  mm and T90-3C-UT 110 110 220 220 5.94 5.94 1100
5  mm were found to be suitable for the tubular X90-1C-UT, 220 110 110 220 5.94 5.94 2193
members and the weld as illustrated in Figure  4. X45-1C-UT
Outside the joint zone, a coarse mesh (20 mm) can X90-2C-UT, 220 220 110 110 5.94 5.94 997
be used. X45-2C-UT
At the weld-tubular section interface, the brace X90-3C-UT, 110 110 220 220 5.94 5.94 1016
and chord members were tied with the weld ele- X45-3C-UT
ments using the ABAQUS ‘‘tie’’ function with
surface to surface contact. The brace and chord
members were chosen as the master surface and
the weld elements were the slave surface.
For elevated temperature simulations, steady
state condition was assumed for convenience, in
which temperatures of the structure were raised to
the required level and mechanical loading was then
applied. The authors’ previous research (Ozyurt,
Wang et al. 2014) confirmed that the static and tran-
sient simulation results were very close. Both geom-
etry and material non-linearities were included.
Three different orientations of EHS T- and
Figure 5. Loading and boundary conditions of Packer
X-joints of Packer et  al. (2012) were simulated.
et al. (2012) joint tests.
The T-joints are Tests T90-1C-UT, T90-2C-UT
and T90-3C-UT under compressive brace mem-
ber. For X-joints, type 1, 2 and 3 configurations
had two different angles between the brace and
chord members (45° and 90°). Table  1  summa-
rizes the simulated joints and their dimensions and
Figure 5(a) and (b) show their loading and bound-
ary conditions.
Figure  6 compares typical deformed shapes
between numerical simulation and test for

Figure 6. Deformed shapes of selected X- and T-joints

at ambient temperature.

representative cases, showing close matching of

the results. Table 2 compares the ultimate capacity
of the joints between simulation and test results.
The numerical simulation results are in good
Figure 4. Mesh size sensitivity study results. agreement with the test results, with an average

335
Table 2. Comparison between numerical results and the Table  3. Geometrical parameters for T- and X-joints,
test data of Packer et al. (2012) for the strength of EHS Types 1, 2, 3 and 4.
T and X joints.
Joint
Simulation Test dimension
results results Simulation/ identifier D B T d b t θ
Joint name (kN) (kN) Test
1 250 125 8 150 75 5 90
T90-1C-UT 205.6 216.5 0.95 2 250 125 8 120 60 5 90
T90-2C-UT 359.7 353.0 1.02 3 300 150 10 250 125 10 90
T90-3C-UT 602.1 593.8 1.05 4 300 150 8 150 75 6.3 90
X90-1C-UT 145.3 150.5 0.95 5 300 150 8 120 60 5 90
X90-2C-UT 547.8 539.7 1.03 6 400 200 10 200 100 10 90
X90-3C-UT 561.2 555.1 1.03 7 400 200 10 150 75 6.3 90
X90-1T-UT 194.0 187.9 1.05 8 400 200 8 120 60 8 90
X90-2T-UT 581.3 567.0 1.03 9 250 125 8 120 60 5 30
X90-3T-UT 1205.5 1188.8 1.04 10 250 125 8 120 60 5 45
X45-1C-UT 269.0 258.5 1.04 11 250 125 8 120 60 5 60
X45-2C-UT 645.5 627.8 1.03
X45-3C-UT 743.3 701.0 1.06
Mean N/A N/A 1.02
Standard N/A N/A 4% between the brace and chord members. The sec-
deviation ond number (N2 = 1, 2, 3 or 4) indicates the joint
orientation as shown in Figure  1. The next letter
(L2 = T or C) represents the brace loading direc-
simulation result/test result ratio of 1.02 and a tion (Tension or Compression). The last number
standard deviation of 4%. Combined with validity (N3) identifies the geometrical parameters from
of the model for CHS and RHS joints at elevated Table  3. For example, T90-1C-1  means T-joint
temperatures, the finite element model may be type 1 with the brace - chord angle 90 degree under
considered acceptable for simulating EHS joints at brace axial compression load for joint 1 dimen-
elevated temperatures. sions according to Table  3. The joint dimensions
in Table 3 cover practical ranges of brace to chord
diameter ratio (β), width to thickness ratio of the
3 PARAMETRIC STUDY chord (γ = D/2T) and connection angle.

The validated FE model was used to investigate

the behaviour and strength of axially loaded EHS
T- and X-joints for the four different orientations
shown in Figure 1 at different temperature levels.
First, the numerical simulation results at ambient
temperatures are used to assess the current design
equations of CIDECT (1996) and Eurocode 3
EN-1993-1-8 (CEN 2005) and the alternative
design equations of Packer et  al. (2012) to iden-
tify a more suitable one. Afterwards, the selected
ambient temperature method is modified for
elevated temperature applications based on the
authors’ proposed method (Ozyurt, Wang et  al.
2014). Figure 5 shows boundary conditions of FE
models.
The elevated stress–strain relationships for
S355  grade steel were according to Eurocode 3
EN-1993-1-2 (CEN 2005). Uniform temperature
distribution was assumed for both the chord and
brace members.
For identification of the simulated cases, the
designation is L1  N1-N2  L2-N3: The first let-
ter (L1  =  T or X) indicates joint type. The first
number (N1 = 30, 45, 60 or 90) represents the angle
3.1 Assessment of calculation methods
for strength of EHS joints at ambient
temperature
The strength of EHS joints corresponds to the
load at the maximum deformation limit of 3%
D, as defined by Lu et  al. (1994) and adopted
by various researchers for tubular joint strength
calculation.
Figure  7  summarises the comparison between
simulation results with predictions of three dif-
ferent analytical methods: the CIDECT equiva-
lent RHS method, the Eurocode 3 EN-1993-1-8
equivalent RHS method and the method of
Packer et al (2012), details of which are presented
in Tables  2–4. Figure  7(a) and (b) indicate that
both the CIDECT and Eurocode 3 EN-1993-1-8
equivalent RHS member approaches can give
grossly inaccurate results for Type 3 and 4 EHS
joints, with the design equations generally overes-
timating joint strength, while these methods give
better accuracy for Type 1 and 2 EHS joints. How-
ever, the proposed method of Packer et al. (2012)
gives the most satisfactory results in all cases.

336

Figure  7. Comparison for joint strength between
numerical simulation results and different design meth-
ods at ambient temperature.
Therefore,  the method of Packer et  al. (2012) is
adopted as the  basis for further assessment of
elevated temperature results.
3.2 Effects of elevated temperatures, brace in
compression
A total of four hundred sixteen simulations were
performed to evaluate the effects of elevated tem-
peratures. Figure 8 compares the ratios of elevated
temperature joint strength, (Pθ) to ambient temper-
ature joint strength, (P20) with steel yield strength
or Young’s modulus reduction factors at elevated
temperatures.
From Figure 8(b), it can be seen that for Type
3 and 4 joint orientations, using the elevated tem-
perature reduction factors for steel yield strength
337
Figure 8. Comparison for EHS T- and X-joint strength
reduction at elevated temperatures for different joint
orientations.
to modify the ambient temperature equation of
Packer et al. (2012) gives accurate calculations of
elevated temperature joint strength. For Type 1
and 2 joints, using the reduction factors for steel
yield strength would give higher predictions for
elevated temperature joint strength, and hence the
results are unsafe. Using the elevated temperature
reduction factors for steel Young’s modulus pro-
duces much better agreement with the simulation
results. This can be explained by the effects of
the changing geometry of EHS joints of differ-
ent orientations at high temperatures, similar to
the phenomena observed by the authors (Ozyurt,
Wang et  al. 2014) for CHS and RHS joints at
elevated temperatures. For EHS orientations 1
and 2 where the larger diameter (flatter) side of
the EHS is loaded under a compressive force in
the brace, the chord wall experiences large local
deformations as shown in Figure 9, thus (i) impos-
ing an extra bending moment due to the local
P- δ effect and (ii) flattening of the chord surface
causing the yield line capacity of the chord face
to decrease compared to the undeformed chord
face. Since this phenomenon is a result of large
deformation, using the reduction factor for steel
Figure 9. Deformed shape of T- and X-joints (Orienta-
tions 1 and 2) at ambient and elevated temperatures.
Figure 10. Deformed shape of X-joints (Orientations 3
and 4) at ambient and elevated temperatures.

Young’s modulus is appropriate, as confirmed by

the results in Figure 9(a). When the brace is in ten-
sion, as will be shown in the next section, the local
P-δ and chord face flattening effects disappear.
Therefore, the joint behavior and failure mode at
elevated temperatures are the same as at ambient
temperature.
In contrast, for EHS joint configurations 3 and
4, because the narrower side of the chord is loaded,
the chord is rigid and hence experiences very small
local deformations and flattening, as shown in
Figure 10. Therefore, the joint failure mode at ele-
vated temperatures is the same as at ambient tem-
perature. Hence, the steel yield strength reduction
factor should be used as the modification factor
for calculating joint strength, as supported by the Figure  11. Variations of EHS joint strength under
results in Figure 8(b). brace in tension at different temperatures.

3.3 Brace in tension 3.4 Effects of pre-stress in chord member

For all EHS joints with the brace members in ten-
sion, the deformation behavior and failure mode
at elevated temperatures are the same as at ambi-
ent temperature. Therefore, when calculating the
elevated temperature joint strength, it is acceptable
to use the elevated temperature steel yield strength
reduction factor to modify the ambient tempera-
ture calculation equation. This is confirmed by the
results in Figure 11.
This section investigates the effects of chord pre-
stress on EHS joint strength at different tempera-
tures, ranging from 20°C to 700°C. The chord
member was subjected to either a compression
or tension force after the compensating bending
moments were applied at the end of the chord
member because of excluding the global bending
effect for T-joints. For X-joints, the chord pre-load
was applied prior to loading the brace member.

338
The chord pre-load ratio (n) was 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and
0.8. The joint dimension type 2 in Table 3 with four
different orientations (from Type 1 to 4) was used
for T and X joints in the parametric study.
Figure  12 compares the reduction factor (Qf),
defined as the ratio of joint strength with chord
preload to that without chord preload, at both
20°C and 700°C between numerical simulation
and calculations using the CIDECT and EN 1993-
1-8 design guides and the alternative approach of
Packer et al. (2012). With compressive preload in
the chord member, the results in Figure  12  show
Figure  12. Comparison of the effects of pre-stress in
chord at ambient temperature and 700oC, between numer-
ical simulation results and various analytical methods.
339
that the predictions of Packer et  al. are accurate,
while using either the CIDECT or EN 1993-1-8
design guide generally gives lower joint strength
results except Type 4 EHS joints, indicating that the
CIDECT and EN 1993-1-8 methods are inconsist-
ent for different orientation types. When the chord
is under pre-stress in tension, the simulation results
indicate little effect of chord pre-stress, which is
in accordance with EN-1993-1-8 (CEN 2005). In
fact, chord tension pre-stress seems to give a slight
increase in joint strength. This beneficial effect is a
result of the chord surface opposing the detrimen-
tal effect of chord surface ovalisation when there is
no chord pre-stress. However, the beneficial effect
is small and can be safely discarded. In contrast,
both the CIDECT and Packer et al. (2012) meth-
ods suggest substantial reductions in joint strength
as shown in Figure 12.
Therefore, the authors recommend to use the
reduction factors of Packer et  al. (2012) when
the chord member in compression. In the case of
tensile pre-stress in the chord member, there is no
need to use any reduction factor as in EN 1993-1-8
(CEN 2005).
4 CONCLUSIONS
This paper has presented the results of an exten-
sive parametric study on the strength of welded
steel EHS joints at various temperatures. Finite
Element (FE) simulations of axially loaded ellip-
tical tubular T- and X-joints at ambient temper-
ature were first validated against available test
results. The effects of different joint types, joint
orientations, and chord pre-stress on EHS joint
strength at both ambient and elevated tempera-
tures were investigated to first identify a suitable
ambient temperature design method and then to
use the method as the basis for developing a design
approach for elevated temperature applications.
Based on the numerical simulation results of
this paper, the following design recommendations
are given:
1. The equivalent RHS member approach in the
CIDECT and EN 1993-1-8 design guides is not
suitable to calculate the strength of EHS T- and
X-joints at ambient temperature. The authors
recommend using the alternative method of
Packer et al. (2012).
2. For Type 1 or 2  joint orientations with brace
in compression (connection to the EHS wider
face) at elevated temperatures, the ambient
temperature joint strength equation should be
modified by the reduction factor of Young’s
modulus of steel.
3. For Type 3 or 4 joint orientations with brace in
compression (connection to the EHS narrower
 face) at elevated temperatures, the ambient tem-
perature joint strength equation can be modi-
fied by the reduction factor of yield strength of
steel.
4. For all joint configurations with brace in tension
at elevated temperatures, the ambient tempera-
ture joint calculation equation can be used, by
changing the yield strength of steel at ambient
temperature to that at elevated temperatures.
When the chord member is under tensile pre-
stress, it is not suitable to use the CIDECT (1996)
or the Packer et  al. (2012) method. Because the
joint strength slightly increases, it would be better
and safe not to include the effect of chord tensile
pre-stress, as in EN-1993-1-8 (CEN 2005). When
the chord pre-stress is compressive, the CIDECT
and EN 1993-1-8 design guides calculate higher
reduction factor values compared to the simula-
tion results.
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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Behaviour of hexagonal concrete-encased CFST columns

under cyclic bending

D.Y. Ma, L.-H. Han & X.D. Ji

Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P.R. China

X.L. Zhao
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

ABSTRACT: The hexagonal concrete-encased CFST column consists of a CFST (Concrete-Filled Steel
Tube) core and a hexagonal-shaped Reinforced Concrete (RC) encasement. This paper presents the Finite
Element (FE) analysis of hexagonal concrete-encased CFST columns subjected to axial compressive
forces and cyclic bending moments. High-fidelity FE model is established and validated by comparison
with the test data in terms of failure mode and hysteretic curve. From the FE analysis, hysteretic response
of the composite columns, contact stress between steel tube and concrete, and strength contribution of
different components during the full range of loading are illustrated.

1 INTRODUCTION In some complicated structures, a column is

Concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) column, which
consists of steel tube and core concrete, has been
widely used in high-rise and long-span structures.
Experimental testing and numerical studies have
been carried out on the CFST column with cir-
cular, square, rectangular and hexagonal section
(Ding et al., 2016). The performance of hexagonal
CFST column members under axial compression
and bending has been investigated by Xu et  al.
(2016). The CFST elements are found to have
increased compressive strength and ductility.
The concrete-encased CFST column consists of
the inner CFST component and reinforced concrete
encasement component. The steel tube can provide
confinement to the core concrete, and the reinforced
concrete encasement can provide fire protection and
corrosion protection. Because of these benefits, the
concrete-encased CFST column has seen increasing
used high-rise buildings and bridges in China (Han
et al., 2014). The cross sections of concrete-encased
CFST column are usually circle, square, and rec-
tangular for an easy beam-to-column connection.
Han et  al. (2009) conducted experimental tests on
concrete-encased CFST columns with aforemen-
tioned cross section. Ji et  al. (2014) reported a
series of experiments on the seismic performance
of concrete-encased CFST columns with square
section. Both sets of tests indicate that concrete-
encased CFST columns have favorable ductility and
energy dissipation. Qian et al. (2016) presented the
analytical study on the cyclic behaviour of concrete-
encased CFST columns with square section.
not only connected to the beams in the longi-
tudinal direction and transverse direction, but
also to the beams in the diagonal direction. In
such a circumstance, the concrete-encased CFST
column with a hexagonal section is preferable.
However, the research on the hexagonal concrete-
encased CFST columns is very limited. The whole
response of hysteretic curve and strength con-
tribution of different components of hexagonal
concrete-encased CFST column has yet to be
clearly understood.
The main objectives of this research are three-
fold: (1) To develop a high-fidelity finite element
(FE) model that can accurately represent the cyclic
behaviour of hexagonal concrete-encased CFST
columns. (2) Using the FE model, to conduct
full-range analysis of hexagonal concrete-encased
CFST columns, for evaluation of the contact stress
between steel tube and concrete and of the flexural
strength contribution of different components.
2 FE MODEL
A FE model was developed using ABAQUS/Stand-
ard module (Simulia et  al., 2017) to represent the
specimen of hexagonal concrete-encased CFST
column in Xu (2016). Using the symmetricity, a
quarter model is considered. The schematic view of
the hexagonal concrete-encased CFST is shown in
Fig. 1. This type of cross section was chosen to be a
“standard” hexagonal shape in this study. The dual-
axisymmetric cross section has equal side length (B)

341
 Han et al. (2007), Han and An (2014), and Attard
and Setunge (1996), respectively. Note that there
are no specific constitute model for the core con-
crete of the hexagonal CFST. The model of core
concrete for the square-section CHST is used in
this simulation. The uniaxial tensile model sug-
gested by Shen et al. (1993) are used for three types
of concrete. The elastic modulus Ec and Possion’s
ratio of concrete are taken as 4730 fc′ and 0.2
respectively according to ACI318-11 (ACI), where
ff′c′ is cylinder compressive strength in MPa.
The longitudinal rebars are simulated using
Clough model (1966). Steel tube and transverse
rebars are simulated by combined hardening
model, as shown in Fig.  2. The Clough model
is used for the reason that the “embedded”

Figure  1. Schematic view of the experimental section

and FE model.

for all six edges, two interior angles of 90° (θ1) and
four interior angles of 135° (θ2). The section dimen-
sions can be found in Fig. 1(a). The schematic view
of the FE model is illustrated in Fig. 1(b) (c).

2.1 Material properties

The concrete damaged plasticity (CDP) model
is used to simulate the behaviour of the concrete
under cyclic loading. The concrete section is
divided into three regions according to the differ-
ent confinement, as shown in Fig. 1(b). The uniax-
ial compressive behaviour of the core concrete,
outer confined concrete and concrete cover are
simulated by the constitute models proposed by Figure 2. Constitute model of steel.

342
interaction between rebars and concrete ignores
the possible slippage at the interface. The Clough
model can take into account the slippage to some
degree. The combined hardening model can
simulate Bauschinger effects of steel tube. The
parameters of the combined hardening model are
determined by Han & Yang (2005).
2.2 Interaction, boundary condition,
and element mesh
As the concrete damaged plasticity model can-
not fully capture the opening and closure of con-
crete cracks (Goto et  al., 2010), a discrete crack
between the concrete and the restricted part is
introduced to simulate the opening and closure of
concrete crack, which is shown in Fig.  1(c). The
discrete crack is represented by the contact pair in
ABAQUS, where the hard contact is used in the
normal direction and the Coulomb friction is used
in the tangential direction. The frictional factor μ
of the Coulomb friction is taken as 1.0 according
to the provisions of ACI 318-11.
The interaction between the steel tube and
concrete is simulated by the contact, where the
Coulomb friction model with a frictional factor
of 0.6 is applied in the tangential direction and
the hard contact model is applied in the normal
direction. This contact interaction has been veri-
fied by past researchers (Han et  al., 2009, Qian
et al., 2016). The end plate and steel tube are con-
nected by “tie” in ABAQUS, and the end plate is
connected to the concrete by “tie” as well. The
rebars are connected to the outer concrete using
the “embedded” constraint. The interactions
between different components can be seen in
Fig. 1(b) (c).
2.3 Verifications of the FE model
The FE model is verified by the cyclic test results
of hexagonal concrete-encased CFST columns
conducted by Xu (2016).
The schematic view of specimen and test setup
for Xu’s tests is shown in Fig. 3. The column is pin
connected to the loading setup. The axial com-
pressive load was firstly applied and maintained
constant. The axial force ratio n (=  N0/Nu) was
Table 1. Summary of measured and predicted results for hexagonal concrete-encased CFST columns.
Specimen Measured Predicted Measured
label n Δy(mm) Δy(mm) Kd(kN/mm)
1 CE-1 0.1 8.99 11.27 2.4
2 CE-2 0.1 9.37 11.13 2.9
343
0.1, where Nu denotes the compressive strength
that was calculated by the formula proposed by
Han and An (2014). Afterwards, the cyclic ver-
tical load was applied at the column mid-span
along the strong axis of the column’s cross section.
Before the specimen yielded, the vertical loading
was force controlled, and then it was changed to
displacement control till the failure of specimen.
More details can be found in Xu (2016). Note that
the vertical displacement of pin connection at the
column ends, which is generated by local rotation
of loading jack and supporting beam, would lead
to additional vertical displacement at the column
mid-span. To reflect this effect, a shear linear
spring is added beyond the end plate in the FE
model, and the spring stiffness parameter is deter-
mined by matching the initial stiffness value of the
FE model with the experimental results.
Table 1 summarizes the FEA results, compared
with the test results. The FE model could provide
accurate estimation of the maximum flexural
strength, with the experimental-to-predicted value
Pue/Puc equal to 0.992 on the average. The predicted
yield displacement Δy and descending stiffness Kd
also correlated well with the test values. Note that
the yield displacement Δy is determined accord-
ing to Park (1987), and the descending stiffness
Kd is defined as the secant stiffness in the skeleton
curve that the bearing capacity drops from maxi-
mum strength to the 85% of maximum strength.
Fig.  4  shows the photographs of specimens after
testing, and the predicted failure modes from FEA.
Fig.  5 compares the calculated and experimental
hysteretic curves of the specimens. The pinching
phenomenon is reflected well.
Figure 3. Schematic view of specimen and test setup.
Predicted Measured Predicted
Kd(kN/mm) Pue (kN) Puc (kN) Pue/Puc
3.4 279 284 0.982
2.2 285 283 1.001
 Figure  5. Load (P) versus displacement (Δ) compari-
sons of the experimental specimen and FE model.

3 ANALYTICAL BEHAVIOUR

A typical numerical sample for hexagonal con-

crete-encased CFST column is established using
the verified FE model. The dimensions and load-
ing procedure of the model are identical to the
test specimens in Xu (2016). The axial force ratio
is 0.15. The commonly-used material strengths
for concrete-encased CFST columns are consid-
ered in this analysis. The material strengths are:
fcu,out =  40  MPa; fcu,core  =  60  MPa; fys =  345  MPa;
fyl = 335 MPa; fyh = 335 MPa.

3.1 Analysis of load-displacement relation

Figure 4. Failure mode comparisons of the experimen-
tal specimen and FE model.
Fig. 6 shows the typical hysteretic curve and enve-
lope curve of hexagonal concrete-encased CFST
column. Four characteristic points are denoted in
the curve to analyze the behaviour of the hexagonal
concrete-encased CFST column in different stages as

344
Figure 6. Typical P-Δ curve.

follows: (1) Point A, initial yielding of the longitudi-

nal reinforcement; (2) Point B, initial yielding of the
steel tube and spalling of concrete cover; (3) Point
C, the maximum strength; (4) Point D, the strength
decreased to 85% of the maximum strength.
1. Point A
Point A indicates the yielding of the longitudi-
nal rebars. The stiffness of the P-Δ relationship
decreased from 24.3 kN/mm to 11.7 kN/mm as the
longitudinal rebars yield. The stiffness is calculated
by the secant stiffness between contiguous loading
degrees. The stress distributions of longitudinal rein-
forcements are shown in Fig. 7(a) and yield area is
concentrated in the junction of restricted part and
other part. The maximum width of the discrete crack
reaches 0.36 mm at point A. Fig. 7(b) indicates that
the neutral axes of outer concrete and core concrete
are at the same height at point A. The outer concrete
has reached the uniaxial compressive strength in the
longitudinal direction, while the longitudinal stress
Figure 7. Stress of reinforcements and concrete at point A.
of core concrete is lower than half of the uniaxial
compressive strength. The steel tube is in elastic stage.
stress prior to peak strength. The maximum longi-
2. Point B
tudinal strain of the concrete is 4585 με, approach-
Point B indicates the yielding of the steel tube. The
ing to the strain corresponding to the spalling of
Mises stress of the steel tube is shown in Fig. 8(a).
concrete cover. As shown in Fig.  9, the longitu-
The tensile edge and compressive edge of the steel
dinal stress of core concrete reaches the uniaxial
tube reach yield strength nearly at the same time.
compressive strength.
The yield region is approximately 60  mm apart
from restricted part, and therefore the section of 3. Point C
60  mm away from the junction is selected as the Point C indicates the maximum strength of the spec-
governing section. The steel tube has the largest imen. The longitudinal stress of concrete and steel
longitudinal stress at point a and point d, and the at governing section is shown in Fig. 9. The longi-
longitudinal stress varies gradually from point a to tudinal stress of core concrete exceeds the uniaxial
point d. The longitudinal stress of concrete in the compressive strength at this point, indicating that
governing section is shown in Fig. 8(b). the longitudinal stress of outer concrete decreases to
In Fig.  8(b), the stresses in red represent the lower than 50% of the peak strength as the outer con-
post-peak stress, while those in black represent the crete has much more deterioration under bending.

345
Figure 8. Stress of steel tube and concrete at point B.
The stress distribution of steel tube in point C is
similar to the steel tube in point B, indicating that
the steel tube has not experience obvious buckling
in this period. Though the yield area has extended,
the steel tube can keep its bearing capacity from its
yielding to the point C.
4. Point D
Point D indicates that the bearing capacity
decreases to 85% of the maximum strength.
Fig.  10(a) shows the PEEQ strain of outer con-
crete. It can be found that the plastic strain of
outer concrete is concentrated in the farthest cor-
ners. Fig.  10(b) shows the stresses of concrete in
y direction. The neutral axes of core concrete and
outer concrete don’t locate at same place. The com-
pressive stress of most outer concrete drops below
0.2fc’,out. It indicates the bending moment is mostly
undertaken by the core concrete in compression
and steel in tension.
346
Figure 9. Stress of concrete and steel tube at point C.
3.2 Contact stress between steel tube and concrete
The contact stress between steel tube and con-
crete is discussed in this section. The contact stress
between the steel tube and core concrete represents
the confinement to core concrete. The uniaxial
compressive strength of core concrete increases for
the confinement of steel tube as shown in Fig. 9.
The steel tube has no obvious buckling before the
point D. The bearing capacity of steel tube keeps
stable before the maximum strength is reached.
The contact stress between steel tube and concrete
is illustrated in Fig. 11. Points 1 and 2 marked in
Fig.  11 are at the tensile and compressive sides
under positive loading, respectively.
The contact stress of point 1 and point 2 has a
similar tendency, and the point 3 has little contact
stress. The contact stress between the steel tube and
core concrete has a larger value under tension than
it under compression. The steel tube has a shrinkage

Figure 10. Strain and stress of concrete at point D.
Figure  11. Contact stress between steel tube and core
concrete in the governing section.
along transverse direction under tensile and the
core concrete doesn’t have much shrinkage due to
the cracking of core concrete. When the steel tube
yields, the contact stress between the steel tube and
347
Figure  12. Comparisons of axial force and bending
moment contribution.
core concrete drops a bit under compression. As
a result, the contact stress under tension is larger
than it under compression. In conclude, the steel
tube can provide confinement to the core concrete
under both tensile and compression.
3.3 Strength contribution of different components
Fig. 12 shows the contributions of CFST compo-
nent and RC encasement component on the axial
force and bending moment during the full range
of loading on the concrete encased CFST column.
It can be seen from Fig. 12(a) that the variation
trend of axial load is opposite between the CFST
component and RC encasement component. The
RC encasement component bears a major portion
of axial load before the yield displacement, while
after the yield displacement, the axial force it carries
gradually transfers to the CFST component due
to the strength degradation of outer concrete. In
the end of loading, more than 50% of the axial
load is carried by CFST component. As shown in
Fig. 12(b), the bending moment carried by CFST
component keeps increasing until two times of
yield displacement. While the bending moment car-
ried by the RC encasement component decreases
after the yield displacement. The bending moment
carried by CFST component do not decrease until
the end of loading, which ensuring a good ductility
for the hexagonal concrete-encased CFST columns.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions are drawn based on this
study:
1. A FE model is developed for hexagonal concrete-
encased CFST column. The cracking and dam-
age of concrete, the hardening behaviour of steel
tube, the slippage between longitudinal reinforce-
ments and concrete, and the interaction between
steel tube and concrete are well considered in this
model. Comparisons between experimental and
FE analytical results indicate that the FE model
can reasonably predict cyclic behaviour of hex-
agonal concrete-encased CFST column.
2. The full-range loading process is investigated
using the verified FE model. Four character
points are figured out. The longitudinal rebars
yield first, which is followed by the steel tube.
The spalling of concrete cover is observed. The
longitudinal stress of core concrete exceeds the
maximum uniaxial compressive stress when
the maximum strength of specimen is reached.
The concrete in compression, and reinforce-
ments in tension are fully taken advantage of.
3. The contact stress between concrete and steel
tube, the strength contribution of different com-
ponents are investigated. The axial load and
bending moment carried by the RC encasement
component are gradually transferred to the CFST
component. The CFST component can enhance
the bearing capacity and ductility of the specimen.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research reported in this paper is part of
the Project 51678341supported by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
The financial support is highly appreciated.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Cyclically strained grade 800 and 1200 steel tube materials

F. Javidan, A. Heidarpour & X.L. Zhao

Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

H. Fallahi
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT: Application of high tensile steel in various structural forms such as rolled or fabricated
sections is currently increasing due its mechanical and economic advantages. Experimental investigations
show the distinct plastic behavior of high tensile steel with grades greater than 700 MPa damaged under
reversed tension-compression loading scenarios compared to the hardening performance of lower grades
of steel. This paper investigates a combined nonlinear plastic model to predict the stress-strain equations
of grades 800 and 1200 steel extracted from circular tubes under very low cycle structural damage. In the
numerical modelling phase, relevant parameters are calibrated and model is verified against hysteretic
experimental results. The numerical results provide a simulation tool for structures consisting of high
tensile steel tubes under seismic loads.

1 INTRODUCTION steels with yield strength values up to 690 MPa.

Due to the ever increasing application of high
tensile material in structural practice, it is vital
to understand the mechanical properties of these
types of materials under various loading condi-
tions. Steel grades higher than 700 have recently
been introduced in structural engineering appli-
cations such as high capacity tubular hybrid
fabricated beam or beam-column components.
These proposed sections consist of welded ele-
ments of both mild steel and high grades of steel
significantly enhancing the mechanical proper-
ties of structural components such as strength,
ductility, energy absorption etc. (Zhao, 2000;
Zhao et al., 2004; Nassirnia et al., 2016; Javidan
et  al., 2016b). Mechanical properties of ultra-
high strength steel materials (e.g. 800 and 1200)
have been investigated under various structural
loading scenarios such as compression, bending,
fatigue, fire and high temperature loading con-
ditions (Jiao and Zhao, 2004; Ling et  al., 2007;
Jiao et al., 2013; Heidarpour et al., 2014; Azhari
et  al., 2017; Javidan et  al., 2016a; Javidan et  al.,
2016b). Following previous studies on high and
ultra-high strength steel tubes, the reversed ten-
sion-compression response of these materials is
of significant importance when it comes to the
design and application of structural components
in earthquake prone areas. Previous literature on
high tensile structural steel are mostly limited to
These grades of steels have been examined with
the aim of understanding the cyclic response and
obtaining parameters related to hardening and
ductility (Shi et  al., 2012; Iwashita and Azuma,
2015; Nip et  al., 2010; Wang et  al., 2015). Nip
et al. examined carbon and stainless steel materi-
als under low cycle fatigue in bending and axial
conditions to extract a combined hardening
model (Nip et al., 2010). In other research work,
nonlinear time history analysis was conducted on
steel frames (Shi et al., 2012) and beam-columns
(Wang et al., 2015), implementing various loading
patterns obtained from experimental tests. Very
few research database is available on steel grades
higher than 700 MPa. Silvestre et al. focused on
steel grades in the range of 200 to 1200  MPa
developing a mixed hardening model on 1.5 mm
sheets with constant strain amplitudes limited to
2% (Silvestre et al., 2015).
This study focuses on high strength steel (grade
800) and ultra-high strength steel (grade 1200)
extracted from circular steel tubes under cyclic
strain damage. Various strain controlled loading
patterns are applied having constant and incre-
mental amplitudes on these grades of steel. The
strength variations have been taken into consid-
eration with respect to different test parameters
such as step size and number of cycles. A plastic-
ity model is developed based on the plastic strain
behavior extracted from specific cyclic test cases on

349
high and ultra-high strength steel specimens and
relevant parameters are calibrated against experi-
ments. The combined plastic model is also adopted
to simulate further cyclically strained test types
with incremental and pre-strained amplitudes.
The proposed numerical model has eventually been
verified against available experimental outcomes.
2 EXPERIMENTAL PHASE
2.1 Test setup
A variety of experimental tests are designed and
conducted on standard tensile specimens consid-
ering different tension/compression strain ampli-
tudes. Mechanical properties and manufacturing
process of high strength steel (HSS: grade 800) and
ultra-high strength steel (UHSS: grade 1200) steel
tubes are thoroughly defined in authors’ previous
research publication (Javidan et al., 2016a). Speci-
men dimensions are designed based on ASTM
E606-04 standard for strain controlled fatigue test-
ing and shown in Figure 1a. Coupons are extracted
from 90  degree angle from tube manufacturing
weld line (Figure  1b). In order to minimize any
effect of buckling on the cyclic test results spe-
cifically in the compression phase, in addition to
adopting specimen geometry with smallest possible
length to thickness ratio, an anti-buckling fixture
was designed and utilized for each test (Figure 1c).
This fixture was specially designed with inner
grooves taking the tubular shape of specimens into
consideration which helps reduce friction between
specimen and surrounding fixture. Cyclic tests were
conducted using a servo-hydraulic testing machine
and a non-contact laser extensometer was used for
additional data acquisition purposes.
2.2 Test paths
The experimental test plan consists of various
strain paths described in Table 1. These tests are of
two main types of constant (A ) and increasing (Δε)
strain amplitudes. Two different values of strain
amplitude are considered for tests with constant
amplitude and two different strain steps are con-
sidered for test cases with incrementally increasing
amplitude. In addition to the strain amplitudes,
number of cycles are varied as an independent test
parameter. The final test case involves a residual
pre-strain applied prior to the cyclic test. Visual
description of each test case is shown in Figure 2.
2.3 Experimental results
2.3.1 Tests with constant strain amplitude
In test types (a) and (b), applied amplitudes are 95%
and 60% of the ultimate strain which is within the
strain range corresponding to 0.2% proof strength
and the ultimate strain of both material types. In
both cases equal number of cycles is applied and
the effect of strain amplitude is investigated. In
case type c, similar conditions are repeated as type
b, while the number of cycles is increased to 12.
The normalized stress versus number of cycles
for test types (a and b) are shown in Figure 3 for
HSS and UHSS. From these curves, UHSS mate-
rial exhibit higher cyclic softening as the cyclic
loading progresses. Cyclic softening percentage

Table 1. Cyclic test description.

Specimen No.
Test type label Test parameter cycles

a HSS-a A 1 ≈ ±95% εUTS N: 8

UHSS-a
b HSS-b A 2 ≈ ±60% εUTS N: 8
UHSS-b
c HSS-c A 1 ≈ ±60% εUTS N: 12
UHSS-c
d HSS-d A 1 ≈ +60% εUTS N: 8
UHSS-d
e HSS-e Δε1 ≈ 7% εUTS N: 12
UHSS-e
f HSS-f Δε2 ≈ 20% εUTS N: 4
UHSS-f
Figure 1. a) Cyclic specimen dimensions, b) extraction g HSS-g Δε2 ≈ 20% εUTS N: 4
location from tube. c) Overview of anti-buckling fixture UHSS-g R∈: 0.5%
for tube specimens.

350
 the initial cycle. Cyclic softening percentage is a
quantitative measurement of the material strength
deterioration and the effect of cyclic parameters
on strength reduction. It is expected and observed
that as strain amplitude rises (test case a compared
to b) and the number of cycles increases (test type
c compared to b), damage is introduced and both
test parameters lead to a larger softening percent-
ages (CS%).

2.3.2 Tests with incremental strain amplitude

Test cases (e) to (g) are designed such that strain
amplitude as a percentage of the strain corre-
sponding to ultimate strength gradually increases
at each cycle (Figure  4). Strain steps are applied
with varying number of cycles in case (e) and (f)
in a way that the maximum strain of the last cycle

Figure 2. Cyclic strain paths on HSS and UHSS steel

tube specimens.

Figure  3. Normalized stress versus number of cycles

for: a) cases HSS-a and UHSS-a, b) cases HSS-b and
UHSS-b.

(CS%) is defined as the percentage of material’s Figure  4. Cyclic softening of cases (e), (f) and (g)
strength reduction at a specific cycle number cal- against monotonic tensile test for: a) HSS and b) UHSS
culated normalized by the strength of material at materials.

351
in both tests are similar. The strain increments at
each cycle are chosen as 7% and 20% of ultimate
strain value. In test type (g) a residual pre-strain
amplitude of 0.5% is applied to the material fol-
lowed by strain increments similar to case (f).
Higher number of cycles requires less incremental
strain steps. Accordingly, in both HSS and UHSS
materials, higher number of cycles (case e) leads to
a larger strength degradation compared to lower
cycles numbers applied in case (f) in which almost
no strength degradation is observed.

3 NUMERICAL MODELLING

3.1 Nonlinear combined kinematic/isotropic

hardening model
Employing the variety of experimental tests
explained in the previous section, a numerical tool
is developed considering the combined isotropic/
kinematic behavior of HSS and UHSS for simula-
tion purposes under low cycle straining. Lemaitre’s
nonlinear plasticity model (Lemaitre et  al., 1994)
is taken into consideration for the aim of incor-
poration in plasticity models or commercial soft-
ware (e.g. ABAQUS (Dassault Systèmes Simulia
Corp., 2014)). In the first stage, the simulation
is conducted from tabular stress and strain data
extracted from experimental results. Consequently,
plasticity equations are calibrated and relevant
parameters are proposed and model is verified
against available experimental flow curves.
Kinematic hardening data is obtained from the
stress and corresponding plastic strain of a single
stabilized cycle. The stress σi and plastic strain ε ipl
data extracted from stabilized data for each pair
from the following equations Figure  5. a) Kinematic hardening, b) Isotropic cyclic
softening for HSS and UHSS.
σi
ε ipl εi − − ε 0p (1)
E
σ i0 σ it − α i (4)
αi σ i − (σ 1 + σ n ) / 2 (2)
where the backstress is defined as
where αi is the overall backstress and is obtained
from the summation of backstresses based on
parameters introduced in Figure 5a.
αi (σ it + σ ic ) (5)
For the isotropic softening from tabular
data, the equivalent stress is defined as a ta
tabular Stresses and corresponding plastic strain pairs
pl
function of the equivalent plastic strain ε such are extracted from symmetric strain-controlled
that cyclic experimental tests.
Figure  5b illustrates the stress versus plastic
1 strain of high strength steel material which shows
ε i pl ( 4i 3)Δε pl (3) strength softening after each reversed cycle.
2

The equivalent stress defining the size of yield
surface at zero equivalent plastic strain, for the
peak tensile stress at ith cycle is obtained from
3.2 Calibration and validation
With regards to tabular data obtained from cyclic
loading, at this stage the plasticity equations are

352
calibrated against experiments to propose relevant
kinematic and isotropic parameters. The harden-
ing law for backstress αk can be formulated as a
function of the plastic strain value:

Ck
αk = ( − exp( −γ k ε pll )) + α 1 e ( γ k ε pll ) (6)
γk

where Ck and γk are the kinematic hardening

parameters. For the isotropic flow, yield surface
(σ 0) which is a function of equivalent plastic strain
(ε pl ) can be defined from the following exponen-
tial model for which material parameters (Q∞ and
b) are calibrated:
σ 0 = σ 0 +Q∞ (1 − p( − bε pll )) (7)

Above isotropic and kinematic parameters are

calibrated and presented in Table 2. It is worth noting
that Q∞ demonstrates cyclic isotropic softening of
HSS and UHSS materials is found to be a negative
value. Higher absolute value of Q∞ indicates that a
more significant softening occurs in the material
which in the case of materials in this study UHSS
exhibits a higher value. A predictive model is devel-
oped in ABAQUS adopting the obtained cyclic
isotropic/kinematic hardening data, and the cyclic
behavior of HSS and UHSS material specimens
are verified against experimental curves. In  the
simulation procedure, boundary conditions were
applied such that the effect of anti-buckling fix-
ture on the specimen is realistically considered. For
tests with constant strain amplitudes (i.e. cases a, b
and c) the cyclic flow curve is presented in Figure 6
which shows an acceptable match in the softening
trend compared to the experimental results. To ver-
ify the model and isotropic and kinematic param-
eters, hysteresis curves of test types e, f and g, are
simulated and presented against the experimental
results in Figure  7 for HSS and Figure  8 UHSS
specimen. In these test types, special attention is
given to formation of peak stress prior to the com-
mencement of softening as well as the subsequent
softening performance. This numerical model pro-
vides a convenient predictive tool for softening

Table  2. Cyclic kinematic hardening and isotropic

softening parameters.

Kinematic
Isotropic softening hardening

Specimen Q∞ b Ck γk

HSS-a −198.1 15.8 24940 117.7

HSS-b −194.9 13.3 37040 164.6
UHSS-a −305.7 15 112700 192.1 Figure 6. Numerical combined hardening model versus
UHSS-b −287.5 18.1 167700 286.8 experimental results for samples: a) HSS-a, b) HSS-b,
c) UHSS-a, d) UHSS-b.

353
Figure 7. Model verification for HSS a) test case “e”,
b) test case “f ”, c) test case “g”. Figure 8. Model verification for UHSS a) test case “e”,
b) test case “f ”, c) test case “g”.

354
performance of HSS and UHSS specimens under
various loading patterns.
4 CONCLUSIONS
High strength and ultra-high strength materials
extracted from tubular members were examined
under various cyclic tests. It was observed that
under similar amplitude to ultimate strain ratio
of each material, UHSS exhibits higher amounts
of cyclic softening compared to HSS. In order to
incorporate plastic behavior of HSS and UHSS in
common software or codes, a predictive numerical
model was developed based on experiments.
Accordingly, relevant kinematic hardening and
Isotropic softening parameters were calibrated and
flow curves were verified. The proposed model
can provide a predictive tool to simulate cyclically
damaged performance of tubular components
consisting of HSS and UHSS elements.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was supported by Australian
Research Council through Discovery Project
(DP150100442).
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Behaviour of double headed anchored blind bolt under cyclic loading

T. Pokharel & H.M. Goldsworthy

Department of Infrastructure Engineering, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

E.F. Gad
Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Science, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the tensile behaviour of Double Headed Anchored Blind Bolts
(DHABBs) which are anchored within Concrete Filled Square Hollow Section (CFSHS) tubes. The
DHABB consists of a conventional Headed Anchored Blind Bolt (HABB) with one additional middle
head, between the existing end head in the embedded region and head next to the tube wall. A series of
experiments were conducted on the pull-out of single DHABBs under monotonic and cyclic loading.
A detailed three dimensional finite element model was developed and the results were compared with full
scale pull-out test results. A good agreement was obtained between the FE and experimental results. The
results showed that the addition of the middle head provides higher stiffness than conventional HABBs.

1 INTRODUCTION The extension was embedded into the concrete to

Concrete filled steel tubes (CFST) are popular as
the structural columns in many countries such as
Europe, Japan and the USA. They have a large load
bearing capacity, favourable ductility and look aes-
thetically beautiful. However, in many countries,
including Australia, CFSTs are not very popular
because of the perceived difficulties in connect-
ing beams to the columns. In such places, welding
(which is the most common method of achieving
the moment resisting connection between beam
and CFST) is not preferred at site due to cost and
quality issues. Due to the lack of access to the
inner side of the column, is not possible to install
ordinary structural bolts.
In the last few decades, research has been
conducted to investigate alternative solutions to
welded connections, including that on blind bolts,
i.e. ones that can be installed from the outside of
the tube. In this research, modified Ajax Oneside
blind bolts have been used. The Ajax Oneside was
originally developed by (Ajax Engineered Fasten-
ers 2005) and later modified by (Goldsworthy &
Gardner 2006), (Yao, Goldsworthy, & Gad 2008)
and (Pokharel, Goldsworthy, & Gad 2016), and the
modified bolt is called a double headed anchored
blind bolt (DHABB). The modification involves
an extension of the bolt beyond the head of the
Ajax Oneside that bears on the inside wall of the
tube; anchorage into the infill concrete is achieved
by providing two heads along this extension (one
at the end of the extension and another between
the end head and the head next to the tube wall).
increase the stiffness of the connection and also to
limit the local deformation of the tube wall.
The ultimate aim of the research is to develop a
moment resisting connection for low to moderate
seismic regions using DHABBs. The concrete filled
square hollow section (CFSHS) has been selected
as the column rather than a concrete filled circular
hollow section (CFCHS) as it is relatively easier to
connect to the beam because of its simpler geom-
etry, and because it has stiffness that is comparable
with that of the CFCHSs.
The tensile behaviour of headed anchored blind
bolts (HABB) has been investigated recently by
(Agheshlui, Goldsworthy, Gad, & Fernando 2016),
(Oktavianus, Yao, Goldsworthy, & Gad 2015) for
single blind bolts and by (Agheshlui, Goldsworthy,
Gad, & Yao 2015), (Pokharel, Goldsworthy, & Gad
2015) and (Pokharel, Goldsworthy, & Gad 2016)
for group behaviour. A monotonic load regime was
used in investigating the behaviour of the blind
bolts. The tensile behaviour of cogged anchored
blind bolts has been investigated by (Yao, Golds-
worthy, & Gad 2008) and (Pokharel, Yao, Golds-
worthy, & Gad 2016). A similar concept in which
a blind bolt has been extended and anchored into
the infill concrete has been used by some other
researchers such as (Tizani, Al-Mughairi, Owen,
& Pitrakkos 2013) using Hollo bolts.
This paper presents the tensile behaviour of
the modified blind bolt (DHABB) under cyclic
loading. The DHABBs are anchored within the
concrete filled square hollow sections (CFSHS).
Firstly, details are given about the experimental

357
program in which pull-out tests were conducted;
the results of these tests are also presented. Then
the finite element (FE) analysis of those pull-out
tests is presented. Finally, the FE results are com-
pared with the experimental results, and effective-
ness of the modification of HABB to DHABB in
improving the stiffness and strength of the connec-
tion is assessed.
2 MODIFICATION OF BLIND BOLT
During pull-out of anchored blind bolts, the load
from the bolt is transferred to the concrete in two
ways; one is through the tangential/frictional force
between the threaded rod and surrounding con-
crete i.e., bond; and the other is from bearing of
the end head onto the concrete. (Agheshlui 2014)
conducted an experimental investigation to assess
the contribution of both friction and bearing to the
overall behaviour of the bolt. He concluded that
the contribution from friction is very small when
compared to the contribution from bearing, and
thus could be neglected. It should also be noted
that the bond is likely to deteriorate in the case of
cyclic loading, so it is preferable to ignore it.
The tensile stiffness of the blind bolt can be
increased by increasing the strength of the con-
crete. However, from FE analyses, it was found
Figure 1. Original HABB and modified DHABB.
358
that the effectiveness of this approach decreases
after a certain limiting value of the concrete
strength is reached. Another way of increasing
the stiffness is by increasing the bearing area of
the bolt head by increasing the diameter of the
end head. However the diameter of the head is
limited by the diameter of the bolt hole which is
35  mm and 30  mm for the M24 and M20 blind
bolts respectively (Fernando 2005). To overcome
this problem, additional heads could be added
between the end head and head adjacent to the
tube wall. Figure  1(b) shows the modified blind
bolt (DHABB).
3 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
A series of pull-out tests was conducted to inves-
tigate the behaviour of double headed anchors
blind bolts (DHABBs) in concrete filled square
hollow section (CFSHS) columns. The experimen-
tal program was conducted at the Smart Labora-
tory, Swinburne University of Technology.
3.1 Test specimens
Four pull-out test configurations were investigated.
Two tests were conducted for each configuration,
and the results were averaged. Table  1  shows the
details of the experiments. In the notation used in
the table (second column), the second and third
fields represent the diameter of the blind bolt
and the thickness of the square hollow section
respectively. For example, C-24-10 means the pull-
out of M24 DHABB blind bolt from a CFSHS
400 × 400 × 10.
Four blind bolts were installed in a single tube
of 1800 mm length. Two of them were installed on
one side of the SHS and the remaining two on the
other side of the tube. The locations were chosen
in such a way that the influence of the presence
of one bolt does not affect the behaviour of other
bolts. Enough spacing (more than 2 times the
embedment depth of bolts) was provided between
the centre line of bolt and edge of supports.
Figure  2  shows the elevation and sectional view
of the SHS.
Table 1. Details of the experimental program.
No. Notation Steel tube Steel grade Bolt
1 C-24-12.5 400 × 400 × 12.5 350 M24
2 C-20-12.5 400 × 400 × 12.5 350 M20
3 C-24-10 400 × 400 × 10 450 M24
4 C-20-10 400 × 400 × 10 450 M20

Figure 2. Details of the test specimens.
The blind bolts used in this experiment were dou-
ble headed anchored blind bolts (DHABBs) with
two heads anchored in the concrete. The thickness
of the heads anchored within the concrete was half
of that of the heads usually used in a HABB (Fern-
ando 2005), although the thickness of the head that
bears on the folding washer remained the same as
that used in a HABB. The clear spacing between
embedded heads and the total embedment depth
were kept constant for both of the blind bolts (M20
and M24), at 60 mm and 150 mm respectively.
The design characteristic concrete strength
was 50 MPa. Ten cylinders (with 100 mm diam-
eter and 200 mm length) were prepared for con-
crete mix. Three cylinders each were tested for
compressive and tensile strength at 29 days after
the pour. The average compressive strength of the
cylinders after 29 days was found to be 54 MPa
(standard deviation = 2.3 MPa). This will give the
characteristic strength of 48.3 MPa. An indirect
tensile test, commonly known as a Brazilian Test,
was conducted for three cylinders. The average
direct tensile strength was found to be 3.62 MPa
with standard deviation of 0.3 MPa. The remain-
ing cylinders were tested on the pull-out test day.
3.2 Experimental setup and instrumentation
A diagram of the test setup is presented in
Figure  3. The black, blue and magenta colour in
the diagrams represent the specimen, anchor sup-
port and machine respectively. The concrete filled
square hollow tubes were laid down at the base
of the 1MN MTS machine and anchored to the
machine floor using SHS sections on each side
of the blind bolt. Figure  4  shows a photo of the
setup for a pull out test on a M24 blind bolt from a
359
Figure 3. Plan view of experimental setup.
Figure 4. Test setup used for pull out of M24 DHABB
from CFSHS 400 × 400 × 10.
CHSHS 400 × 400 × 12.5. A similar test setup was
used for all of the pull-out tests.
Strain gauges and LVDTs were used to meas-
ure the strain and displacement. Photogram-
metry was also used for the validation purpose.
Two types of strain gauges were used on the blind
bolts: cylindrical Kyowa KFG-2-120-C1 and flat
ECH-120-5AA strain gauges. In the case of the
Kyowa gauges a 3 mm diameter hole was drilled
symmetrically around the centreline of the bolt,
starting at the embedded end of the DHABB,
and the strain gauge was installed inside the hole.
The hole was then filled with silicon to prevent
damage during and after the concrete pour. The
flat ECH strain gauges were used on the surface
of the blind bolts. Threads on the bolt shaft sur-
face were removed in the area on which the strain
gauges were installed. The strain gauges were
covered with silicon layers to protect them from
the air, water and concrete. The reading from the
strain gauges will be used to calculate the amount
of load taken by bearing of the first head on the
 This can be achieved by maintaining a certain
strength hierarchy in the connection and deliber-
ately designing it so that another element in the
connection will yield before the bolts reach 60%
of their capacity. The conditions at service load
are approximated by assuming a bolt load of 30%
of its ultimate capacity. Hence, the FEMA-461
loading protocol was used with maximum tar-
geted displacement (Δm) equal to the displacement
when the load in the blind bolt reaches 60% of the
capacity. The minimum targeted displacement (Δ0)
was the displacement corresponding to initiation
of cracking or crushing of concrete within the
tube, whichever occurs first. The results from the
finite element were used to find these key values of
displacement, and the corresponding forces.

Figure 5. Strain gauging in blind bolts. 4.1 Test results

In this section, the results of the pull-out tests on
single blind bolts from concrete filled square hol-
tube wall and by bearing of subsequent internal low sections are presented. As explained earlier,
heads on the concrete. Figure  5  shows the loca- two different SHS sections, SHS 400  ×  400  ×  10
tion of the strain gauges. and 400 × 400 × 12.5, were used in the experiment.
The bolt sizes considered are M20 and M24;
both were made of PC 8.8. Based on the previous
4 LOADING REGIME research, the blind bolts were placed 100 mm from
the external face of the steel tube and the embed-
During the lifetime of the building, it may subject
to several significant cycles of loading from earth-
quakes. Thus, to fully understand the behaviour
of the DHABBs, the behaviour under cyclic load-
ing needs to be investigated. The loading proto-
col should represent several cycles of loads at the
required levels.
There are several loading protocols available
in the literature and standards. Among them,
(ATC-24 1992), (AISC-341 2005), (FEMA-461
1992) are the most popular for steel structures. The
main concepts behind the development of those
protocols are similar but there are some differences
in the loading histories. Figure  6. Pull-out load vs. displacement curve for
(FEMA-461 1992) is the most recent of the C-24-12.5.
loading protocols mentioned above. The refer-
ence parameters used in the protocol are tar-
geted minimum deformation amplitude (Δ0) and
targeted maximum deformation amplitude (Δm).
(Δ0) must be safely smaller than the amplitude at
the lowest damage state, and the Δm is the defor-
mation corresponding to initiation of the most
severe damage state. The amplitude of each
cycle (ai) is given by ai  + 1  =  1.4  ×  ai with the
first amplitude a1 equal to or close to Δ0. After Δm
is reached, the amplitude was increased by con-
stant increment 0.3Δm.
In the proposed connection in this research, the
tensile load on the blind bolts will not be allowed
to exceed 60% of their nominal tensile capac- Figure  7. Backbone of pull-out load vs. displacement
ity in the design of the blind bolted connection. curve for C-24-12.5.

360
Table 2. Ultimate tensile strength, secant stiffness and residual displacement of different pull-out tests.

Residual disp. after 5th cycle

at 60% of capacity
Secant Secant
Ultimate Nominal stiffness Stiffness w.r.t. 1st cycle w.r.t. to initial
strength capacity at 30% at 60% at same load condition
S. No. Specimen (kN) (kN) (kN/mm) (kN/mm) level (mm) (mm)
1 C-24-12.5 302 293 283 172 0.096 0.48
2 C-20-12.5 239 203 410 220 0.041 0.19
3 C-24-10 325 293 351 145 0.026 0.18
4 C-20-10 228 203 440 221 0.041 0.17

ment depth was 150 mm. There were three heads

inside the CFSHS; one full head next to the tube
wall and two half heads at the end of the embed-
ded end and at a 60  mm clear spacing from the
end head. The experimental results for each pair
of nominally identical tests are presented here.
Figure  6  shows the pull-out load vs displace-
ment curve for M24 DHABB from CFSHS
400  ×  400  ×  12.5. The displacement in the figure
is the actual pull-out displacement of DHABB at
the outer face of the steel tube. The LDTs were
removed when the load was close to the failure load
to prevent damage to the LDTs, and hence the load
vs. displacement curve is cut off prior to the failure
condition being reached. Figure 7 shows the average
backbone curve of the pull-out test of C-24-12.5. Figure  8. FE representation of pull-out of DHABB
The summary of test results is presented in from CFSHS.
Table 2 which shows the ultimate strength, secant
stiffness at 60% of the nominal capacity of bolts
and residual displacement at the end of the 5th tacting surfaces. Along the tangential direction, the
cycle at 60% of nominal capacity. Each of those Coulomb penalty approach was used with a fric-
values are the average of two tests. The test has dif- tion coefficient of 0.55 (Cairns, Du, & Law 2007).
ferent tube sections (SHS 400 × 400 × 10 and SHS It is worth noting that the friction in the tangential
400 × 400 × 12.5), and bolt sizes (M20 and M24). direction does not make a significant difference in
the case of pull-out behaviour as explained before.
Finer mesh was used for steel and concrete near
5 NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
the blind bolt to get more precise results and a rela-
tively coarse mesh was used in other parts to reduce
5.1 FE models
computational resources. A Concrete Damage Plas-
A commercial FE package ABAQUS/Explicit was ticity (CDP) model was used to model the concrete.
used for modelling the pull-out tests. Taking advan-
tage of symmetric conditions along the transverse
5.2 Material properties
direction of the concrete filled hollow section
(CFSHS), a half of each test specimen was mod- Coupon tests were conducted on coupons from the
elled. The FE model used to simulate the pull-out steel tube to determine the yield strength, ultimate
of M24 DHABBs from a CFSHS 400 × 400 × 10 strength and Youngs modulus of the materials.
(C-24-10) is shown in Figure 8. Table  3  shows the material properties from these
Eight-noded brick elements with reduced tests that were used in the FE program.
integration (C3D8R) were used to model all the Compressive strength and splitting tests of con-
components. Surface to surface contact was used crete cylinders made at the time that the concrete
between all of the contact surfaces (DHABB and was poured were conducted on the day that the
concrete, concrete to steel and steel to steel) and a specimens were tested. Standard concrete cylin-
general contact algorithm available in ABAQUS/ ders were prepared in accordance with (Standards
Explicit was used for that purpose. Hard contact Australia 2012). The complete stress strain rela-
was adopted in the normal direction along all con- tionships were based on the work by (Carreira

361
& Chu 1985). For the tensile behaviour, the frac-
ture energy principle from (Hillerborg, Modéer,
& Petersson 1976) was adopted; this varies from
40 N/m (for concrete with a compressive strength
of 20  MPa) to 120  N/m (for concrete with com-
pressive strength of 40  MPa). For the concrete
with a compressive strength beyond this range lin-
ear extrapolation was used. The tensile and com-
pressive damage parameters were calculated in
accordance with (Jankowiak & Lodygowski 2005).
5.3 FE results
A total of 8 pull-out tests, in 4  groups, were con-
ducted using different tube thicknesses and bolt
sizes. Experimental results of those tests have
already been presented in Section 4.1. In this section
the FE simulation of the experimental programme
is presented. The pull-out load vs. displacement
curves are presented and compared with the experi-
mental results for pull-out of M24 DHABB from a
CFSHS 400 × 400 × 12.5 only due to limitation of
space. Further analyses were conducted to under-
stand the behaviour of blind bolts under cyclic ten-
sile loading. The load shared by the different parts
(viz., tube wall, middle head and end head) were
also investigated. Stress distributions along the bolt,
the SHS, and the concrete were investigated.
Figure 9 shows the load vs pull-out displacement
curves of C-24-12.5 from both the FE analysis and
experimental work. The FE result matches well with
the experimental results. The initial stiffness and the
beginning of the nonlinear segment were obtained
with good accuracy. Given that force controlled
loading was applied in the analysis, the softening
behaviour cannot be seen in the figure. Also, in the
experiment, the readings were stopped well before
failure to prevent the damage to LDTs so the soften-
ing part is missing in the experimental results also.
Given that the connection design strength hierarchy
will be such that the bolts will be prevented from
reaching loads in excess of 60% of their nominal
tensile capacity, as explained earlier, the softening
region was not of interest in this work.
The tensile load applied to the blind bolt is
transferred to the CFSHS in a very complex man-
ner as there are different components involved in
the load transfer mechanism. The load transfer is
Table 3. Material properties of steel components.
Youngs Yield Ultimate
modulus strength strength
Material (MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
SHS (400 × 400 × 10) 210,000 585 608
SHS (400 × 400 × 12.5) 210,000 397 512
DHABB 210,000 713 929
362
Figure  9. Pull-out load vs. displacement curve for
C-24-12.5.
mainly achieved by bearing of the first head on the
tube wall, and also by the anchorage established
between the blind bolt and surrounding concrete.
The anchorage of the DHABB can be achieved in
the following three ways:
1. Bearing of the middle head on the surrounding
concrete
2. Bearing of the end head on the surrounding
concrete
3. Bond between the threaded rod and surround-
ing concrete
Figure 10 shows the contribution of bearing on
the tube wall, bearing of the middle head on the
concrete, and bearing of the end head on the con-
crete respectively to the overall tensile load on the
bolt. As expected, the contribution of the tube wall
(shown by the red dashed line) was relatively small
at lower loads and increased gradually as the load
on the blind bolt increased. On the other hand, the
relative contribution of the middle and end heads
is not as simple as that of the tube wall. At the
early stages, the contribution of the middle head
(which is closer to the loading end) was higher than
the contribution of the end head. At higher loads,
once the concrete under the middle head started to
crush, the contribution of the end head was greater
than that of the middle head. The reduction in the
proportion of load taken by the middle head was
taken up by the end head and tube wall.
When the load is first applied, the load trans-
fers to the surrounding concrete mainly due to
bond between the threaded rod and concrete. This
bond will be lost at a low load and, at this stage,
the tensile load from the blind bolt will be trans-
ferred mainly due to the bearing action at the mid-
dle head. Due to the high load (and thus stress)
concentration on the concrete around the middle
head, crushing and cracking occurs. At that stage
the bearing action from the end head becomes
relatively important and it, and the bearing on the
tube wall, become dominant in the later stages of
loading. It is important to note that the tube wall
did not yield in this case. After this, cracks emerg-
ing from the middle head reached to the tube wall
and the contribution of the middle head started to
decline. At the failure point, the contribution of
the middle head was very small and the contribu-
tion of tube wall and end head were dominant.
As mentioned previously, in the connection pro-
posed in this study the bolt load will not be allowed
to exceed 60% of the nominal tensile capacity of the
Figure  10. Contribution of different parts of blind
bolts in C-24-12.5.
Figure 11. Stress distribution at 60% of bolts nominal
capacity.
363
blind bolt. Therefore, the load transfer mechanism
at 60% of the bolts nominal capacity is an impor-
tant consideration. Figure 11 shows the Mises stress
distribution in the concrete and steel tube when the
load on the blind bolt reaches 60% of its nominal
tensile capacity. From the figure, it can be seen that
the load in the blind bolt is transferred to the tube
wall from both the middle and end heads. At this
point, the cracks have generated from the middle
head but have not reached to the face of the con-
crete. Thus the load taken by the middle head has
not dropped significantly. The contribution of the
middle head and end head to the transfer of bolt
load was almost the same at this loading, approxi-
mately 37% each, as shown in Figure 10.
6 DISCUSSION
Figure  12  shows the pull-out load vs. pull-out
displacement of M24 blind bolts from CFSHS
400 × 400 × 12.5. The red dashed line in the figure
is of the HABB under monotonic loading (from
Agheshlui, 2014), and the solid black line is the
envelope curve of the DHABB under the cyclic
loading. As can be seen in the figure, the DHABB
curve is stiffer than that of the HABB. The secant
stiffness at 60% of bolt capacity of the HABB was
155  kN/mm and that for the DHABB was found
to be 172  kN/mm. Similarly, the secant stiffness
at the service load (30% of the bolt capacity) was
also increased from 254  kN/mm to 283  kN/mm
by adding the middle nut. The ultimate strength
of the blind bolts is similar for both types of blind
bolts because the same grade of bolt was used
and there is a similar failure mode, i.e., fracture
of bolt outside the tube (not shown in the figure).
The increase in stiffness is because of the increase
in anchorage area due to the addition of the mid-
dle head. The addition of the middle head to the
HABB also decreased the concentrated crushing of
concrete near the end head, and the load is shared
by two heads. Similar behaviour was observed in
Figure  12. Pull-out load vs. displacement curves for
HABB and DHABB for C-24-12.5.
the pull-out tests of M20 blind bolts from CFSHS
400 × 400 × 12.5. It is worth noting that the concrete
strength achieved in the pull-out tests of the HABBs
and DHABBs was slightly different. The average
compressive strength of the concrete in the HABB
tests (on the testing day) was 52 MPa and that of
DHABBs was 55.6 MPa. The variation of stiffness
due to the difference in compressive strength is very
small and can be ignored in this case.
7 CONCLUSIONS
The experimental and numerical behaviour of dou-
ble headed anchored blind bolts was investigated
in this paper. From the experimental result, it was
verified that the addition of a middle head to the
HABB improved the behaviour of the blind bolt.
The behaviour of the DHABB was found to be
dependent on the bolt sizes and SHS section sizes.
The larger bolt was found to have a higher strength
and stiffness as expected.
The deterioration of stiffness in a DHABB
under cyclic loads was very small up to when the
load on the blind bolt reached 60% of the nomi-
nal ultimate capacity of bolts. In the connection
proposed in this study, the tensile load on the blind
bolt will be limited to 60% of its nominal ultimate
capacity. A comprehensive 3D finite element model
was developed for each test. The model considered
material and geometric nonlinearities. The inter-
action between different components (blind bolt
components, concrete, steel tube, T-stub) were con-
sidered in the analysis. The results of the FE analy-
ses were compared with the experimental results.
Close agreement was obtained between them.
The applied tensile load was shared between
different components of the DHABB. The loads
shared by the head bearing on the tube wall, the
middle head and the end head were investigated.
The proportion of load shared by each component
varied with the level of the total applied load. At
lower loads, the contribution of the middle head was
dominant. At higher loads, the contribution of the
end head exceeded that of the middle head. For most
of the cases considered, the amount of load taken by
the middle head and end head was similar when a
load of 60% of the bolt group capacity was reached.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Experimental testing of tube-based seismic collar connections

under cyclic loads

D. Wei & J. McCormick

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

ABSTRACT: Steel moment frames have been widely used in earthquake sensitive regions due to their
lightweight and ability to resist lateral forces induced by earthquakes. Although most seismic moment
frames utilize wide flange beam to column connections, there has been recent interest in the development
of square and rectangular tube-based moment frame systems to take advantage of the beneficial proper-
ties of closed sections, particularly low-rise systems. Previous studies showed the viability of tube-based
moment connections, but the connection configurations can be improved by limiting the need for field
welding. As a result, a tube-based collar connection concept is proposed and two collar connections
are designed, fabricated and tested under cyclic loads. The findings from the two full scale cyclic tests
provide important details on the hysteretic behavior, failure modes and sources of plastic rotation for
these connections and suggest that they are able to meet current special moment frame requirements.

1 INTRODUCTION resistance which makes them suitable as primary

load carrying members. Recently, studies on the
1.1 Background seismic performance of HSS-to-HSS beam to
column connections have increased which has led
Many steel structures rely on moment frame con-
to a more comprehensive understanding of their
figurations to resist lateral loads induced by earth-
feasibility when subjected to extreme loads. Exper-
quakes. In seismic regions, steel moment frames
imental tests have led to proposed design proce-
provide lateral resistance through the development
dures for HSS based moment frame connections
of plastic hinges at the beam ends or column bases
(Fadden et  al. 2014; Kumar & Rao 2006). Based
to dissipate earthquake input energy. The plastic
on the findings of these studies, if designed prop-
hinges act as fuses limiting inelastic behavior in
erly, HSS-to-HSS moment connections can exhibit
undesired locations in the structure. During the
adequate ductility and energy dissipation capacity
1994  Northridge earthquake, no steel buildings
for seismic applications. During two experimental
collapsed, but fracture was observed at the beam
tests of unreinforced, directly welded HSS-to-HSS
to column connections in approximately 120 steel
beam to column connections, excessive inelastic
moment frames (Roeder 2000). Although none
deformation in the column face was observed and
of the damaged buildings collapsed or caused sig-
brittle fracture initiated at the toe of the weld lead-
nificant injuries, economic losses associated with
ing to limited ductility (Fadden et  al. 2014). To
repairs were significantly large (Kircher et al. 1997).
improve the connection’s performance and better
The uncertainty about future performance of steel
limit inelastic deformation to the beam and panel
moment frames that arose from this earthquake
zone, reinforced HSS based moment connections
and the Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake in Japan
were considered to evaluate configurations utiliz-
the following year led to extensive investigation of
ing diaphragm plates (Fadden et al. 2014; Fadden
their seismic performance (Nakashima et al. 1998).
& McCormick 2014a). Although these connec-
However, the majority of this research focused on
tions showed behavior necessary for use in special
wide flange beam to wide flange column or wide
moment frame systems, they require a significant
flange beam to hollow structural section (HSS)
amount of field welding, including complete joint
column connections leading to some potentially
penetration (CJP) welds which incur a significant
beneficial alternative configurations, such as tube
cost, require time to execute properly and are sus-
based moment connections, being overlooked.
ceptible to poor quality depending on the condi-
HSS provide many beneficial properties for
tions in the field. Thus, the welded HSS based
seismic applications, such as a high strength-to-
collar connection concept is considered to improve
weight ratio that can reduce seismic mass; high
constructability and seismic performance of these
torsional stiffness that can limit the need for lat-
systems.
eral bracing; and good compression and bending

365
1.2 Objective
Experimental tests of two tube-based collar con-
nections are performed under larger cyclic loads
to explore their potential for seismic applications.
The full-scale cyclic tests of the tube-based collar
connections with and without stiffeners provide
insight into the hysteretic behavior, failure mecha-
nisms, secant stiffness behavior and distribution of
inelasticity with continued cycling to larger defor-
mation levels. Both of the tube-based collar con-
nections are able to develop the plastic moment
capacity of the HSS beam in a ductile manner
and meet the special moment frame requirements
of the American Institute of Steel Construction
(AISC 2010). The findings suggest that both stiff-
ened and unstiffened tube-based connections have
the potential for use in low-rise seismic moment
frame systems.
2 TUBE BASED COLLAR CONNECTION
2.1 Concept
To reduce the amount of field welding and expedite
construction speed, an innovative collar connec-
tion is considered. A schematic view of the collar
connection configuration is provided in Figure 1.
The connection configuration utilizes rectangular
hollow section (RHS) beams and square hollow
section (SHS) columns to take advantage of their
properties. To address field welding concerns and
construction speed, the HSS beam member has
a stiffened or unstiffened endplate that is shop
welded. The beam is attached to the column using
two collars that slip over the column and the beam
endplate. The lower collar is shop-welded to the
Figure 1. Collar connection concept.
366
Figure 2. Unstiffened collar connection welds.
column with a gap left between the column face
and collar to provide a location for the bottom of
the beam endplate to slip into in the field. Once the
beam is in place in the field, the upper collar can be
slipped down the column and over the top of the
beam endplate. As a result of prior shop welding,
only fillet welds or partial groove welds are needed
in the field to attach the upper collar to the column
and beam endplate and the beam endplate to the
column as opposed to complete joint penetration
welds that were used in the reinforced HSS based
moment connections conducted by Fadden et  al.
(2014). The required field welds and shop welds
are shown in Figure 2. Care must be taken to pro-
vide proper tolerances to allow the beam endplate
to fit into place in the field and proper sizing of
welds and members is necessary to limit the occur-
rence of brittle weld failure and other undesir-
able limit states associated with localized column
deformation.
2.2 Experimental setup and loading protocol
The beam-to-column connection subassemblies
are rotated 90  degree to meet laboratory con-
straints and make loading more convenient as
shown in Figure  3. The subassembly represents
an exterior moment connection in a low-rise
steel moment frame with 3.7 m floor heights and
6.4  m bay widths. The vertical members are HSS
305  ×  203  ×  9.5  mm beams and the horizontal
members are HSS 254 × 254 × 15.9 mm columns.
Both the beam and column are cut and pinned
at their theoretical inflection points based on the
moment frame configuration. The distance from
the beam tip to column centerline is 3.2 m, while
the distance between the two pins of the column
is 3.7 m. The free end of the beam is pinned and
connected to a 670  kN hydraulic actuator with a
0.8  m (+/– 0.4  m) stroke. The actuator is used to
apply cyclically increasing beam tip displacements
that simulate expected connection rotations during
a far-field type earthquake.
Figure  3. HSS based collar connection test setup and
configuration.
Figure  4. Loading protocol for the collar connection
tests.
The loading protocol represents a far-field
earthquake and follows the requirements pre-
scribed by AISC for prequalification of seismic
moment connections (AISC 2010). The loading
protocol is illustrated in Figure  4 with 38  cycles
gradually increasing from 0.00375 rad. to 0.08 rad.
The quasi-static loading rate is 1.3 mm/sec.
2.3 Test specimens
Details of the two full scale HSS based collar
connections are shown in Figure  5 and Figure  6.
An HSS 254  ×  254  ×  15.9 is chosen for the col-
umn since it is the largest section that meets the
stringent seismically compact width-thickness
limit requirement prescribed by the AISC Seismic
Provision for Steel Structural Buildings (2010).
An HSS 305  ×  203  ×  9.5 is selected as the beam
member since its nominal b/t and d/t ratios meet
SMF and IMF ductility criteria based on a previ-
ous HSS bending study conducted by Fadden and
McCormick (2014b).
367
Figure 5. Elevation view of the collar connection with
stiffeners (Unit: mm).
Figure 6. Elevation view of the collar connection with-
out stiffeners (Unit: mm).
Actual dimensions of the HSS beam and col-
umn are carefully measured, including: the corner
radii, height, width and wall thickness. The b/t, d/t
and plastic modulus are calculated based on these
measurements and listed in Table 1. Yield strength,
Fy, utilized for calculation of the plastic moment
capacity, Mp, of the HSS members is the average
yield strength from coupon specimens taken from
the flats of the HSS beam and column, respectively.
The collars and endplate are made of ASTM
A36 steel. The height of the collars is 152 mm and
the thickness is 12.7  mm. To ensure that the end-
plate acts in a rigid manner, a 25 mm thick endplate
is welded to the beam. A groove weld filled flush is
Table  1. Measured section properties of the HSS
members.
Member Fy Zx × 103 Mp
section b/t d/t (Mpa) (mm3) (kN-m)
HSS 305 × 203 × 9.5 17.2 27.2 402 911 366
HSS 254 × 254 × 15.9 12.8 13.2 424 1198 508
placed along the length of the endplate between the
column corner and endplate to carry the shear in the
connection. The endplate extends along the length of
the column 25 mm beyond the collar plates and is the
same width as the column limiting the potential for
column face plastification. Selection of the dimen-
sion of collars and endplate are based on the results
of a previous finite element study (Wei et al. 2015).
One collar connection is designed without endplate
stiffeners using a prequalified CJP groove weld, as
specified in AWS D1.1 (2010), to connect the HSS
beam to the endplate. To further control the load
transfer mechanism and explore the suitability of fil-
let welds for the beam to endplate connection, stiff-
eners are added to the second connection between
the beam and endplate and fillet welds are adopted
to weld the beam to the endplate. The thickness of
the triangular stiffener plates is 19 mm and the length
of the side of the triangle is 152 mm. The stiffeners
are made of ASTM A36 steel. The distance between
the beam flange and collar along the column in the
unstiffened connection is 76 mm and from the stiff-
ener’s toe to the collar in the stiffened connection is
25 mm. Due to presence of the stiffeners, the length
of the endplates are 813 mm and 1016 mm for the
connection without stiffeners and with stiffeners,
respectively. The transverse fillet weld sizes between
the column and collars and endplate and column
face are 10 mm and 16 mm, respectively. The welds
are designed to prevent weld failure prior to the
development of the beam’s plastic moment capacity.
3 HYSTERETIC BEHAVIOR
The hysteretic behavior of the collar beam to col-
umn connections is evaluated in terms of moment
capacity and moment degradation under large
cyclic rotations. Both collar connections are cycled
up to 0.08  rad. with 38 full cycles in total being
applied (Figure 3). The connection moment is cal-
culated using the load from the actuator multiplied
by the length of the beam plus the thickness of the
endplate and half the depth of the column as seen
in Equation 1.
Mconn = (lb + te + 0.5dc)L (1)
Mconn is the connection moment, L is the load
measured from actuator, lb is the length of the
368
beam, te is the thickness of endplate and dc is the
height of the column. The interstory drift or rota-
tion of the connection is calculated from the dis-
placement of the actuator divided by the length of
the beam plus the thickness of endplate and half
the depth of the column.
The measured elastic stiffness of the unstiffened
collar connection is 1594 kN/m, which is below the
calculated theoretical stiffness of 2225 kN/m. This
result indicates that the connection is relatively flex-
ible, which is not necessarily a problem for low-rise
systems. The connection moment is also normalized
by the measured plastic moment capacity of the
beam based the member dimension measurements
and material properties previously presented. The
normalized moment clearly shows that the connec-
tion without stiffeners is able to achieve the plastic
moment of the beam (Figure  7). The maximum
normalized moment is 1.23 indicating the connec-
tion is able to develop the plastic moment capacity
of the beam and suggesting its feasibility in seismic
applications from the perspective of strength.
The unstiffened connection reaches a maximum
moment of 451 kN-m at the 0.05 rad. cycle and local
buckling of the beam flange is not observed until
the first 0.06 rad. cycle as shown in Figure 8. Frac-
ture initiates at the corner of the HSS beam during
the second 0.07 rad. cycle as a result of the onset of
local buckling in the plastic hinge region. However,
this rotation is above that expected during a typical
earthquake. In the subsequent cycles with increasing
rotation level, fracture propagates slowly away from
the corners toward the center of web and flanges.
After reaching the maximum overall moment
capacity of the unstiffened connection, the maxi-
mum moment of each subsequent cycle decreases
by 12% and 28% for the second 0.06 rad. and first
0.07  rad. cycles. As a result of beam fracture, the
moment capacity decreases rapidly during subse-
quent cycles. In the first cycle to 0.08 rad., the maxi-
mum cycle moment decreases to 282 kN-m which
corresponds to a 49% decrease in the moment
Figure 7. Normalized moment versus connection rota-
tion for both collar connections.
Figure 8. Local buckling of the collar connection with-
out stiffeners at the first cycle at 0.06 rad.
capacity from the maximum overall moment. In the
final cycle, the maximum moment is only 155 kN-m
or a 70% moment degradation compared to the
maximum moment at 0.05  rad. The extent of the
fracture at the end of test is shown in Figure 10.
The measured elastic stiffeness of the connec-
tion with stiffeners is 1699  kN/m, which is stiffer
than the unstiffened connection, but still fairly
flexible compared to the theoretical stiffness of
2225  kN/m. The maximum normalized moment
is 1.25 showing that the stiffened connection also
achieves the plastic moment capacity of the beam
as shown in Figure 7.
The stiffened connection reaches its maximum
moment of 459 kN-m at the 0.05 rad. cycle and local
buckling of the beam near the top of the stiffeners
is not observed until the second cycle at 0.05 rad.
(Figure 9). In the first cycle to 0.06 rad., bulging is
observed in the beam web. Initiation of fracture at
the beam corner does not start until the first cycle
to 0.08 rad. The fracture quickly propagates in the
subsequent cycles and the maximum moment starts
to decrease as a result of fracture opening.
The moment capacity of the stiffened connec-
tion drops quickly to 260  kN-m at the first cycle
to 0.08 rad. which is a 40% decrease compared to
the maximum overall moment capacity of the con-
nection. In the final cycle, the maximum moment
is 193  kN-m, which represents a 58% moment
degradation compared to the maximum moment
reached. The extent of the fracture at the end of
testing is shown in Figure 10.
Both collar connections exhibit similar hysteretic
behavior under large cyclic loads with maximum nor-
malized moments around 1.2 at the 0.05 cycle. Thus,
both connections are able to achieve the beam plas-
tic moment capacity and sustain 80 percent of Mp
at the 0.04 rad. rotation level satisfying the require-
ment for SMF. The stiffened connection shows a
slightly larger elastic stiffness, 1699 kN/m, compared
to 1594  kN/m. for the unstiffened connection and
less moment degradation (i.e. 58% compared with
64% in unstiffened connection during the second
0.06 rad. cycles). The stiffeners are effective in mov-
ing the plastic hinge region away from column face.
369
Figure  9. Local buckling of collar connection with
stiffeners at the first 0.06 rad. cycle.
Figure 10. Fracture propagation at beam corners of the
collar connection at the end of the 0.08 rad. rotation cycle.
4 SECANT STIFFNESS BEHAVIOR
Secant stiffness of each cycle is measured by using
the load at the peak displacement divided by the
peak displacement. It provides an additional index
to evaluate capacity deterioration due to increasing
inelastic deformation and the initiation of fracture
in the connections. Secant stiffness at the first cycle
of each rotation level for both connections is plot-
ted in Figure 11. During the small story drift cycles
(i.e. story drift not larger than 0.02  rad.), the two
connections’ stiffnesses remain constant and almost
identical with values of 1594 kN/m and 1699 kN/m
for the unstiffened and stiffened collar connections
since the connections remain elastic. The secant
stiffness decreases to 702 kN/m at the 0.06 rad. cycle
and 858 kN/m at 0.05 rad. cycle for the unstiffened
and stiffened collar connections when local buckling
occurs. These values correspond to a 57% and 50%
stiffness degradation from the initial values. Upon
fracture initiation, the secant stiffness is 438 kN/m
and 315 kN/m, which is approximately a 73% stiff-
ness degradation at 0.07 rad. and an 80% stiffness
degradation at 0.08  rad. for the collar connection
without and with stiffeners, respectively. The col-
lar connection with stiffeners has a slightly larger
secant stiffness throughout the loading protocol

Figure  11. Secant stiffness for the first cycle at each
rotation level versus maximum positive cycle rotation.
which results from the fact that the plastic hinge
forms away from the column face. Both connections
exhibit similar secant stiffness degradation under
increasing cyclic loads with the stiffened collar con-
nection showing slightly more degradation.
5 DISTRIBUTION OF STRAIN IN THE
COLLAR CONNECTIONS
To explore the load transfer path in both collar
connections and strain distribution in the HSS
beam, six (be1-be6) and eight strain gages (be1-
be8) are placed on the east side of the HSS beam
flanges in the plastic hinge region for the collar
connection without and with stiffeners, respec-
tively, (Figure 12).
In the collar connection without stiffeners, the
maximum strain at each location ranges from
−0.018 for be1 at 0.07  rad. to 0.026 for be6 at
0.08 rad. as shown in Figure 13. When the rotation
of the beam is less than 0.04 rad., strain does not
exceed the yield strain and the maximum strain is
observed in strain gage be6 indicating initial load
transfer is from the beam corners to the center of
the beam flange then into the connection. In the
following cycles prior to local buckling of the beam
flange at 0.06 rad., strain gage be3 reaches its max-
imum strain value of 0.009 which is larger than the
measured yield strain from the beam flats. Strain
levels at the corners also exceed that at the beam
centerline during the 0.05  rad. cycle. When local
buckling occurs, strain gage be1 exhibits maximum
strain of 0.018 at the 0.06 rad. cycle which reveals
that loads flow from the beam corner to beam
center with yielding spreading to the whole flange.
However, after local buckling and fracture initia-
tion at the 0.06  rad. cycle, strain values decrease
which is attributable to the discontinuity in the
beam flange induced by fracture.
In the collar connection with stiffeners, the
maximum strain in the beam strain gages ranges
370
Figure  12. Layout of strain gage in the beam flange
(Unit: mm).
Figure 13. Strain in the beam versus connection rota-
tion level for the collar connection without stiffeners.
from to 0.002 in be7 to 0.003 in be1 at the 0.06 rad.
cycle as shown in Figure  14. When the rotation
level of the beam is less than 0.03  rad., strain is
smaller than the yield strain and the maximum
strain is observed in strain gage be2 reaching a
strain of 0.003. Prior to local buckling of the beam
flange at 0.05  rad., strains in strain gages be1 to
be3  increase rapidly, reaching maximum strain
values of 0.011 for be2 at 0.04  rad., which sug-
gests load concentrates at the top of the stiffeners.
This location is coincident with where local buck-
ling occurs in later cycles. When the onset of local
buckling occurs in the beam plastic hinge region,
strain gage be1 reaches its maximum strain of
0.020 at 0.05 rad. Strain values in gages be1 to be3
are largest compared to other strain gages which
reveals flexural yielding occurs first at the top of
the stiffeners in the beam flange. At the 0.08 rad.
drift level, strains drop as a result of the initiation
of fracture at the beam corners.
Overall for the stiffened connection, strain
gages be4 to be6 exhibit almost identical strain
values indicating load distributes uniformly along
the beam flange 305 mm away from the stiffener.
Strain gages be1 to be3  show the same order of
magnitude strain levels and similar trends during
 ling and fracture. After fracture, the panel zone no
longer sees significant strain levels due to defor-
mation being concentrated in the beam. A similar
behavior is seen in the panel zone for the connec-
tion with stiffeners as seen in Figure 18.
Shear strain in the panel zone is an order of
magnitude smaller than that in the beam flanges

Figure 14. Strain in the beam versus connection rota-

tion level for the collar connection with stiffeners.

Figure  16. Layout of strain gage rosettes in the panel

zone of the collar connection with stiffeners (Unit: mm).

Figure 15. Layout of strain gage rosettes in the panel zone

of the collar connection without stiffeners (Unit: mm).

all of the 38 cycles. Strains in gages be1 to be3 are

always greatest compared to the other strain gages
suggesting that load concentrates at the top of the
stiffeners and is distributed uniformly over the
beam flange elsewhere. Strain gages be7 and be8
typically do not reach their yield strain suggesting
the majority of deformation occurs beyond the
stiffeners along the beam flange. Figure 17. Shear strain versus connection rotation for
To further monitor the strain distribution in the the collar connection without stiffeners.
panel zone, four strain gage rosettes (pz1-pz4) are
placed in the center and corners of the panel zone
in both collar connections as shown in Figure 15
and Figure 16 for the unstiffened and stiffened col-
lar connections, respectively.
In the collar connection without stiffeners, for
rotation levels smaller than 0.02 rad., strains in pz1
to pz4 are linearly proportional to the drift ratio
which indicates the panel zone only undergoes elas-
tic deformation as shown in Figure 17. Strain in the
center of the panel zone (i.e. strain rosette pz1) is
the largest reaching a maximum value of 0.0036 at
0.05 rad. and exceeding the yield strain before local
buckling is observed in the beam. The shear strains
in pz2 to pz4 show similar strain levels throughout
the entire loading history with maximum values of
0.0013, 0.0013 and 0.0012 at the 0.06  rad. cycle. Figure 18. Shear strain versus connection rotation for
Strain in pz1 decreases rapidly after local buck- the collar connection with stiffeners.

371
indicating the panel zone experiences limited defor-
mation. Formation of compression and tension
struts causes shear strain in pz1 to be the great-
est compared to those measured in strain rosettes
pz2 to pz4. The shear strains in gages pz2 to pz4
exhibit a similar trend and have almost identical
values throughout the loading history in the con-
nection without and with stiffeners.
Overall, the maximum shear strain at the center
of the panel zone (pz1) is close to the shear yield
strain of the column, while strain in gages pz2 to
pz4 is much smaller than the yield strain indicating
the panel zone experiences limited inelastic defor-
mation for both connections. The lack of signifi-
cant inelastic behavior in the panel zone of both
connections suggests that they are a strong panel
zone design and the panel zone can be better uti-
lized in future designs.
6 CONCLUSIONS
To reduce field welding requirements and
increase construction speed, the tube-based collar
connection concept is developed utilizing a beam
endplate and collars to connect an RHS beam
to an SHS column in a low-rise seismic moment
frame system. An experimental study is undertaken
to evaluate the performance of two tube-based col-
lar connections. The connections are designed to
ensure that the connection develops the beam’s
plastic moment capacity without the occurrence
of brittle weld failure under large cyclic loads. The
connections are cycled according to a loading pro-
tocol to simulate a far-field earthquake and the
results are evaluated in terms of the connection
hysteretic behavior, secant stiffness behavior, and
strain levels in the beam member and panel zone.
Both the unstiffened and stiffened collar con-
nections exhibit stable hysteretic behavior up to
the 0.06 rad. story drift level with moment degra-
dation less than 10%. Both connections are able to
develop the plastic moment capacity of the beam.
The presence of endplate stiffeners is effective in
moving the plastic deformation away from the col-
umn face which leads to a slightly earlier onset of
local buckling and less plastic rotation outside the
RHS beam compared to the unstiffened connec-
tion. The elastic stiffness of both collar connec-
tions is smaller than calculated theoretical values
indicating the potential for larger story drifts than
anticipated during a seismic event.
The strain distribution in the RHS beam sur-
passes the yield strain indicating inelasticity con-
centrates in the beam member. As cyclic rotations
increase, the panel zone experiences limited yield-
ing which initiates at its center for both connec-
tions. No local buckling or failure is observed in
372
the panel zone with only negligible rotation associ-
ated with inelastic deformation indicating a strong
panel zone design.
Both connections show seismic performance
that is acceptable for IMF and SMF systems which
require the connection to maintain at least 80%
of its moment capacity at 0.02 rad. and 0.04 rad.
of rotation, respectively. However, the perform-
ance could be improved by engaging other struc-
tural components in accommodating the inelastic
deformation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is supported by the National Science
Foundation through Grant No. CMMI-1334272.
Atlas Tube is greatly appreciated for their dona-
tion of the beam and column members and
Douglas Steel Fabricating Corporation fabricated
the connections. The views expressed herein are
solely those of the authors and do not represent
the views of the supporting agency.
REFERENCES
AISC. 2010. Seismic Provisions for Structural Steel
Buildings. Chicago: American Institute of Steel
Construction.
AWS. 2010. Structural Welding Code—Steel. Miami.
American Welding Society.
Fadden, M., & McCormick, J. 2014a. HSS-to-HSS seis-
mic moment connection performance and design.
Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 101: 373–384.
Fadden, M., & McCormick, J. 2014b. Finite element model
of the cyclic bending behavior of hollow structural sec-
tions. Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 94: 64–75.
Fadden, M., Wei, D., & McCormick, J. 2014. Cyclic Test-
ing of Welded HSS-to-HSS Moment Connections for
Seismic Applications. Journal of Structural Engineer-
ing, 141(2): 04014109.
Kircher, C.A., Reitherman, R.K., Whitman, R.V. &
Arnold, C. (1997). Estimation of earthquake losses to
buildings. Earthquake Spectra, 13(4): 703–720.
Kumar, S.S., & Rao, D.P. (2006). RHS beam-to-column
connection with web opening—experimental study
and finite element modelling. Journal of Construc-
tional Steel Research, 62(8): 739–746.
Nakashima, M., Inoue, K., & Tada, M. 1998. Classifica-
tion of damage to steel buildings observed in the 1995
Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake. Engineering Structures,
20(4–6): 271–281.
Roeder, C. 2000. Performance of Moment-Resisting Con-
nections. Paper presented at the 12th World Conference
on Earthquake Engineering, Auckland, NEW Zealand.
Wei, D., McCormick, J., Hartigan, M., & Fadden, M.
2015. Performance of Tube-Based Moment Connec-
tions under Cyclic Loads. Proceedings of the 15th
International Symposium on Tubular Structures, Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Cumulative damage of notched specimens with brittle fracture

under cyclic loading

T. Iwashita
National Institute of Technology, Ariake College, Fukuoka, Japan

A. Tateno
Kumamoto University, Kumamoto, Japan

K. Azuma
Sojo University, Kumamoto, Japan

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the effects of cyclic loading on brittle fracture. Notched specimens
were tested under monotonic loading and other two types of cyclic loading (C: constant amplitude
loading, and CM: monotonic loading after constant amplitude cyclic loading). It was found that the
cumulative ductility under cyclic loading deteriorated the cumulative ductility of the monotonic loading
part for specimens under monotonic loading after constant amplitude cyclic loading. Also, the relationship
between the ductility amplitude and cumulative ductility had a good correlation for C specimens. Finally,
the results of the cumulative damage obtained from cumulative plastic deformation showed a little
underestimation of the occurrence of brittle fracture for CM specimens.

1 INTRODUCTION Manson 1954) with different material toughness.

Evaluating the occurrence of brittle fracture under
cyclic loading is a critical issue for structures,
particularly those that have experienced a major
earthquake, because such loading can degrade
material toughness and may induce premature
brittle fracture.
This paper describes the effects of cyclic load-
ing on the occurrence of brittle fracture. Notched
specimens with different material toughness (low
fracture toughness and high fracture toughness)
were tested under monotonic loading and other
two types of cyclic loading (constant amplitude
loading, monotonic loading after constant ampli-
tude cyclic loading). The previous research (Iwas-
hita & Azuma 2015) showed that as deflection
amplitude increased, cumulative plastic deforma-
tion and number of cycles prior to brittle fracture
decreased in approximately inverse proportion
as with other papers (e.g. Ichinohe & Kuwamura
2000) although cumulative plastic deformation val-
ues showed wide scatter. However, only one type
of material with low fracture toughness was used
to conduct the research to consider the effect of
cyclic loading.
In this study, relationship between the ductility
amplitude and cumulative ductility is discussed
based on the Coffin-Manson law (e.g. Coffin 1954,
In addition to that, a challenge of this study is
application of cumulative damage by Miner’s Rule
(Miner 1945) to the specimens because the Miner’s
Rule is basically applied for fatigue life estima-
tion, not for brittle fracture prediction. Number of
cycles prior to brittle fracture was used to calcu-
late the cumulative damage, D, of specimens with
monotonic loading after constant amplitude cyclic
loading, but cumulative plastic deformation values
are also used to calculate the cumulative damage,
D, instead of the number of cycles. The cumula-
tive plastic deformation should be more useful to
estimate the occurrence of brittle fracture because
brittle fracture occurs with a few cycles of loading
(e.g. two or three cycles). The relationship between
the cumulative damages obtained from the number
of cycles and cumulative plastic deformation val-
ues is discussed and cumulative damage values are
evaluated in this paper.
2 SPECIMENS AND TESTING
PROCEDURES
2.1 Specimens
Figure 1 shows the specimen geometry and load-
ing position. All test specimens are of the same
geometry as shown in Figure  1. This type of the

373
 Table 1. Material tensile properties.

Yield strength Ultimate strength VE−20

Material MPa MPa J

SM490A 344 596 11

SN490B 383 554 64

Figure 1. Specimen geometry.

geometry is used to investigate fracture behavior,

especially for brittle fracture with cyclic loading
(e.g. Kuwamura & Takagi 2004). Since brittle frac-
ture usually occurs with wide scatter, many speci-
mens for testing are required to consider scatter. To
reduce the number of the specimens, four notches
are installed in each specimen. Notch root radius,
ρ, is 0.15 mm in the research and the notches are
symmetrically located around a loading pinhole at
its centre. All are 23.0 mm thick.

2.2 Material properties

The samples were machined from SM490A weld-
ing structural steel plate (JIS G3106) and SN490B
building structural steel plate (JIS G3136). Tensile
and Charpy impact test results for both materi-
als are compiled in Table 1, where VE−20 indicates Figure 2. Positions of load application.
absorbed energy at −20°C, which is the test temper-
ature in this study for both materials. As apparent
in the table, SM490A had a low fracture toughness
and SN490B had a higher fracture toughness.

2.3 Test setup and loading sequences

Specimens were tested under three types of load-
ing: monotonic loading (M), constant ampli-
tude cyclic loading (C), and monotonic loading
after constant amplitude cyclic loading (CM).
Figure 2 shows loading position. The dashed line Figure 3. Loading patterns.
indicates an insulated box, which we used together
with a mixture of ethanol and dry ice to maintain
a low test temperature. Pin supports were provided Table  2  shows a summary of specimens and
at both ends of the specimens. Displacement at the loading types. Three specimens were tested for
loading point was measured along the loading axis. each loading in the research. However, when the
Loading was applied to the centre of the specimens results showed wide scatter, one or two more speci-
by hydraulic ram, with its head moving at a con- mens were tested additionally.
stant displacement rate.
Three types of loading patterns are conceptually
illustrated in Figure 3. For C specimens, constant 3 METHODOLOGY
amplitude cyclic loading was applied to failure. For
CM specimens, monotonic loading was increased Test results are interpreted in terms of ductility
until failure after one to four cycles of constant amplitude, μ, and cumulative ductility, η. Test
amplitude cyclic loading. M and C are a basic data are arranged in the manner of Kuwamura &
loading procedure and CM is used to investigate Takagi (2004). For cyclic loading, average ductility
the effect of cyclic loading on cumulative ductility. amplitude, μ, is defined as

374
Table 2. Summary of specimens.

Amplitude,
Number of +/−Δδ
Specimen specimens (mm) Δδ/δp n-CM

Material: SM490A
M 3 – – –
C3.0 3 3.0 2.1 –
C3.7 5 3.7 2.6 –
C4.8 3 4.8 3.3 –
CM3.0-1 4 3.0 2.1 1
CM3.0-2 5 3.0 2.1 2
CM3.7-1 5 3.7 2.6 1
Material: SN490B
M 3 – – –
C6.4 3 6.4 4.0 –
C9.6 5 9.6 6.0 –
C12.8 3 12.8 8.0 –
CM6.4-4 3 6.4 4.0 4
CM6.4-2 3 6.4 4.0 2
CM8.0-2 3 8.0 5.0 2
CM9.6-2 3 9.6 6.0 2

M: Monotonic loading;
C: Constant amplitude cyclic loading;
CM: Monotonic loading after constant amplitude cyclic
loading;
Δδ: +/−Displacement amplitude;
δp: Elastic displacement at the full plastic load, Qp, Figure 4. Definition of symbols.
(obtained by the General Yield Point method);
n-CM: Number of cycles before monotonic loading for
CM. η is cumulative ductility until fracture and is
defined as follows:
Δδ p
μ= (1) Δδ p δ p 2 +  + Δδ p n +1
δp η= (4)
δp
Here, Δδp is the average displacement amplitude
where N + 1 = 5 in the case of Figure 4(a). η for
(half-amplitude) and δp is the elastic displacement
the CM loading pattern (Figure 4(b)) is also calcu-
at the full plastic load, Qp, which is obtained by
lated in the same way. η for monotonic loading is
the general yield point method. A definition of
defined as ηM:
symbols is shown in Figure 4. Because of a slight
difference in Δδp by cycle during cyclic loading in
δ pM
the same specimen, Δδp was calculated as average ηM = (5)
displacement amplitude as follows: δp

Δδ p Δδ p 2 +  + Δδ pN where δpM as shown in Figure 4(a).

Δδ p = (2)
N

Number of cycles, N, here is different from 4 TEST RESULTS

the general definition of N. N is defined as modi-
fied number of cycles in this paper according to 4.1 Test results
Kuwamura & Takagi (2004) and Nf is calculated Brittle fracture was observed in all specimens upon
as number of cycles prior to brittle fracture as increasing loading. As mentioned above, every
follows: specimen has four notches. When a sample is under
load, two of the notches will be in tension and
η two in compression. Brittle fracture could poten-
Nf = (3)
μ tially occur from either of the notches in tension.

375
In  actuality, brittle fracture was observed to
occur from one of those notches in all specimens.
Figure  5  shows an example of a specimen after
brittle fracture and Figure 6 shows fracture surface
for both SM and SN materials. From Figure 6, we
can see that brittle fracture was initiated around
the centre of the specimen in the through-thickness
direction. While a small (less than 1.0 mm) ductile
crack was found to have initiated from the tip of
the notch prior to brittle fracture for the specimens
with SM490A, a large ductile crack (over 3.0 mm)
Figure 5. Specimen after fracture.
Figure 6. Fracture surface.
Figure 7. Examples of load-displacement curves (CM).
376
was found for the specimens with SN490B because
of the difference of the material fracture toughness.
Example load-displacement curves for CM
specimens are shown in Figure 7. The cross marks
in the figure indicate fracture points. Displacement
at fracture for SM material (CM3.0-2) was signifi-
cantly smaller than that for SN material (CM6.4-2)
because of difference of the fracture toughness.
4.2 Effect of cyclic loading on cumulative
ductility
Figure  8  shows cumulative ductility versus duc-
tility amplitude for both materials. The data
include the monotonic loading results in the
figure. Generally, the ductility ηM of monotoni-
cally loaded specimens is not directly comparable
to the cumulative ductility η, of cyclically loaded
specimens. However, we attempted a comparison
by assuming that monotonic loading was a sub-
category of cyclic loading. This means that we
assume that monotonic loading is cyclic loading
Figure  8. Cumulative ductility versus ductility ampli-
tude obtained from C and M test results (the crass marks
indicate the average η).
under which the specimen fractures during its first
cycle because of a large displacement amplitude.
Here, we thus assume that cumulative ductility ηM
of the M specimens can be expressed in terms of
either ductility amplitude, μ, or cumulative ductil-
ity, η. It was found that as deflection amplitude
increases, cumulative plastic deformation prior to
brittle fracture decreases in approximately inverse
proportion. This result is in keeping with previous
studies (e.g. Ichinohe & Kuwamura 2000).
Figure  9  shows the relationship between ηCM
and ηC for CM specimens. ηC is cumulative ductil-
ity corresponds to the constant amplitude cyclic
loading part (N = 1 to 4 in the case of Figure 4(b)).
This could be interpreted as “stored damage” with
respect to material toughness. ηC is cumulative duc-
tility corresponds to the monotonic loading part
after constant amplitude cyclic loading (N  =  5  in
the case of Figure  4(b)). Cumulative ductility of
monotonic loading part, ηCM, can also be calculated
by subtracting ηC from η. As shown in Figure  9,
ηC, which is the cumulative ductility under cyclic
loading, deteriorates ηCM although the results for
SM490A shows wide scatter. The plotted points in
Figure 9 apparently show larger scatter as compared
Figure 9. Effect of cyclic loading on cumulative ductil-
ity for CM specimens.
377
with Figure 8 because ηCM in Figure 9 was obtained
by subtracting ηC from η, and ηC took almost the
same value for each loading pattern.
5 BRITTLE FRACTURE PREDICTION
5.1 Brittle fracture prediction for C specimens
Figure  10  shows the ductility amplitude versus
modified number of cycles prior to brittle fracture
of cyclic loading results (including monotonic load-
ing results) for both SM and SN materials. The fig-
ure also shows approximate equations based on the
Coffin-Manson law (e.g. Coffin 1954, Manson 1954)
and the squares of the correlation coefficient, R2, of
the regressions. As the ductility amplitude decreases,
the number of cycles prior to brittle fracture
decreases for both materials. Also, fitted curves have
good correlations with the experimental results for
both materials and this means that the relationship
between the ductility amplitude and the modified
number of cycles follows the Coffin-Manson law.
Figure 11 shows the ductility amplitude versus
cumulative ductility prior to brittle fracture. The
Figure 10. Ductility amplitude versus modified number
of cycles prior to brittle fracture.
Figure 11. Ductility amplitude versus cumulative ducti-
lity.

Figure 12. Ductility amplitude versus cumulative ducti-
lity.
horizontal axis in Figure 11 is the cumulative duc-
tility instead of the modified number of cycles in
Figure 10 because the cumulative ductility, which
is the plastic deformation capacity, should be more
useful to estimate the occurrence of brittle frac-
ture. As the cumulative ductility is naturally related
to the modified number of cycles, the relationship
between the ductility amplitude and cumulative
ductility shows the same tendency as that in Fig-
ure 10. Although the spread of plotted points for
SM490 was relatively large, the results indicate
that the fracture behavior as shown in Figure  11
also follows the Coffin-Manson law. Figure 10 and
11 also show that the slope of the both regression
lines is relatively close. This means that similitude
law of prefracture hysteresis (Kuwamura & Takagi
2004) is expected to be applied to the results with
different fracture toughnessess for evaluating the
occurrence of brittle fracture in a unified manner.
Figure 12 is plots of cumulative ductility versus
ductility amplitude, with both divided by cumu-
lative ductility for monotonic loading, ηM (non-
dimensionalized values) according to similitude
law of prefracture hysteresis. The same tendency
previously explained in relation to Figure  10 and
11 is also observed in Figure 12. Although plotted
points show wide scatter compared with those in
Figure 10 and 11, the correlation coefficient, R, of
this regression in Figure 12 is 0.910. Thus, there is
a possibility that the regression line expresses the
occurrence of brittle fracture with different frac-
ture toughnesses in a unified manner.
5.2 Cumulative damage of CM specimens
Although Miner’s rule (Miner 1945) is one of the
most widely used cumulative damage models for
failures caused by fatigue, we apply Miner’s rule
for estimation of occurrence of brittle fracture
in low-cyclic loading. The cumulative damage is
expressed as follows:
378
Ni N1 N
DN = ∑ i = + 2 (6)
N fi Nf Nf2
where D is the damage index, Ni and Nfi are
the modified number of cycles under the con-
stant amplitude loading and fatigue life (modi-
fied number of cycles prior to brittle fracture in
this paper) under the same amplitude loading,
respectively. Values of D greater than or equal to
1.0  indicate a fracture of the member. As shown
in Equation (6), the results for CM specimens are
divided into two parts: cyclic loading part, N1, and
monotonic loading part, N2, in the same manner as
ηC. and ηCM, respectively.
Figure 13 shows the relationship between cumu-
lative damage values of Dη/ηM and DN (including
monotonic and cyclic loading results). Dη/ηM is
defined by:
ηi /ηM η /η η /η
Dη /ηM = ∑ i = 1 M + 2 M (7)
η fi /ηM η f /ηM η f /ηM
In this equation, the cumulative ductility, η/ηM,
is used to calculate the cumulative damage, Dη/ηM,
instead of modified number of cycles, N. Dη/ηM is
naturally related to DN, and the Dη/ηM have a very
high correlation with DN as shown in Figure  13.
This enable us to discuss brittle fracture prediction
with the cumulative damage based on cumulative
ductility, which indicate the plastic deformation
capacity.
Figure 14 shows the cumulative damage of CM
specimens for both SM and SN materials. The
horizontal axis is Dη1/ηM, which is the cumulative
Figure  13. Relationship between cumulative damage
values of Dη/ηM and DN.

Figure 14. Cumulative damage of CM specimens.
damage for the cyclic loading part. Although the
results for SM material show wide scatter as with
C specimens, the average values of the cumula-
tive damage, Dη/ηM, are approximately 0.8 for both
materials regardless of degree of the cumulative
damage for the cyclic loading part. The results
(Dη/ηM < 1.0) means underestimation of occurrence
of brittle fracture. While there is scatter in the
cumulative damage and it gives a little underesti-
mation of brittle fracture, there is a possibility that
the cumulative damage obtained from the cumu-
lative ductility, η, could predict the occurrence of
brittle fracture.
6 CONCLUSIONS
This paper focused on the effects of cyclic loading
on the occurrence of brittle fracture and described
brittle fracture prediction. Notched specimens
with different fracture toughnesses were tested
under three types of loading: monotonic loading,
constant amplitude cyclic loading and monotonic
loading after constant amplitude cyclic loading.
We found that the cumulative ductility under cyclic
loading deteriorated the cumulative ductility of the
monotonic loading part for CM specimens. Our
results suggested the possibility that the regression
line could express the occurrence of brittle fracture
with different fracture toughnesses for cyclic load-
379
ing specimens. Finally, the results had a very high
correlation between the cumulative damages based
on modified number of cycles and the cumulative
ductility, and showed a little underestimation of
the occurrence of brittle fracture for monotonic
loading after constant amplitude cyclic loading
specimens.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research was supported in part by JSPS
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Grant
Number: 25820276, 16 K06598 and 16 K06595).
REFERENCES
AIJ Kinki. 1997. Full-scale test on plastic rotation capac-
ity of steel wide-flange beams connected with square
tube steel columns. Osaka: Committee on Steel Build-
ing Structures, The Kinki Branch of Architectural
Institute of Japan. (in Japanese)
Coffin, L.F. 1954. A study of the effects of cyclic thermal
stresses on a ductile metal. Transactions of the ASME
76: 931–950.
Ichinohe, Y. & Kuwamura, H. 2000. Effects of deflection
amplitude on brittle fracture of steel members—
Research on steel fracture Part 3. Journal of Struc-
tural and Construction Engineering (Transactions of
Architectural Institute of Japan) 534: 145–151. (in
Japanese).
Iwashita, T. & Azuma, K. 2015. Effects of cyclic loading
on occurrence of brittle fracture in notched speci-
mens. Proceedings of the 15th international symposium
on Tubular Structures, Rio de Janeiro: 599–604.
Iwashita, T. & Azuma, K. 2016. Effects of notch sharp-
ness and depth on brittle fractures in single-edge
notched bend specimens. Engineering Fracture
Mechanics 164: 60–73.
Kuwamura, H. & Takagi, N. 2004. Similitude law of
prefracture hysteresis of steel members. Journal of
Structural Engineering 130(5): 752–761.
Manson, S.S. 1954. Behavior of materials under condi-
tions of thermal stresses. NACA Technical Report
1170: 1–34.
Miner, M.A. 1945. Cumulative Damage in Fatigue. Jour-
nal of Applied Mechanics 12(3): A159–A164.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Cyclic loading on cold-formed SHS stub columns

Y. Dong & L.J. Jia

Research Institute of Structural Engineering and Disaster Reduction, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

ABSTRACT: When members of steel structures are subjected to an earthquake motion, global and local
buckling can lead to localized plastic strain and subsequent ductile fracture, which has been observed in
past strong earthquakes. Therefore, it is of significant importance to predict ductile crack initiation and
propagation of steel members, which can be employed to evaluate ductility and energy dissipation capac-
ity of structural steel members and whole structures. The aim of this paper is to investigate post-buckling
cracking mode and energy dissipation capacity of cold-formed Square Hollow Section (SHS) stub col-
umns. The effects of width-to-thickness ratio and heat treatment are experimentally studied through six
specimens under incremental loading. Ductile fracture was identified in the experiments. Locations of
crack initiation were different for specimens with and without heat treatment. The total plastic energy
dissipation capacity generally decreases as the width-to-thickness ratio increases.

1 INTRODUCTION strength, initial and post-buckling resistance, duc-

Fracture is one of the main failure modes of steel
structures, which can be observed during past
severe earthquake events, e.g. the 1994  North-
ridge earthquake and the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
When steel structural members are subjected to
strong earthquake motions, global or local buck-
ling first occurs and subsequently followed by
ductile fracture after several or dozens of large
displacement loading cycles. It is of significant
importance to predict ductile crack initiation
and propagation of steel members, which can be
employed to further evaluate ductility and energy
dissipation capacity of structural steel members
and whole structures.
Studies on hollow section members under cyclic
loading have been carried out by several research-
ers. A series of tests on twenty cold-formed cir-
cular hollow sections (CHS) braces under three
loading protocols are conducted by Elchalakani
et  al. (2003) to study the hysteresis behavior, and
effect of slenderness on strength, ductility and
energy absorption. Ductile fracture of ten steel
CHS braces is experimentally studied under cyclic
incremental loading by Takeuchi & Matsui (2011).
Global and local buckling occur before crack initia-
tion, and cracks are reported to initiate at the local
buckling zone, while the detailed locations of crack
initiation are not presented. Fifteen cold-formed
steel rectangular hollow sections (RHS) and SHS
specimens with intermediate and large slenderness
ratios are tested under incremental axial loading by
Goggins et al. (2005) to study effects of section and
member properties on the tensile and compressive
tility and energy dissipation capacities of braces.
To date, study on crack initiation and propa-
gation of steel members under cyclic loading is
limited. Effect of heat treatment process on cyclic
behavior of cold-formed stub columns has not
been experimentally studied either. In this paper,
six cold-formed SHS stub columns were designed
and experimentally tested, where three specimens
were heat-treated. Based on the test results, dif-
ferent buckling and cracking processes under
incremental loading were identified. The meas-
ured strength and stiffness of the specimens are
compared. Moreover, effects of heat treatment
and width-to-thickness ratio on energy dissipation
capacities of the columns were also investigated.
2 SCHEME OF EXPERIMENT
Cold-formed SHS stub columns illustrated in
Figure  1 were tested under quasi-static loading.
The columns are made of STKR400. The meas-
ured geometrical parameters of the specimens are
listed in Table  1. The length and width of each
specimen is 300 mm and 100 mm respectively. The
specimens were manufactured from three long
cold-formed box columns with various width-to-
thickness ratios. Two circular loading plates with
a thickness of 30 mm were welded to the columns
using full penetration welding. The weld beads of
the columns were removed before welding the stub
columns to the loading plates. The columns with
heat treatment were heat-treated before they were
connected to the loading plates. The heat-treated

381
Figure 1. Configuration of test specimens.

Table 1. Measured geometrical and mechanical properties of specimens.

t Width-to- A σy Loading Heat-

Specimens (mm) thickness ratio (mm2) (N/mm2) history treatment

RH1-3 2.1 47.6 780 258.1 Yes

RH2-3 4.2 23.8 1572 233.2 Incremental
RH3-3 8.4 11.9 2847 238.3
RC1-3 2.1 47.6 780 453.7 No
RC2-3 4.2 23.8 1572 442.9 Incremental
RC3-3 8.4 11.9 2847 428.4

*σy is the average initial tensile yield stress.

specimens were heated to 870°C and held at this

temperature for an hour. The surfaces of each col-
umn were numbered from ‘Surface 1’ to ‘Surface
4’, where the surface with a seam weld was num-
bered as ‘Surface 1’. White grids were marked on
the surfaces of the specimens to facilitate obser-
vation of buckling modes and locations of crack
initiation.
The experiments were carried out using a uni-
versal testing machine with a maximum tensile
capacity of 2000 kN and a maximum compressive
capacity of 5000  kN. The specimens were rigidly
bolted to the loading plates of the test machine.
Two laser displacement meters with a maximum
range of ±100  mm were placed between the two
loading plates to measure their relative displace-
ment. Two stainless thin plates were located
between the bolts and the upper loading plate to Figure 2. Loading protocol.
reflect the laser. The experiments were controlled
by the relative displacement. The loading protocol
was designed as incremental loading to simulate initiation. Pictures were automatically taken every
far-field earthquakes, as illustrated in Figure  2. five to fifteen seconds, and they were automatically
Four cameras were placed at each side of the numbered and correlated with the correspond-
columns to catch the time and locations of crack ing load-displacement data. Then, the time and

382
locations at which cracks initiate can be captured face, illustrated in Figure 3a. Due to symmetry of
automatically during the experiments. the buckling mode and the cross sections of the
Mechanical properties of cold-formed columns specimens, cracks may also occur at the corners of
are complicated due to the cold forming process, inner surfaces.
which results in different material properties over Process B: This process occurs in non-heat-treated
the whole section, and also produces residual stress specimens with medium and large width-to-thickness
and strain within the section. The seam welding ratios. The out-of-phase buckling first occurs, and
also makes the stress state within the section more cracks initiate at the corners and seam weld simul-
complicated. The tensile test coupons were cut taneously, as illustrated in Figure 3b. This is because
from the parallel, the corner and the welding parts the ductility of the welding part has been signifi-
to obtain the average material properties of the cantly reduced during the welding process.
section. For each type of coupons, three coupons Process C: This process only occurs in non-heat-
were made to study the material deviations and treated specimens with a small width-to-thickness
obtain the average properties illustrated in Table 1. ratio. The in-phase buckling mode first occurs,
and cracks seem to initiate at the mid-width of the
inner surfaces.
3 TEST RESULTS
3.1.2 Effect of width-to-thickness ratio
3.1 Failure processes Buckling modes and cracking processes can be
different for non-heat-treated specimens with dif-
3.1.1 Cracking processes
ferent width-to-thickness ratios. Out-of-phase
One representative cracking mode, i.e. surface
cracking, was identified in the experiments. The
surface cracking is characterized by several dis- Table 2. Test results of specimens.
crete cracks at the corners of the outer and inner
surfaces. Based on the difference in cracking loca- Ep Cracking
tions, the surface cracking can be divided into Specimens (kJ) Ep/Ee Buckling modes processes
three processes, as shown in Figure 3. Test results
RH1-3 17.8 468 out-of-phase A
of the specimens are shown in Table 2. The crack-
RH2-3 47.7 769 out-of-phase A
ing processes and the corresponding mechanisms
RH3-3 263.9 2236 out-of-phase A
are given as follows.
RC1-3 19.2 164 out-of-phase B
Process A: This process only occurs in heat- RC2-3 44.9 200 out-of-phase B
treated specimens. The out-of-phase buckling first RC3-3 290.3 764 in-phase C
occurs, where two surfaces buckle inwards and the
other two surfaces buckle outwards. Since plastic *Ep is the total dissipated plastic energy till loss of ten-
strain is concentrated at the corners, cracks were sile strength of the heat-treated and non-heat-treated
observed to initiate at the corners of the outer sur- specimens.

Figure 3. Three types of surface cracking process.

383
buckling first occurs for specimens with large and
medium width-to-thickness ratios. Differently, in-
phase buckling first occurs for specimens with a
small width-to-thickness ratio. The buckling mode
of Specimen RC3-3 is different from that of Speci-
mens RC1-3 and RC2-3. Specimens RC1-3 and
RC2-3 buckle in the out-of-phase buckling mode,
while Specimen RC3-3 buckles in the in-phase
buckling mode. Since cracks tend to initiate at the
buckling locations, the different buckling modes
result in different locations of crack initiation.
Cracks initiate at the corners and the seam welds
simultaneously for Specimens RC1-3 and RC2-3,
while cracks seem to initiate at the inner surfaces
for Specimen RC3-3.
3.1.3 Effect of heat treatment
Buckling modes can be different for specimens
with and without heat treatment. For the speci-
mens with heat treatment, only a single buckling
mode, i.e. out-of-phase buckling, and the same
cracking process, i.e. cracking process A, were
identified during the experiments. For the speci-
mens without heat treatment, two buckling modes,
i.e. out-of-phase buckling and in-phase buckling,
and two cracking processes, i.e. cracking processes
B and C, were identified. The test results indicate
that variation of width-to-thickness ratios have lit-
tle effect on the buckling mode and cracking proc-
ess of heat-treated specimens. However, it is quite
different for the specimens without heat treatment,
as mentioned above.
The locations of the crack initiation can be
different for specimens with and without heat
treatment. For example, crack can initiate at one
random surface (Surface 1 to Surface 4) of the heat-
treated specimens. For the non-heat-treated speci-
mens, cracks were found to be apt to first initiate
on the surface with the seam weld (Surface 1). As a
result of cold-forming progress and seam welding,
the mechanical properties of the specimens can be
rather complicated. Ductility of heat affected zone
(HAZ) near welds is commonly lower than that of
the corresponding base metal and the weld, which
makes the cold-formed specimens without heat
treatment fracture at the HAZ. The locations of
crack initiation can thus be different due to change
of material properties resulted by heat treatment.
3.2 Strength and stiffness of stub columns
Summarized in Table  3 are comparisons of the
nominal versus measured strengths and stiff-
ness for each of the tests. The nominal strengths
are generally determined by using the measured
material properties from the coupon tests. The
measured strengths are determined from the cor-
responding test results.
The nominal tensile yield strength of stub col-
umns, nFy, is calculated as the product of the meas-
ured yield strengths, σy, and the cross-sectional
area, A. The tensile yield strength, Fy, and maxi-
mum tensile strength, Fu, of the stub columns are
identified in the hysteretic curves from the tests.
The ratio of the measured tensile strength to
nominal tensile yield strength, Fy/nFy, is close to 1.0
for the heat-treated specimens with medium and
large width-to-thickness ratios. However, for the
specimens with a small width-to-thickness ratio
or without heat treatment, Fy can hardly reach the
nominal value. The maximum tensile strength to
the measured tensile yield strength ratio, Fu/Fy, is
larger than 1.0 for all the specimens, which is in
accord with the strain hardening behavior of steel
members under cyclic loading. The values of Fu/Fy,
which reflect the strain hardening effect, are given
in Table  3. The strain hardening effect is more
remarkable for the heat-treated specimens in con-
trast with that of the non-heat-treated ones.
The maximum post—buckling strength is iden-
tified in the hysteretic curves. The post-buckling
post
strength to the yield strength ratio, Fbuckl
le /F
Fy , is also

Table 3. Comparison of stub column strength and stiffness.

post
Fy nFy Fu Fbuckl
le
K K
n

2
Specimens kN kN kN Fy /nFy Fu /Fy Fbucklle /F
Fy kN N/mm N/mm2 K/nK

RH1-3 203 201 243 1.01 1.2 0.78 158 510 536 0.95
RH2-3 381 367 513 1.04 1.35 1.05 399 998 1079 0.92
RH3-3 597 678 992 0.88 1.66 1.73 1031 1938 1955 0.99
RC1-3 333 354 359 0.94 1.08 0.71 238 492 536 0.92
RC2-3 649 696 702 0.93 1.08 1.08 702 971 1079 0.90
RC3-3 1098 1220 1275 0.9 1.11 1.18 1297 1938 1955 0.99

*Fy denotes initial tensile yield strength from the corresponding test results. nFyy, denotes nominal tensile yield strength.
post
Fu denotes the maximum tensile strength obtained from the test results. Fbuckl le denotes maximum post-buckling
strength. K denotes stiffness obtained from the test results. nK denotes nominal stiffness.

384
illustrated in Table  3. Local buckling occurred in 1
all the specimens, for the slenderness ratios are very h Ee , c Ee = σ y 0 ⋅ ε y 0 ⋅ A l (1)
2
small, and the local buckling strength is smaller
than the corresponding global buckling strength.
where σy 0 and εy 0 are the initial yield stress and
For specimens with a large width-to-thickness
yield strain of the material respectively, and A, l
ratio, the local buckling strength is smaller than the
are the cross-sectional area and length of the box
yield strength, and the compressive forces decrease
columns, respectively.
rapidly after local buckling occurs. For specimens
with medium and small width-to-thickness ratios,
3.3.1 Effect of width-to-thickness ratio
the local buckling strength is larger than the yield
The total dissipated plastic energy versus width-to-
strength. In the specimens with a medium width-
thickness ratio curves of the specimens with and
to-thickness ratio, the compressive forces decrease
without heat treatment are shown in Figure 4. As
once local buckling occurs. In the specimens with
the width-to-thickness ratio increases, the total
a small width-to-thickness ratio, the forces con-
dissipated plastic energy decreases for all the speci-
tinue to increase after local buckling occurs. The
mens with and without heat treatment. For exam-
maximum post-buckling strength of the non-
ple, with the decrease of width-to-thickness ratio,
heat-treated specimens is higher than that of the
the total dissipated energy of the non-heat-treated
heat-treated ones with the same width-to-thickness
specimens RC-1, RC-2 and RC-3 are 19.2  kJ,
ratio.
44.9 kJ and 263.9 kJ, respectively.
The nominal stiffness is calculated by the for-
The corresponding nondimensionalized curves
mula, nK  = EA/L, where E  = 2.06 GPa; A  = gross
of the specimens with and without heat treatment
section area, and L  = length of the stub columns.
are shown in Figure  5. Similarly, the nondimen-
The measured stiffness, K, is calculated from the
sionalized total dissipated plastic energy generally
first half cycle of the hysteresis curve. The meas-
decreases as the width-to-thickness ratio increases
ured stiffness to the nominal stiffness ratio, K/nK,
for the specimens with and without heat treatment.
is also listed in Table  3. Overall, the measured to
For the specimens with the width-to-thickness
nominal stiffness is within an average deviation of
ratio of 11.9 under incremental loading, the total
5.5%. The heat treatment process has little effect
dissipated plastic energy and the corresponding
on the initial elastic stiffness of the specimens.
nondimensionalized one is much larger than the
others. Since they have compact sections, decrease
3.3 Energy dissipation in the compressive load carrying capacity due
to local buckling is much lower than those with
The earthquake motion is an energy input process
medium and large width-to-thickness ratios.
to steel structures. Therefore, energy dissipation
capacity of steel members is of significant impor-
3.3.2 Effect of heat treatment
tance in a strong earthquake, which can determine
For the specimens with medium and large width-
survival of structures. The dissipated energy of all
to-thickness ratios, the total dissipated plastic
the specimens is calculated to study the effect of
energy of the specimens with the same width-to-
width-t-thickness ratio and heat treatment.
thickness ratio, i.e. hEp and cEp, is close to each
Total dissipated plastic energy is calculated from
load-displacement curves of the specimens listed in
Table 2. The load-displacement curves are decom-
posed into positive and negative loads and the cor-
responding tensile dissipated energy Ep+ and the
compressive one Ep- are calculated by integration.
The total dissipated plastic energy can be obtained
by summing up the two parts. hEp represents the
total dissipated plastic energy of the specimens
with heat treatment, and cEp represents that of the
ones without heat treatment.
The total dissipated energy nondimensionalized
by the corresponding elastic energy is also calcu-
lated, as shown in Table 2. This parameter is more
important to energy dissipation capacity com-
pared with total dissipated plastic energy. Since the
design force of a member is closely related with the
yield strength. The corresponding elastic energy Figure 4. Total dissipated plastic energy versus width-
hEe and cEe can be obtained by to-thickness ratio of specimens.

385

Figure  5. Nondimensionalized total dissipated plastic
energy versus width-to-thickness ratio of specimens.
other, as shown in Table 2 and Figure 4. As for the
specimens with a small width-to-thickness ratio,
hEp of Specimen RH3-3 is smaller than cEp of Spec-
imen RC3-3.
The nondimensionalized total dissipated
energy of the specimens with heat treatment, i.e.
hEp/hEe, and that of the ones without heat treat-
ment, i.e. cEp/cEe, are compared in Figure 5. The
comparison result indicates that the nondimen-
sionalized total dissipated energy of the heat-
treated specimens is much larger than that of the
non-heat-treated ones. The heat treatment process
thus improves the energy dissipation capacity of
the specimens.
Based on the test results, the heat treatment
process has little effect on the total dissipated
energy of the specimens. However, the heat treat-
ment process can enhance the nondimensionalized
total dissipated energy of the specimens, which
thus improves their energy dissipation capacity.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Experiments on six cold-formed steel square hol-
low section stub columns were carried out to study
ductile fracture under incremental loading. The
effects of heat treatment and width-to-thickness
ratio on the buckling mode, cracking process and
the plastic energy dissipation of the specimens
were studied. Based on the test results, the follow-
ing main conclusions are drawn.
• For the heat-treated specimens under incremen-
tal loading, out-of-phase buckling was identified
386
and cracks tend to initiate at the corners of outer
surfaces. There is no clear correlation between
width-to-thickness ratio and cracking process.
• For the non-heat-treated specimens with medium
and large width-to-thickness ratios under incre-
mental loading, out-of-phase buckling first
appeared and cracks tend to initiate at the cor-
ners of outer surfaces and seam weld simultane-
ously. For the non-heat-treated specimen with a
small width-to-thickness ratio, in-phase buckling
mode first appeared, and cracks seem to initiate
at the inner walls, and then propagate from the
inner walls to the outer walls.
• The values, Fu/Fy, of the heat-treated specimens
are much larger than those of the non-heat-
treated ones, which indicates significant strain
hardening effect of the heat-treated ones. Heat
treatment process has little effect on the initial
elastic stiffness of the specimens.
• As the width-to-thickness ratio increases, the
total dissipated plastic energy and the nondi-
mensionalized one decrease for all the specimens
with and without heat treatment.
• The heat treatment process has little effect on the
total dissipated plastic energy. However, it can
improve the nondimensionalized one, which thus
enhances the plastic energy dissipation capacity.
REFERENCES
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cyclic axial loading. Journal of Structural Engineering
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Lucas, A.S. 2005. Experimental cyclic response of
cold-formed hollow steel bracing members. Engineer-
ing Structures 27(7): 977–989.
Goggins, J.M., Broderick, B.M., Elghazouli, A.Y. &
Lucas, A.S. 2006. Behaviour of tubular steel members
under cyclic axial loading. Journal of Constructional
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Mahin, S.A. 1998. Lessons from damage to steel buildings
during Northridge earthquake. Engineering Structures
20(4–6): 261–270.
Nakashima, M., Inoue, K. & Tada, M. 1998. Classifica-
tion of damage to steel buildings observed in the 1995
Hyogoken-Nanbu earthquake. Engineering Structures
20(s 4–6): 271–281.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Numerical modelling of FRP-concrete-steel double-skin tubular

columns under blast loading

W. Wang & C. Wu
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Centre for Built Infrastructure Research,
University of Technology Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT: This study presents a numerical study on the behavior of hybrid DSTCs under close-in
blast loading. Numerical models of hybrid DSTCs were developed and validated. Afterwards, detailed
numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the influences of different parameters on the behav-
ior of hybrid DSTCs under blast loading. The mid-span deflection-time history were recorded and ana-
lyzed. The numerical simulation results indicate that the inner steel tube plays a key role in resisting the
blast loading, while the contribution from outer FRP tube is less significant. Increasing the inner steel
tube thickness and hollowness ratio can lead to a decrease of the maximum deflection of hybrid DSTCs.
Under a lower axial load level, the maximum deflection will not increase with the increase of axial load.
The influences of concrete strength and outer FRP tube thickness are insignificant.

1 INTRODUCTION conducted on their behavior under blast loading.

Due to the properties of high strength and stiff-
ness to weight ratio as well as superior corrosion
resistance, using fiber reinforced polymer (FRP)
composites as external confinement of concrete
columns has received a great deal of attention over
the past two decades. One popular application of
FRP composites is to retrofit existing concrete
columns. Many studies proved that FRP strength-
ening can significantly enhance the strength and
ductility of concrete columns under static com-
pressive loadings (Lam and Teng 2003; Teng et al.
2009; Wang et  al. 2016). On the other hand, the
use of FRP composites in newly constructed con-
crete columns, such as concrete-filled FRP tubes
(CFFTs) and hybrid FRP-concrete-steel double-
skin tubular columns (DSTCs), has been of inter-
est for some researchers in recent years (Fam and
Rizkalla 2001; Mirmiran and Shahawy 1996; Teng
et al. 2007; Yu and Teng 2011).
The hybrid FRP-concrete-steel double-skin
tubular columns (DSTCs) consist of an outer
FRP tube and an inner steel tube, with inner space
filled with concrete. Since the hybrid DSTCs was
proposed by Teng et al. (2007), many studies have
been conducted to investigate the compressive,
flexural, cyclic, seismic, and impact behaviors
of hybrid DSTCs (Abdelkarim and ElGawady
2016; Han et  al. 2010; Ozbakkaloglu and Idris
2014; Teng et al. 2007; Wang et al. 2015; Yu et al.
2006). Even though many studies have been con-
ducted on the hybrid DSTCs, no studies have been
Concrete columns may be subjected to blast load-
ing during their service life, which could produce a
severe damage to the concrete columns and cause
tremendous casualties and property loss (Wu et al.
2009; Xu et al. 2016; Zhang et al. 2016; Zhang et al.
2016). Therefore, it is essential to understand the
behavior of the hybrid DSTCs under blast loading
before they can be used in critical infrastructures.
In this study, the behavior of hybrid DSTCs
under blast loading was investigated by undertak-
ing a wide range of numerical simulations. Numer-
ical models of the hybrid DSTCs with circular
outer FRP tube and circular inner steel tube were
developed and validated by comparing the simula-
tion results with available test results. Afterwards,
the numerical models were used to investigate the
influences of different parameters on the behavior
of hybrid DSTCs under blast loading.
2 FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING
Commercial available software LS-DYNA was
used to carry out the numerical simulation. The LS-
DYNA/Implicit solver was used for static analysis,
whereas the LS-DYNA/Explicit solver was used for
dynamic analysis. In order to ensure the simulation
accuracy, the infilled concrete, inner steel tube, and
outer FRP tube were modelled using 8-node solid
hexahedron elements with single point integration
algorithm. The build-in function “CONWEP” was
used to simulate the blast loading in LS-DYNA

387
(Hallquist 2007). Viscos-type hourglass control
was used during the blast simulation to avoid ele-
ment distortion and the zero energy modes.
2.1 Concrete model
K&C concrete model (MAT_72_REL3) was
adopted to model the static and dynamic behav-
iors of infilled concrete in the hybrid DSTCs. It is
a plasticity-based model that accepts either user-
specified inputs or internal parameter generation.
Previous studies suggested that K&C concrete
model can provide a robust representation of the
complex behaviors of FRP confined concrete under
both static and dynamic loadings (Abdelkarim and
ElGawady 2016; Youssf et  al. 2015; Youssf et  al.
2014). Moreover, large strain rate can lead to a
significant increase in the concrete strength, which
allows the concrete member to develop higher per-
formance in excess of their performance under
static loading (Malvar and Ross 1999). In this
study, the dynamic increase factor (DIF) was used
to represent the increase of concrete’s compressive
and tensile strength under blast loading. For con-
crete in compression, the CEB Code (Béton 1993),
which has been widely used by many researchers
as an accurate representation of concrete behavior,
was adopted. The DIF of the concrete compressive
strength is given by:
1.026α s
fc ⎛ ε ⎞
= for εs ≤ 30 s −1
fcs ⎜⎝ εs ⎟⎠
1/ 3
fc ⎛ ε ⎞
=γs⎜ ⎟ for εs > 30 s −1
fcs ⎝ εs ⎠
where fc  = dynamic compressive strength at
ε; fcs  = static compressive strength at εs ; ε =
strain rate in the range of 30 × 10–6 to 300 s–1; εs
= static strain rate which is 30 × 10–6; log γ s =
6.156α s 2; α s = 1/ ( + fcs fcco ) ; and fco = 10 MPa.
The formulation used for concrete DIF in ten-
sion was developed by Malvar and Crawford
(1998), which was a modification to the CEB Code
(Béton 1993) and is given by:
δ
ft ⎛ ε ⎞
= for εs ≤ 1s −1
fts ⎜⎝ εs ⎟⎠
ft ⎛ ε ⎞
1/ 3
= β⎜ ⎟ for εs > 1s −1
fts ⎝ εs ⎠
where ft  =  dynamic tensile strength at ε;
fts  =  static tensile strength at εs ; ε = strain rate in
the range of 10-6 to 160 s-1; εs = static strain rate
which is 10 -6 ; log β δ 2; δ = 1/ ( + );
and fco = 10 MPa.
2.2 Steel tube model
MAT_PLASTIC_KINEMATIC (MAT_003) was
used to simulate the static and dynamic behaviors
of steel tube. In this study, a perfect elasto-plas-
tic stress-strain behavior was assumed. The DIF
for steel tube was calculated by the Cowper and
Symonds Model (Hallquist 2007), which multiplies
the yield stress by a factor given by:
⎛ ε ⎞
1/ P
DIF of steel = 1 + ⎜ ⎟ (5)
⎝C⎠
where ε = strain rate of steel. C = 40.4 s-1 and
P  =  5 were used as suggested by Deng and Tuan
(2013).
2.3 FRP tube model
MAT_ENHANCED_COMPOSITE_DAMAGE
(MAT_054) was used to model the FRP tube as
an orthotropic material. This material model simu-
lates the FRP tube by specifying the various fail-
ure criteria in compression, tension, or shear using
Chang matrix (Chang and Chang 1987). The cri-
terion accounts for nonlinear shear stress–strain
(1) behavior and the post stress degradation. The
strength enhancement of FRP under a high strain
rate is insignificant compared to concrete and steel
material (Kimura et al. 2001; Welsh and Harding
(2) 1985). Therefore, the strain rate effect on FRP tube
was not considered in this study.
2.4 Model validation
Since no blast tests have been carried out on the
hybrid DSTCs, direct comparisons of blast per-
formance were not available. Therefore, the pro-
posed numerical model was validated against the
axial compressive test conducted by Teng et  al.
(2007), which aimed to demonstrate the capability
of the proposed model to account for the concrete
strength improvement due to FRP confinement. In
the test conducted by Teng et al. (2007), the hybrid
(3) DSTCs wrapped with one, two, and three layer of
glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) were tested
under axial compression. All hybrid DSTCs were
150 mm in outer diameter and 305 mm in height.
(4) The inner diameter of the steel tube was 76.3 mm
and the thickness was 3.3 mm. The steel tube had
a yield stress of 352.7 MPa with an elastic modu-
lus of 207.3 GPa. Normal strength concrete with
the average concrete compressive strength of
388
39.6 MPa was used. The GFRP used had an aver-
age tensile strength of 1825.5  MPa and an aver-
age elastic modulus of 80.1 GPa. The LS-DYNA/
Implicit solver was used herein. Figure 1 shows the
axial load-axial strain behavior of hybrid DSTCs
wrapped with different layers of GFRP. In general,
the prediction results were in close agreement with
the experimental results, and the developed numer-
ical model can be used to predict the behavior of
hybrid DSTCs under blast loading.
Figure  1. Comparisons between the experimental
and predicted axial load-axial strain behavior of hybrid
DSTCs.
389
3 PARAMETRIC STUDIES
AND DISCUSSIONS
In this section, parametric analyses were conducted
to investigate the influences of different param-
eters on the behavior of hybrid DSTCs under blast
loading. The investigated parameters include con-
crete strength, outer FRP tube thickness, inner
steel tube thickness, outer tube type, hollowness
ratio, and axial load level. The control circular
hybrid DSTCs had an outer diameter of 210 mm
and an inner diameter of 100 mm, as shown in Fig-
ure 2. Both the thicknesses of the inner steel tube
and outer FRP tube were 5 mm. As suggested by
Teng et al. (2007), the FRP tube in hybrid DSTCs
was mainly for confinement purpose and should
not be used to carry axial load. Therefore, all the
fibers in the FRP tube were aligned along the
transverse direction to maximize the confinement
effect. The interface between the inner steel tube
and concrete, as well as the outer FRP tube and
concrete were assumed to be perfect bonding, thus
debonding was not taken into consideration in this
study. The clear span length was 2500 mm. More-
over, to ensure a higher fidelity of the boundary
constraints, a footing and a head were modelled, as
shown in Figure 3. The outer surface of the head
and the footing were fully constrained to simulate
the fixed-fixed support condition.
The properties of the steel tube and the FRP
tube are listed in Table  1. The concrete compres-
sive strength was 40 MPa for the control specimen,
while other parameters were automatically gener-
ated. 30 kg equivalent TNT charge was used with
a standoff distance of 1.5  m above the mid-span
of the specimen. A mesh size convergence study
was conducted first. Four numerical models of
Figure 2. Circular cross section of hybrid DSTCs.
Figure 3. Model set-up of hybrid DSTCs.
Table 1. Material properties.

Tube type Properties Value

Steel tube Mass density 7830 kg/m3

Yield stress 360 MPa
Elastic modulus 200 GPa
Poisson’s ratio 0.28
FRP tube Mass density 1580 kg/m3
Transverse modulus 181 GPa
Longitudinal modulus 10.2 GPa
Shear modulus 7.2 GPa
Minor Poisson’s ratio 0.016
Transverse tensile strength 2020 MPa

Figure 4. Influence of concrete strength.

varying meshing sizes were developed for the con-
trol specimen. The first numerical model included
80 meshes along the circumference of the columns
and 400 meshes along the length of the specimens,
resulting in a total of 398,800 elements. The second
numerical model included 60 meshes along the cir-
cumference of the columns and 300 meshes along
the length of the specimens, resulting in a total of
172,440 elements. The third and the fourth numeri-
cal models included 60,030 and 27,002 elements,
respectively. The simulation results indicated that
the second numerical model can accurately cap-
ture the behavior of the specimens and only have a
marginal difference when compared with the first
numerical model. Therefore, the meshing size in
the second numerical model was adopted in the
following simulation.

Figure 5. Influence of outer FRP tube thickness.

3.1 Influence of concrete strength
Three different concrete strengths were consid-
ered (25 MPa, 40 MPa and 55 MPa), while other
parameters were kept constant. Numerical results
indicate that by increasing the concrete strength,
only a slight decrease in maximum deflection can
be observed (Figure  4). Even though higher con-
crete compressive strength was used, the increase
in the tensile strength was much less, and the con-
tribution from concrete to resist the tensile force
induced by the blast pressure was not increased.
Therefore, there was little difference in the
maximum deflection by improving the concrete
strength. Similar conclusions can also be found for
concrete-filled steel tubes (CFSTs) and concrete-
filled double-skin steel tubes (CFDST) (Zhang
et al. 2015; Zhang et al. 2016).
3.2 Influence of outer FRP tube thickness
To investigate the influence of outer FRP tube
thickness on the behavior of hybrid DSTCs
under blast loading, the FRP tube thickness was
varied between 3.5  mm to 8  mm, while keeping
other parameters constant. The simulation results
demonstrate that increase in FRP tube thickness
did not result in a decrease of maximum deflec-
tion of the columns (Figure  5). Since all the fib-
ers were aligned along the transverse direction of
the FRP tube, the FRP tube did not contribute to
the increase of column’s flexural stiffness and can
not resist the longitudinal tensile force of the col-
umn (Fam et al. 2005). Due to the neglectable blast
resistance from the outer FRP tube, it is believed
that for the hybrid DSTCs, the main resistance
of blast loading is from the inner steel tube. Even
though the outer FRP tube had almost no effect
on the blast resistance of hybrid DSTCs, it may be
able to prevent the spalling of infilled concrete.
3.3 Influence of inner steel tube thickness
The influence of inner steel tube thickness was
investigated by varying the steel tube thickness

390
Figure 6. Influence of inner steel tube thickness. Figure 7. Influence of outer tube type.

from 3.5 mm to 8 mm, while keeping other param-

eters constant. Figure  6 illustrates the mid-span
deflection-time history for the hybrid DSTCs with
different inner steel tube thicknesses. The maxi-
mum deflection decreased with the increase of
inner steel tube thickness. Compared to the outer
FRP tube, the reduction of maximum deflection
can be more significant by increasing the inner
steel tube thickness, rather than increasing the
outer FRP tube thickness. Since steel tube is an
isotropic material, it can be very effective in pro-
viding both confinement to the infilled concrete
and resisting the longitudinal tensile force of the
columns induced by blast pressure. Therefore, the
blast resistance of hybrid DSTCs can be improved.

Figure 8. Influence of hollowness ratio.

3.4 Influence of outer tube type
A comparison was made between the blast per-
formance of hybrid DSTCs and concrete-filled
double-skin steel tubes (CFDST). The difference
between these two types of composite columns
was the outer tube type, while other parameters
were kept constant. Moreover, since the strain
rate effect of outer FRP tube was not taken into
consideration in this study, the blast perform-
ance of CFDST without considering the outer
steel tube’s strain rate effect was also evaluated.
Figure  7  shows the mid-span deflection-time his-
tory for the double-skin tubular columns with
different outer tube types. By using FRP tube
as external confinement material, the maximum
deflection was 38 mm. Nevertheless, by using steel
tube as external confinement material, the blast
performance can be significantly improved with
a maximum deflection of 18 mm, which was only
half of the maximum deflection of hybrid DSTCs.
Also, a higher frequency was observed for CFDST.
This comparison indicates the advantage of using
steel tube as external confinement material of con-
crete columns to resist the blast loading. Moreo-
ver, with considering the strain rate effect of outer
steel tube, the maximum deflection was decreased,
which validated the enhanced performance of steel
tube when subjected to dynamic loading.
3.5 Influence of hollowness ratio
The influence of hollowness ratio ϕ (ϕ = Di / Do ,
where Di indicates the inner diameter of the steel tube,
and Do indicates the outer diameter of the FRP tube)
was investigated by varying the hollowness ratio from
0.25 to 0.65, while keeping other parameters con-
stant. Figure  8  shows the mid-span deflection-time
history for the hybrid DSTCs with different hollow-
ness ratios. Within the range of hollowness ratio cho-
sen in this study, the maximum deflection decreased
with the increase of hollowness ratio. Moreover, the

391
frequency was increased by increasing the hollowness
ratio. This can be explained that with an increase of
hollowness ratio, a larger steel reinforcement ratio
as well as a lower slenderness ratio can be obtained.
Both these two parameters were beneficial for the
improvement of the flexural capacity of the columns,
thus a higher blast resistance can be obtained. This
finding is different from the finding from concrete-
filled double-skin steel tubes (CFDST). For CFDST
under blast loading, the hollow core inside has little
effect on the overall structural responses when the
hollowness ratio was less than 0.5 (Zhang et al. 2016).
This is because the main blast resistance for CFDST
is from the outer steel tube, and the contribution from
the inner steel tube is less and would not affect the
overall performance.
3.6 Influence of axial load level
Concrete columns are always subjected to static
axial loading during their service life. To consider
the influence of axial load level on the behavior of
hybrid DSTCs under blast loading, numerical simu-
lations were carried out on axially loaded columns.
Four magnitudes of axial loads, ranging from 0% to
30% of the yield load of hybrid DSTCs, were inves-
tigated (0%, 10%, 20%, and 30%). The yield load
is an indication of the column’s ability to deform
elastically, and the service load of concrete column
is usually much lower than the yield load. In this
study, the definition of yield load given by Dong
et  al. (2015) was adopted to accurately determine
the yield load of the hybrid DSTCs. The yield load
was found to be 1770 kN. Therefore, axial loads of
0, 177, 354, and 531 kN were applied onto the col-
umns before the occurrence of blast loading.
Figure  9 illustrates the mid-span deflection-time
history of hybrid DSTCs with different axial load
levels. Under a lower axial load level (less than 20%
Figure 9. Influence of axial load level.
392
of the yield load), the maximum deflection did not
experience an increase with the increase of axial load.
Nevertheless, with a higher axial load level (30% of
the yield load), a noticeable increase in the maximum
deflection was observed. This may be explained that
with a combined blast loading and higher axial load,
the plastic hinges can be developed near the mid-
span as well as the fixed ends. Due to the second
order bending moment effect (P – Δ effect), a much
larger deflection of the columns can be observed
after the occurrence of plastic hinges, even though
the axial load increase was not very large (Wang et al.
2015; Wang et al. 2016; Zhang et al. 2015).
4 CONCLUSIONS
In this study, numerical simulations are conducted
to investigate the behavior of hybrid fiber rein-
forced polymer (FRP)-concrete-steel double-skin
tubular columns (DSTCs) under blast loading.
The influences of different parameters on the
behavior of hybrid DSTCs under blast loading are
investigated. Based on the simulation results, the
following conclusions can be drawn:
1. The K&C concrete model is competent for the
simulation of the static compressive and dynamic
behavior of infilled concrete in the hybrid DSTCs.
2. The inner steel tube in the hybrid DSTCs plays
a major role in resisting the blast loading. By
increasing the thickness of inner steel tube as
well as the hollowness ratio, the blast resistance
of hybrid DSTCs can be improved. However, by
increasing the concrete strength as well as the
thickness of outer FRP tube, the blast resist-
ance can not be improved significantly.
3. Under a lower axial load level (less than 20%
of the yield load), the increase in the axial load
does not increase the maximum deflection of
the hybrid DSTCs. However, beyond this axial
load level, the increase in axial load can lead to a
noticeable increase in the maximum deflection.
4. Comparisons between the hybrid DSTCs and
concrete-filled double-skin steel tubes (CFDST)
indicate that the blast resistance capacity of
hybrid DSTCs is lower than that of CFDST.
Before the successful application of hybrid
DSTCs, some methods should be undertaken
to improve the blast resistance capacity of the
hybrid DSTCs (e.g. addition of longitudinal
reinforcement within the infilled concrete).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The financial support from the Australian
Research Council under ARC Discovery Project
DP160104661 is fully acknowledged.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Rate and temperature dependent relations for CFSTs subject

to post-impact fire conditions

M. Mirmomeni, A. Heidarpour & X.L. Zhao

Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

J.A. Packer
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT: Experimental research on the behaviour of conventional construction materials subject to

extreme loading condition of post-impact-fire has indicated the effect of rate dependent loading history
on the temperature performance of these materials. In order to analyse and design structures to with-
stand such combined loading, it is desirable to develop models that can reflect the mechanical properties
of materials under initial impulsive loading and subsequent elevated temperature. In this study, a rate-
pre-damage-temperature dependent empirical expression is proposed to predict the residual strength of
partially damaged steel-concrete composite materials, in the form of concrete-filled steel tubes (CFST),
at high temperatures up to 600°C. The developed model is calibrated and validated on the basis of actual
experimental data published by the authors. The proposed expression proves to be capable of successfully
reproducing material strengths by considering the extent of high strain rate induced pre-damage together
with temperature exposure.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS

The behaviour of conventional structural materi-
als under extreme loadings such as impulsive loads
and fire has been the subject of extensive research.
Studies have been published on experimental work
(Bischoff & Perry 1991, Mirmomeni et al. 2015,
2016, 2017).
Concrete-steel composites in the form of con-
crete-filled steel tubes (CFST) have gained popu-
larity in construction in the recent decades. Studies
on the impact behaviour of these composite sec-
tions have been published by Xiao et al. 2009, 2011
as well as their performance when exposed to ele-
vated temperatures (Lu et al. 2009, Xiong & Liew
2016).
The combined effect of high-strain rate and
elevated temperature on the behaviour of sub-
sized CFSTs has also been investigated by Huo
et al. 2009, 2014 and Mirmomeni et al. 2017. On
the bases of the experimental results published by
Mirmomeni et al. 2017, the present paper aims to
develop a relationship for the mechanical proper-
ties of concrete-filled steel tubes as a function of
pre-induced rate-dependent damage and tempera-
ture. In this research, the goal is to develop models
that can potentially be used for engineering design
purposes, hence, avoiding models that are too
complex.
A detailed description of the two-phase experimen-
tal program conducted on CFSTs has been provided
by Mirmomeni et al. 2017. The experiments initiated
by choosing specific damage levels. Displacement-
based damage levels were chosen based on uninter-
rupted tests to failure conduced at the two different
designated impact velocities. The first phase involved
interrupted high-strain-rate testing at impact rates
of strain up to a specific damage level. The pre-
deformed specimens were subsequently exposed to
a target elevated temperature. Once temperature
stabilisation was achieved throughout the specimen,
the temperature was held and a quasi-static test was
carried out to reach full failure.
Self-compacting concrete with a target cylinder
strength grade of C37 was used for the core of the
CFSTs with the outer tubes cut from 250 MPa yield
stress seamless steel pipes with a nominal inner dimen-
sion of 40 mm and wall thickness machined down to
2 mm. Nominal height of specimen was 40 mm.
3 CURRENT MODELS
3.1 Strain-rate effect
The dynamic strength increase for CFSTs, based
on the assumption of simple superposition of the

395
axial strengths of concrete infill and the steel tube in this equation. For concrete variables, the DIFc
proposed by Xiao et al. 2009 is expressed by: presented by CEB and the following concrete com-
pressive strength at elevated temperature describe
fcd Ac + f yd As by Lie & Irwin 1995 were adopted:
IFCFST =
DIF (1)
fcs Ac + f y As
fc ( T )

where, fyd and fy are the dynamic yield strength and fc

static yield strength of steel, and fcd and fcs are the ⎧1 0°° C < T < 4 ° C
⎪ ⎛ T − 20 ⎞ (5)
dynamic and static compressive strength of con- = ⎨ 2.011 − 2.353 450°° C ≤ T ≤ 874°° C
crete, respectively. However, simple superposition ⎝ 1000 ⎠
⎪
fails to properly capture the impact behaviour ⎩0 T > 874
4° C
of CFSTs due to the existence of an interaction
mechanism between the steel tube and the concrete
core. To consider the interaction between steel However, the predicted strengths using Equation
and concrete, Mirmomeni et al. 2017 presented 4 proved to be much greater than their test results,
the following rate- and size-dependent formula to especially when the CFST specimens were exposed
approximate the dynamic increase factor for the to high temperatures. Hence, they concluded that
compressive strength of CFSTs:

−1/ 2
⎡ IFy f y ⎞ ⎤ ⎡ H 0 D ⎤
⎛ t ⎞ ⎛ DIF
IFy f yd As + DIF
DIF Fc fcd Ac ⎢1 + ηCCFT ⎜ ⎥ ⎢1 + ⎥
⎣ ⎝ ⎠
D ⎝ DIF IFc fc ⎟⎠ ⎦ ⎣ H D0 ⎦
DIF
IFCFST = −1/ 2
(2)
⎡ ⎛ t ⎞ ⎛ fy ⎞ ⎤ ⎡ H0 D ⎤
As f y + Ac fc ⎢1 + ⎜ ⎟ ⎢ ⎥ 1 + ⎥
⎣ ⎝ D ⎠ ⎝ fc ⎠ ⎦ ⎣ H D0 ⎦

where:
H the dynamic responses of steel and concrete under
ηCFT = (D ) (D − ) (3) impact loading at elevated temperatures are differ-
D ent from those at room temperature.
In Equation 2, H0 is a constant and ηCFT
is obtained empirically using the test results.
The validity limits of Equation 2 and Equa- 4 PROPOSED PREDICTIVE EXPRESSION
tion 3 are fyd = 430–545 MPa, fy = 320–455 MPa,
fcd = 50–70 MPa, fc = 50–65 MPa, D/t = 13–50, and A three-part expression is proposed in to predict
H/D = 1–2. the residual properties of high-strain-rate induced
pre-damaged materials at elevated temperatures.
This expression gives the residual characteristics
3.2 Temperature effect (stress or strain) of a material pre-damaged to PDi
at the temperature of Ti (denoted as (PDi, Ti)) to
Huo et al. 2009 proposed a simplified method to
the corresponding value of the non-pre-damaged
calculate the impact capacity of CFSTs at elevated
material at ambient temperature (denoted as (PD0,
temperatures such that:
T0)) as follows:
f y (T ) fc (T )
d
NCFST DIF
Fy . . f y As + DIF
IFc . . fc Ac (4)
PD T PD
D0 ,T0
δ i θ i .λi (6)
fy fc
δ i = [1 − AD
A i′] (7)
where fc and fy are the ambient and fc(T) and fy(T)
are the quasi-static elevated temperature yield Di′ = Di + a [ − Ln
Ln (1 − Di )]b (8)
stresses and compressive stresses of concrete and
steel, respectively. In the case of temperature effect θ i = [ − B (Ti − T0 )] (9)
only, values of DIFy and DIFc are equal to 1. The
DIFy proposed by Malver 1998 and the elevated
Ti − T
c(T 2
d (Ti T0 ) + d ′
temperature strength reduction factors recom- B= Ti > T0
forT (10)
mended by Eurocode 3 were used for steel modules Ti T0

396
λi = [ − CDi (Ti T0 )] (11) Table  2. Parameters of the proposed
expression for proof stress (f0.2%).
1 eDDi + f f0.2%
C= [1− fo Ti > T
] for Di > 0
Di (Ti − T0 ) e′ Di + f ′
A −0.3206
(12) A −0.0401
b 0.005
where A, a, b, c, d, d’, e, e’, f and f’ parameters
c 2.82 × 10–6
extracted from experimental results, T0 = 25ºC and
d −7.77 × 10–4
Di is the damage index which gives the energy dis-
d’ 0.00
sipated during a partial pre-damage evolution at a
e 2.3 × 10–4Ti2–2.4–1Ti+87.9
specified rate of strain to the energy dissipated to
e’ −5.96 × 10–2Ti+54.7
cause full failure of the material at the same strain
f −9.1 × 10–4 Ti2+7.7 × 10–1Ti–64.9
rate.
f’ −1.84 × 10–1 Ti+168.6

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table  3. Parameters of the proposed
expression for f1% .
5.1 Parameter extraction
Experimental data available from Mirmomeni et al. f1%
2017 includes tests on CFST samples pre-deformed A −0.1351
at two impact velocities (L = 75 mm/s and H = 150
A −0.2651
mm/s) under two different damage levels (PD1 and
b 0.005
PD2) at target temperatures of 25°C, 300°C, 450°C
c 3.19 × 10–6
and 600°C. The damage index values, ranging from
d −9.79 × 10–4
0 to 1 are presented in Table 1.
d’ 0.00
To obtain the compressive proof stress f0.2% and
e 1.02 × 10–3Ti2–9.6 × 10–1Ti+229
of f1% of CFST, data sets from all temperatures
e’ −2.73 × 10–2Ti+24.3
with the exception of the 450°C data set have been
f −9.2 × 10–4 Ti2+7.5 × 10–1Ti– 50
used to determine the parameters of the proposed
f’ −1.96 × 10–1 Ti+175.4
expression to indicate the temperature-dependent
residual stresses of these materials. To assess the
accuracy of the stresses evaluated through the pro-
significance of presenting the stress corresponding
posed model, results are then validated against the
to the 1% strain is that, as seen in Mirmomeni et al.
experimental data at 450°C.
[36], at this point all cases have entered the strain
It is assumed that the CFST is a single mate-
hardening stage of their deformation process.
rial and the model parameters have been found for
the sub-sized composite element based on experi-
mental results at disposal. The obtained param- 5.2 Compressive proof stress (f0.2%) and f1%
eters determined by best-fitting of 25ºC, 300ºC
Figure  1 illustrates the result of using the pro-
and 600ºC data to Equations 6 to 12, for f0.2% and
posed model to reproduce the response of the pre-
f1% are presented in Table  2 and Table  3, respec-
damaged CFST at different temperatures. From the
tively. The validity limit of parameters presented in
figure it is clear that the proposed expression shows
Tables 2 and 3 are for f0.2% and f1% = 55–125 MPa,
a noticeable difference with the experimental data
for samples with Diameter  =  40 mm, Diameter/
for PD1, H (Di = 0.085). In this case, both the core
wall thickness = 20, and Height/Diameter = 1. The
concrete and the encompassing steel experience
considerable rate-dependent strength enhance-
ments without enduring extensive damage, as is
Table 1. Damage Index relevant to each the case in PD2, H. Hence the residual stress flow
pre-damage level for CFST specimen. based on pre-damage for the case of PD1, H does
not follow the same trend of the other damage lev-
Damage index els at different temperature exposures, resulting in
a variance in the values obtained using the model.
Test velocity PD1 PD2 While the higher rate enhancement effects are
evident in lower temperatures of up to 300°C,
L: 75 mm/s 0.11 0.29
H: 150 mm/s 0.085 0.25
resulting in an underestimation by the model, this
strength gain has a negative effect at very high

397
Figure 1. Ratio of f0.2% and f1% of CFSTs for different damage levels at (a–b) 25ºC, (c–d) 300ºC, and (e–f) 600ºC to that
of non-pre-damaged material at ambient temperature using the proposed expression in comparison to experiments.

temperature (600°C) performance of the CFST
where the model grossly overestimates the strength.
Other damage levels show close correlation of
results in all studied temperatures.
5.3 Validation of results
In order to validate the model proposed for CFSTs,
the behaviour of the materials at 450°C has been
predicted via the proposed expression and results
are shown in Figure 2.
As can be seen from this figure, the model
slightly overestimates the stresses tolerated by
the composite material at 450°C. The dynamic
interaction between concrete and steel in the pre-
deformation phase, as well as their different ther-
mal properties, leads to the complex behaviour
of pre-damaged CFSTs at high temperatures.
In order to accurately capture this behaviour
and present more realistic values for material
parameters, additional data points from inter-
mediate temperatures are needed which can more
accurately reflect the temperature alterations.
Moreover, as proven by Mirmomeni et al. 2017,
considering the dynamic interaction of steel and
concrete when modelling the behaviour of a
CFST under impact loading yields more accu-
rate predictions of the compressive behaviour.

398

Figure 2. Validation of the (a) f0.2% and (b) f1% stresses
against experimental data.
Therefore, it is desirable to extend the proposed
expression for CFSTs to include such interac-
tions between the constituent materials of the
composite element.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The aim of this research was to develop a rate-,
pre-damage- and temperature—dependent formu-
lation for predicting the residual stresses of high-
strain-rate-induced pre-damaged concrete-filled
steel tubes. This was achieved by introducing a
rate-dependent damage index and constructing a
damage-stress-temperature relationship. The per-
formance of the model was validated throughout
the damage range using experimental data excluded
from the parameter determination process. While
the proposed expression was shown to simulate the
elevated temperature stress behaviour of CFST to
some extent, more data points are needed to bet-
ter capture the complex behaviour of CFSTs. This
is attributed to the various factors influencing the
interaction of steel and concrete in the composite
under both high-strain rate and elevated tempera-
ture conditions.
399
ACKNOWLEDEGEMENT
This research work was supported by the Austral-
ian Research Council through Discovery Project
DP130100181.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

CFRP-wrapped hollow steel tubes under axial impact loading

C. Batuwitage, S. Fawzia, D.P. Thambiratnam & T. Tafsirojjaman

Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

R. Al-Mahaidi
Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

M. Elchalakani
School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Computing and Mathematics,
University of Western Australia, Australia

ABSTRACT: CFRPs are widely used in the automobile industry and civil engineering applications.
However, the structural behaviour of CFRP-wrapped steel hollow sections under axial impact loading is
not yet fully understood. This paper evaluates the effect of impact mass on the axial impact behaviour of
CFRP-wrapped steel hollow square sections. FE models were developed using LS-DYNA explicit finite
element code and validated using existing experimental data. The axial impact behaviour of the tubes was
evaluated by studying the responses to peak impact force, axial deflection and energy absorption. Appro-
priate results are presented and the trends discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION Bambach (2010) investigated the axial capacity

Structural hollow steel sections are widely used in
the automobile industry and in civil engineering.
Collapsible impact energy absorbers using carbon
fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) technology have
become common in a broad range of automo-
tive, aerospace and civil engineering applications
because they provide significant functional and
economic benefits. The improved strength and
behaviour of steel tubular sections wrapped with
CFRP under static loading have shown that this
CFRP wrapping technique is an efficient strength-
ening method (Bocciarelli et al. 2009, Fawzia et al.
2007, Gao et  al. 2013, Jiao et  al. 2004, Lanier
et  al. 2009, Sundarraja et  al. 2013, Teng & Hu
2007). CFRP-wrapped steel tubes also provide an
innovative retrofitting solution because of their
advantages including high strength, light weight,
aesthetics and need for little interruption of struc-
tures during strengthening or rehabilitation. Most
earlier research focused on the flexural and tensile
behaviour of CFRP-wrapped steel, while limited
research has been carried out on the axial impact
behaviour of CFRP-wrapped steel tubes.
Teng and Hu (2007) studied the behaviour of
CFRP-wrapped circular steel tubes and cylindrical
shells under axial compression and concluded that
CFRP wrapping is a very promising strengthening
technique for retrofitting circular hollow steel sec-
tions. In contrast, the load-carrying capacity was
not greatly increased.
and crushing behaviour of metal-fibre stainless steel
and aluminium square tubes wrapped with CFRP
under axial impact loading. Their study concluded
that CFRP can be used successfully as an externally-
bonded reinforcement to steel square hollow sections.
Such applications may improve the performance of
existing structures as well as play a major role in the
design of new structures with enhanced strength-
weight and energy absorption-weight ratios.
Study of the behaviour of CFRP-wrapped steel
sections under axial impact load is vital to evalu-
ate their potential as crash energy absorbers. Most
studies related to CFRP-steel composites have
been conducted under static loading conditions.
This paper aims to evaluate the crashworthiness
properties of CFRP-wrapped steel tubes under
axial impact conditions. With this in mind, Finite
element (FE) models were developed and validated
using existing experimental data available in the lit-
erature (Bambach 2009). The experimental study
concerned CFRP-wrapped hollow steel tubes. The
square hollow steel (SHS) members were tested
under axial impact in a drop-mass rig using a mass
of 574  kg from a height of 1.835  m, resulting in
a nominal impact velocity of 6  ms-1 and impact
energy of 10.3 kJ. FE modelling and analysis were
performed using LS-DYNA FE code. The vali-
dated FE models were used to evaluate the effect
of impact mass on several structural parameters:
peak impact force, axial displacement and internal
energy of the tube.

401
2 FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING
2.1 Model description
The summary of the details of the FE models cre-
ated is shown in Table  1 along with appropriate
identification. Hollow steel tubes were modelled
using four node shell elements (LS-DYNA Theory
Manual 2006) containing five integration points
through the element thickness with Belystchko-
Tsay element formulation. The CFRP layers were
modelled with the same type of Belystchko-Tsay
shell elements. A control-type hourglass mode
was used with an hourglass coefficient of 0.3 for
impact simulation to avoid zero energy modes.
The impactor was modelled as a moving-rigid-
wall with an initial velocity of 6  ms-1 and a mass
of 574 kg. The bottom of the steel tube model was
fixed by restraining all degrees of freedom of the
bottom nodes. The stationary baseplate was mod-
elled using a stationary rigid wall. Penalty-based
contact types were used to model each contact sur-
face. Single-surface contact was used to avoid the
inter-penetration of nodes during the folding of
the tube. Tie-break contact was employed to define
the contacts between the steel tube and the CFRP
as well as between two CFRP layers. Tie-break
contact allows the separation of the surfaces, and
ultimately the failure of the tied surfaces occurs
under the failure criterion expressed in Equation 1.
2 2
⎛ σn ⎞ ⎛ σs ⎞
⎜ NFLS ⎟ +⎜ ⎟ ≥1
⎝ F ⎠ ⎝ SFLS ⎠
where, NFLS is the tensile failure strength, SFLS
is the shear failure strength of the adhesive and σn
and σs are tensile and shear stresses respectively.
The full geometry of the tubes was modelled.
FE models were created based on the experimen-
tal data available in the literature (Bambach 2009)
using quadrilateral elements 2.5 mm × 2.5 mm in
dimensions. The mesh size was selected based on
a mesh convergence study and in consideration of
the relative dimensions of the steel tube and CFRP
layers.
Table 1. FE model definitions and details.
Model SHS column Length
Type identification (mm) (mm)
Bare steel tube ST65 65 × 65 × 2 300
model
CFRP-wrapped FRP65 65 × 65 × 2 300
steel tube
model
2.2 Material properties
The material properties used in the FE simula-
tion are shown in Table  2. The steel used in the
experiment had 350  MPa nominal strength, and
commercially available CFRP type CF-130 was
used with Araldite 420 epoxy. The impact force
was applied by dropping a mass of 574 kg from a
height of 1.835 m, resulting in an impact velocity
of 6 ms-1and an impact energy of 10.3 kJ.
2.3 Material models and failure criteria
The material properties of steel under static load-
ing cannot be used for dynamic simulations and the
strain rate effects need to be considered. Therefore,
the steel was modelled using a strain-rate sensitive
model (Fan et al. 2013) capable of simulating the
strain rate effects based on the Cowper-Symonds
model. The Cowper-Symonds model 1/scales the
yield stress of steel by a factor of 1 + ( ) where, ε′
p
is the strain rate and c and p are strain rate param-
eters. c = 40 and p = 5 are used in this simulation as
suggested by references (Otubushin 1996, Hernan-
dez et al. 2013, Tanimura et al. 2013).
CFRP was modelled using an enhanced com-
posite material model. This material model con-
siders the effects of directionality in the material
stress–strain response by allowing different fibre
orientations specified at each through-thickness
integration point. Unidirectional laminated fibre
composite shell thickness, each fibre orientation,
and constitutive constants are required to be input.
(1)
This material model is built on a set of stress-based
failure criteria for fibre and matrix failure under
tensile, compressive and/or in-plane shear load-
ing. These failure modes can be accounted for in
shell theory, where the plane stress condition is
assumed and the failure mechanisms of delamina-
tion response are associated with a splaying mode
of failure. The elastic material behaviour of the
composite was calculated based on the Young’s
modulus, shear modulus and Poisson’s ratio. Dam-
age occurs as soon as one of the following four cri-
teria proposed by Chang & Chang (1987) is met, as
expressed in Equations 2 to 5.
Table 2. Material properties.
Material properties steel CFRP Epoxy
Density 7850 kg/m3 1700 kg/m3 1100 kg/m3
Poisson’s ratio 0.3 0.2 0.25
Young’s modulus 210 GPa 230 GPa 1900 MPa
Strength 350 MPa 3790 MPa 36 MPa
Geometries
Thickness 2 mm 0.176 mm 0.1 mm
402
 Tensile failure fibre direction: σ CFRPtCFRP σ ad tad
σ (eq)CFRP = (6)
2 2 tCFRP taad
⎛ σ aa ⎞ ⎛ τ ab ⎞
⎜⎝ X ⎟⎠ + β ⎜⎝ S ⎟⎠ ≥ 1 (2)
where, σ (eq)CFRP is the tensile strength of the com-
T C
posite, and σCFRP, σad, tCFRP and tad are the tensile
where, β is a weighting factor for the ratio of the strength of CFRP, tensile strength of adhesive,
shear stress to shear strength taking values in the thickness of CFRP and adhesive, respectively.
range between 0.0 and 1.0. Similarly, the Young’s modulus was calculated by
Compressive failure, fibre direction: assuming an adhesive thickness of 0.1  mm. The
basic material properties used for the FE simula-
2 tion are shown in Table 3.
⎛ σ aa ⎞
⎜⎝ X ⎟⎠ ≥ 1 (3)
C
3 FE MODEL VALIDATION
Tensile failure, matrix direction:
The developed FE models were used to simu-
2 late the behaviour of CFRP-strengthened hol-
⎛ σ aa ⎞
⎜⎝ X ⎟⎠ ≥ 1 (4) low steel tubes under axial impact loading. The
C results obtained from the FE models were com-
pared with the experimental results (Bambach
Compressive failure, matrix direction: 2009) as shown in Figures 1 and 2. Comparisons
of the peak impact forces between FE results and
experimental data are presented in Table  4, and
(Y YT )σ bb ≥ 1
2
σ bb 2 ⎛ τ ab ⎞
+ + C (5) the FE results agreed reasonably well with the
YCYT ⎜⎝ SC ⎟⎠ YCYT experimental data, with a mean ratio of 1.035 and
a coefficient of variation of 0.01. The FE mod-
A value of ≥  1 any of the above expression els accurately predict the peak impact force and
evaluated after each load step implies failure and the deflection behaviour of the bare steel tubes as
a value  <  1 implies the elastic behaviour of the shown in Figure 1.
material. σaa, σbb and τab are the stress in direction These validated bare steel tube models were
a, stress in direction b and shear stress respec- then used to develop the models of CFRP-
tively. XC,XT,YT,YC are the strength values where wrapped steel tubes. The FE modelling results
X is strength in the a direction, Y is strength in b were compared with experimental data, as shown
direction and Sc is the shear strength. Subscripts in Figure  2. The comparison of the FE results
C and T stand for compression and tension of axial impact force vs. axial displacement of
respectively. CFRP-wrapped models also showed that the
In this study, adhesive layers were not sepa- developed FE models are capable of predicting
rately modelled and both the CFRP and adhe-
sive layers were modelled as a single composite
layer. Composite properties were computed using
Equation  6 (Fawzia et  al. 2006) based on the
thickness of the materials and individual material
properties.

Table  3. CFRP composite material properties for FE

simulation.

Material parameter Value

Density 1700 kg/m3
Longitudinal elastic modulus 147 GPa
Transverse elastic modulus 9.2 GPa
Shear Modulus 4.5 GPa
Strength in direction a 970 MPa
Strength in direction b 271 MPa
Shear strength 292 MPa Figure  1. Comparison of impact force vs. axial dis-
placement for bare steel tube models.

403
 Figure 3. Failure mode of bare steel tube: FE analysis
(a) side view (b) isometric view.

Figure  2. Comparison of impact force vs. axial dis-

placement for CFRP-wrapped models.

Table  4. Comparison of FE results with experimental

data.

Peak impact force (kN)

Experimental FE model
Model (Pexp) (PFE) PFE/Pexp

ST65 208 213 1.024

FRP65 256 268 1.047
Mean 1.035
COV 0.01

the peak impact force and the axial displacement

reasonably well.
The failure modes obtained from FE analysis
were compared with those obtained from experi-
ments. Figure  3  shows the failure mode of bare
steel tube. The steel tube underwent a folding
type of failure, which is a common type of fail-
ure under axial dynamic loading (Xu et al. 2014,
Kazancı et al. 2012, Abramowicz 2003, Tarigop-
ula et  al. 2006, Abedrabbo et  al. 2009). A com-
parison of the failure modes of CFRP-wrapped
models is shown in Figure  4. The failure mode
of the composite tube also followed a folding
type of failure after the first impact. The numer-
ically-obtained failure mode is similar to the
experimentally-observed failure mode. The fold-
ing of the CFRP-wrapped tubes—started from
the top of the composite tubes in the FE models,
and the same failure mode was observed during
the experiments. Fibre breakage was observed
during the experiments, and a similar type of
CFRP failure was observed in the FE models, as
shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Fibre breakage during failure (a) experimen-
tal (b) FE modelled.
Overall, the developed FE models predicted the
axial impact response of bare and CFRP-wrapped
steel tubes reasonably well and provide confidence
in the present modelling techniques.
4 EFFECT OF IMPACT MASS
The validated FE models were used to investi-
gate the influence of impact mass on peak impact
force, deflection behaviour, and energy absorp-
tion of the tubes. It is well known that the struc-
tural behaviour of axially impacted steel hollow
sections strongly depends on the wall thickness,
yield strength and strain rate hardening of the
steel. The steel material properties were kept
constant during the parametric study, and the
impact conditions and key parameters used for

404
this evaluation are summarised in Table  5. The The FE modelling results showed that the
impact performance of bare and CFRP-wrapped peak impact force was generally around 268 kN.
tubes was evaluated and the results presented in A selected range of impact masses did not have
Tables  6 and 7, respectively. In these tables, the any significant influence on the peak impact force
average crushing force Pave is defined as absorbed of the tube models, as shown in Figure 5(a). How-
energy (Emax) divided by maximum axial deflec- ever, axial deflection behaviour was significantly
tion (Dmax). The subscripts st and f stand for influenced by the impact mass. It was observed
steel and CFRP-wrapped tubes respectively. Spe- that the axial displacement increased with the
cific energy absorption (SEA) is defined as the increase of impact mass (Figure  5(b)). This
absorbed energy (Emax) divided by the mass of the behaviour may be further understood by study-
axially crushed section. ing the internal energy absorption of the mod-
Four impact masses were selected (150, 450, els. A lower impact mass (150  kg) contains less
574 and 650 kg) to simulate different magnitudes impact energy (2.7 kJ) during impact. By increas-
of impact. Impact velocity was kept constant ing impact mass gradually, (450, 574 and 650 kg)
at 6  ms-1 for all the models, as the experiment higher impact energies are obtained (8.1, 10.3 and
was conducted at the same velocity. Variation of 11.7  kJ, respectively). The models absorb higher
impact force vs. time, axial displacement vs. time impact energy by undergoing higher axial dis-
and impact force vs. axial displacement responses placement, resulting in the folding failure mecha-
are shown in Figure 5. nism, which is a common failure mode for tubular
structures under axial impact loading (Tang et al.
2014, Bambach 2013, Abramowicz et  al. 1984).
Table 5. Key parameters for parametric study. The number of folds increase with the increase
of impact mass. Peak impact forces increased by
Model Impact Impact almost up to 25% for all the cases compared to
identification mass (kg) velocity (ms-1)
bare steel tubes. Axial deflections reduced by 7,
ST65M1V 150 6 17, 9 and 10 mm respectively in CFRP-wrapped
ST65M2V 450 6 models, with impact masses of 150, 450, 574 and
ST65M3V 574 6 650  kg respectively compared to bare steel tube
ST65M4V 650 6 models with the same impact masses.
FRP65M1V 150 6 Tables 6 and 7 show that CFRP wrapping can
FRP65M2V 450 6 increase the peak impact force and average crush-
FRP65M3V 574 6 ing force of the tubes. About a 25% increment of
FRP65M4V 650 6 peak impact force was observed when using nor-
mal modulus CFRP.

Table 6. Impact performance of bare steel tubes.

Maximum Maximum Absorbed Average

peak impact axial deflection energy crushing SEA
Model force (Pmax,st) kN (Dmax) mm (Emax) kJ force (Pave,st) kN (kJ/kg)

ST65M1V 214 38.04 2.7 70.98 17.39

ST65M2V 215 127.46 8.1 63.55 15.57
ST65M3V 214 159.10 10.3 64.94 15.91
ST65M4V 215 184.20 11.7 63.52 15.56

Table 7. Impact performance of CFRP-wrapped steel tubes.

Maximum peak Maximum Absorbed Average

impact force axial deflection energy crushing force Pmax,f / SEA
Model (Pmax,f) kN (Dmax) mm (Emax) kJ (Pave) kN Pmax,st Pave,f/Pave,st (kJ/kg)

FRP65M1V 266 31.40 2.7 85.99 1.24 1.19 19.88

FRP65M2V 268 110.12 8.1 73.64 1.25 1.15 17.02
FRP65M3V 268 150.12 10.3 68.82 1.25 1.05 15.91
FRP65M4V 267 174.01 11.7 67.24 1.24 1.04 15.54

405

Figure  5. Impact behaviour under different impact
masses.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the axial impact behaviour of CFRP-
wrapped hollow square steel tubes is investigated
using numerical simulations. The models developed
were used to evaluate the effect of impact mass on
peak impact force, axial deflection and internal energy.
The following conclusions can be drawn, based on the
results and discussion presented in this paper.
1. Both the axial displacement and absorbed inter-
nal energy increased significantly with increased
impact mass. But, impact mass (considered in
406
the study) did not have a major effect on the
peak impact force.
2. The average crushing force of the tubes
increased during axial crushing as a result of
CFRP wrapping. The axial deformations were
not significantly reduced, but wrapped tubes
are capable of absorbing the impact energy
through folding failure.
3. The specific energy absorption is increased by
wrapping with CFRP, and hence wrapped tubes
can be effectively used as energy absorption devices.
However, the variation of specific energy absorp-
tion did not show a consistent pattern during this
simulation and needs to be investigated further.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the scholar-
ship provided by the Queensland University of
Technology to the first author.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

FE modeling of FRP strengthened CHS members subjected

to lateral impact

M.I. Alam, S. Fawzia & T. Tafsirojjaman

School of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, Science and Engineering Faculty,
Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia

X.L. Zhao
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the detailed Finite Element (FE) numerical modeling technique and
dynamic lateral impact simulation of bare and FRP strengthened Circular Hollow Section (CHS) tubular
members. The equivalent composite layer technique is adopted to simulate experimental failure character-
izes of FRP laminates and strengthened members. The FE analysis results are compared with the drop
hammer lateral impact test results. Very good agreement between the lateral displacement-time curves of
bare and strengthened specimens is observed. Both local and global deformation failures of the specimens
are well predicted from dynamic impact simulation. Moreover, FE analysis results confirm that the FRP
debonding failure at the impact location of the specimens can be simulated with reasonable accuracy.
Thus, the current numerical analysis technique can be adopted to accurately predict the lateral impact
responses of FRP strengthened hollow tubular members.

1 INTRODUCTION and members subjected to different loading condi-

The superior properties of tubular shape hollow
steel members have been well recognized in the
field of structural engineering for a long time. The
better performance of these types of structures
against bending, torsion and compression as well
as architectural beauty, always put them in the
top priority list in the construction industry. Hol-
low structural members often experience dynamic
transverse impact loads from moving vehicles,
heavily loaded ships, explosive attacks or from fly-
ing debris when they are used in multi-storey car
parks, bridge piers, overpass bridges, building col-
umns, utility poles, offshore structures. Significant
damage or failure of these critical infrastructures
can be expected if they are not designed to with-
stand lateral impact force.
In recent years, fibre reinforced polymer (FRP)
strengthening of steel structural members has
gained wide acceptance among the structural
engineering research community due to several
advantages of such method over the conventional
strengthening/retrofitting method. A significant
amount of experimental studies have been con-
ducted over the last decade to understand the
performance of FRP strengthened steel plates
tions (Fawzia et al. 2010; Fawzia 2013; Kabir et al.
2016; Alam et  al. 2014; Alam et  al. 2017a; Alam
et  al. 2017b). However, compared to experimen-
tal works, finite element (FE) numerical studies of
FRP strengthened steel structures are limited in
the literature. Very recently, FE numerical models
of FRP strengthened square hollow section and
concrete filled circular hollow section tubular steel
columns were developed and transverse impact
analysis were conducted to investigate the effect
of FRP strengthening ( Alam and Fawzia 2015;
Alam et al. 2015; Alam et al. 2016). However, there
is a lack of knowledge of dynamic FE analysis of
FRP strengthened circular hollow section (CHS)
tubular members subjected to lateral impact.
In this study, three-dimensional (3-D) FE mod-
els of FRP strengthened CHS tubular members
are developed and dynamic transverse impact
simulation was performed using ABAQUS/
Explicit (SIMULIA 2011). The impact analysis
results and the failure modes of the FE models
are compared with the experimental tests con-
ducted by the authors group. The predicted FE
results and failure behavior of bare and strength-
ened members have shown good agreement with
the test results.

409
2 EXPERIMENTAL TESTS 3 FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING

Laboratory drop mass lateral impact tests of bare 3.1 General

and FRP strengthened CHS members were con-
ducted (Alam et al. 2017a). All the CHS steel test
specimens were fabricated from 6500  mm length
steel pipe in identical dimensions of 1600 mm of
length, 114.5  mm of outer diameter and 4.5  mm
wall thickness. The test specimens were strength-
ened by externally bonded FRP sheets. The
different FRP types: carbon fibre reinforced poly-
mer (CFRP) and glass fibre reinforced polymer
(GFRP) were used for strengthening purpose.
Two-part epoxy adhesive was used as bonding
material. Lateral impact tests were performed at
the mid-span of the specimens and the end con-
ditions of the specimens were simply supported.
The detail of specimen preparation and test setup
can be found in elsewhere (Alam et  al. 2017a).
Figure  1  shows the schematic view of drop mass
impact test setup. The detail of impact test matrix
is listed in Table 1.
Figure 1. Experimental test setup (Alam et al. 2017a).
Table 1. Experimental test matrix.
Impact
Specimen FRP FRP velocity
ID layers type (m/s)
A total of 13 full length 3-D numerical models of
bare and FRP strengthened CHS tubular members
were developed using ABAQUS/Explicit (Simulia
2011). The dimension of the specimens was kept
same as measured specimens dimension during
experimental test. It was noticed that all one, two
and three layers epoxy cured FRP sheets formed a
single composite plate (Alam et al. 2017a). A thin
adhesive layer also developed between the steel sur-
face and cured FRP composite plate. An attempt
was made to incorporate the similar behavior of
FRP strengthened specimens in FE models. Thus,
FE model of a FRP wrapped specimen consists
of three parts: steel tube, thin adhesive layer and
equivalent composite layer as shown in Figure 2.
The equivalent thickness of one, two and three lay-
ers FRP plates were selected as 0.7 mm, 1.4 mm and
2.1 mm, respectively which were similar as measured
from test specimens. The thickness of adhesive layer
was considered as 0.1 mm.
In this work, the equivalent FRP plate was mod-
eled using 8-node quadrilateral continuum shell
element (SC8R). This element was also used in pre-
vious studies to model the FRP composite layers
(Al-Zubaidy et al. 2012; Alam et al. 2015). The thin
adhesive layer was modeled using 3-D cohesive ele-
ment (COH3D8). Cohesive elements are capable
of initiating debonding failure of FRP layers from
steel surface. The thickness of adhesive layer was
defined by the thickness of the cohesive element as
0.1 mm. The 8-node solid elements (C3D8R) were
deployed to model CHS steel tubes. The drop mass
impactor and the weight block were modeled using
8-node solid element. The dimension of the impac-
tor head and the weight blocks were kept similar
as experimental setup. The total mass of the drop
FRP mass unit was kept 592  kg by adjusting the den-
bond sities of the weight block and impactor. Figure 3
length
(mm)

S-B-V1 – – 3.28 –
C-L-V1 1 CFRP 3.28 1300
C-LL-V1 2 CFRP 3.60 1300
C-LL-V2 2 CFRP 3.28 1300
C-HL-V1 2 CFRP 3.28 1300
C-LLL-V1 3 CFRP 3.28 1300
C-LHL-V1 3 CFRP 3.28 1300
C-HLH-V1 3 CFRP 3.28 1300
G-LL-V1 2 GFRP 3.28 1300
G-HL-V1 2 GFRP 3.28 1300
GC-LL-V1 2 GFRP + 3.28 1300
CFRP
C-LL975-V1 2 CFRP 3.28 975
C-LL650-V1 2 CFRP 3.28 650 Figure  2. FE model of FRP strengthened CHS
member.

410
 Table 2. Material properties.

Properties Steel CFRP GFRP Adhesive

Elastic modulus (GPa) 211 75 23 3

Tensile Strength (MPa) 366 987 508 46
Yield Stress (MPa) 317 – – –

Table 3. FE and test results comparison.

Specimen ID Dp(test) (mm) Dr(FE) (mm) Dp(test)/ Dr(FE)

S-B-V1 50.7 47.9 1.06

C-L-V1 46.5 46.0 1.01
C-LL-V1 39.1 39.6 0.99
C-LL-V2 49.0 47.9 1.02
C-HL-V1 39.4 37.1 1.06
C-LLL-V1 40.8 41.6 0.98
Figure  3. FE model of FRP strengthened CHS steel C-LHL-V1 38.6 38.1 1.01
member subjected to transverse impact. C-HLH-V1 41.0 39.9 1.03
G-LL-V1 41.7 41.2 1.01
G-HL-V1 44.2 43.8 1.01
GC-LL-V1 45.1 43.3 1.04
depicts the FE model of FRP wrapped specimen C-LL975-V1 40.5 41.8 0.97
subjected to lateral impact. C-LL650-V1 43.3 41.7 1.04
Comparatively dense meshing of elements was Mean 1.02
adopted at impact zone than the elements away COV 0.03
from the impact zone to accurately capture the
impact events. The 5 mm length elements were used Note: Dp(test) = Peak lateral displacement; Dr(FE) = Average
to model impact zone whereas, 10 mm length ele- residual lateral displacement.
ment was used to model the rest of the parts. The
contact between the CHS steel tubes, adhesive and
FRP layers were tied together using tie constrain ior was defined by traction-separation law. The
available in ABAQUS library. The contact interac- mechanical properties of epoxy adhesive were
tions between the impactor head and FRP layer, taken from coupon tests carried out by Kabir et al.
adhesive layer and outer surface of the steel tubes (2016) (Table 3).
were simulated using general contact algorithm. The material behavior of steel tubes was simu-
The normal and tangential contact characteristics lated using isotropic metal plasticity model. The
were defined by “Hard” contact, and “Penalty” materials properties listed in Table 2 were obtained
friction formulation. The value of frictional coeffi- from the tensile coupon tests extracted from tube
cient was selected as 0.50 (Alam et al. 2017a; Alam samples. The strain-rate effect was adopted by con-
et al. 2017b). sidering Cowper-Symonds power law relation.

3.2 Material models

The failure behavior of FRP material was simu-
lated using Hashin” failure criteria (Hashin 1980;
Hashin and Rotem 1973). The static tensile cou-
pon tests of CFRP and GFRP materials were con-
ducted to obtain the mechanical properties used in
this study. Table 2 presents the CFRP and GFRP
tensile material properties obtained from coupon
tests. The equivalent two and three layers FRP
material properties were calculated using the equa-
tions proposed in early studies (Al-Zubaidy et al.
2012; Fawzia et al. 2006).
The cohesive elements were used to model the
thin adhesive layer. The material failure behav-
4 VALIDATION OF NUMERICAL MODELS
The initial impact velocity was applied to the fall-
ing mass and impactor to produce the same impact
energies as recorded in impact tests at the mid-
span of the specimens. Lateral impact simulations
of all the test specimens were performed and the
results were compared with the experimental tests.
The numerical model validations were conducted
by comparing the structural responses and failure
modes of FE models and test specimens. Figure 4
displays the comparison of lateral displacement
versus time responses of FE and test results. It
can be seen that good agreements have found for

411

Figure  4. Comparison of Lateral displacement-time
curves (a) bare, (b) one layer CFRP wrapped, (c) two lay-
ers CFRP wrapped, (d) three layers CFRP wrapped and
(e) two layers GFRP wrapped steel tubes.
bare steel, CFRP and GFRP wrapped members.
Peak lateral displacements and average residual
displacements between FE and tests displacement
responses were well matched (Figure  4). Table  3
listed the comparison of peak lateral displace-
ments between test and FE results. The predicted
peak lateral displacements were closely matched
with experimental test results with mean and COV
were 1.02 and 0.03, respectively.
The failure modes of bare and CFRP strength-
ened FE models were compared with the impacted
specimens in Figure 5. The local and global defor-
412
Figure 4. (Continued).
mation behaviors of test specimens were well
predicted in FE models. The FRP fracture and
deboning failure observed in test event were also
predicted successfully in FE analysis. Moreover,
no FRP debonding was noticed at both ends
of the model. Similar failure behavior was also
noticed in test specimen. Thus, the numerical
modeling and dynamic impact analyses approach
discussed in this work can be deployed to capture
dynamic responses of bare and FRP wrapped
CHS tubular members under transverse impact.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this study, FE numerical models of bare and
FRP strengthened steel tubular members were
developed and dynamic impact simulation was car-
ried out to validate a series of impact test results.
The findings and observations obtained from this
research are outlined below:
1. 3-D full length FE models of bare and FRP
wrapped steel tubular members were developed
successfully to predict laboratory drop mass
impact test responses of such structural members.
2. The dynamic impact simulation results have
shown very good agreement of lateral displace-
Figure 5. Failure mode comparison of (a) bare, (b) two layers CFRP strengthened CHS member.
ment-time responses of bare and FRP strength-
ened specimens.
3. The failure modes of impact specimens were
predicted by capturing both local and global
deformation characteristics of bare and strength-
ened members with reasonable accuracy.
4. The obtained results confirmed that the current
numerical technique can be implemented in
future research to predict the behavior of FRP
strengthened metallic structures subjected to
transverse impact.
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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Experimental study on anti-impact performance of RHST and PCFST

columns under lateral impact

A.Z. Zhu, W. Xu, K. Gao, H.P. Zhu & F. Gao

Hubei Key Laboratory of Control Structure, School of Civil Engineering and Mechanics,
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, P.R. China

ABSTRACT: Three Rectangular Hollow Steel Tubular (RHST) and nine Partially Concrete-Filled Steel
Tubular (PCFST) column specimens were tested under lateral impact. Length of the column is 1500 mm.
Steel with a nominal yield strength of 345 MPa was applied to fabricate the cold-formed steel tubes. Self-
consolidating concrete with nominal cubic compressive strength of 30 MPa was applied to fill the tubes
partially. The concrete filling height, the impact direction and the impact energy are the main factors
considered in this study. The typical displacement and strain responses, as well as the failure modes of the
specimens were all analysed. The result showed that the PCFST specimens had much better anti-impact
performance than the RHST specimens. The concrete filling height affected the failure mode significantly
especially when the specimen was tested under a larger impact energy. The impact direction and energy
also affected the anti-impact performance of the specimen significantly.

1 INTRODUCTION Yang et  al. (2015) carried out experimental and

In recent years, bridge structures in many countries
have been increasingly impacted by vessels, trains,
vehicles, etc. The research on anti-impact theory
and application of bridge structures has become a
popular topic and aroused widespread concerns of
both scholars and engineers. Concrete-filled steel
tubular (CFST) columns have been increasingly
used to resist impact loads both in bridge piers and
building columns owing to their merits of large
load-carrying capacity, good ductility and ease of
construction (Han et al. 2014).
The impact behaviour of CFST members has
been experimentally and theoretically investigated
by many researchers. Bambach et al. (2008) inves-
tigated the flexural impact behaviour of square
CFST members which were conducted transverse
impact at the mid-span of beam specimen. The
results showed that the infilling concrete post-
poned the local buckling of the steel tube and thus
improved the sectional capacity. Remennikov et al.
(2011) investigated the anti-impact behaviour of
square hollow section steel tubes which were filled
with rigid polyurethane foam and concrete, via
conducting the drop hammer test and nonlinear
dynamic finite element analysis. Yousuf et al. (2013)
investigated the capacity of hollow and concrete-
filled section stainless and mild steel tubes under
both static and impact loads. Han et  al. (2014)
investigated the flexural behaviour of circular high
strength CFST members under lateral impact load.
numerical studies to investigate the performance
of recycled aggregate concrete-filled steel tubu-
lar members under lateral impact loading. Shakir
et al. (2016) conducted experimental and theoreti-
cal investigations on dynamic response of circular
normal and recycled aggregate concrete-filled steel
tube (NACFST and RACFST) columns under
lateral impact. The above mentioned researches
indicated that CFST had good impact resistance,
and the resistance was significantly affected by the
materials of steel and infilling material.
Investigations on behaviour of partially con-
crete-filled steel tubular (PCFST) members were
relatively few reported. Investigations on anti-im-
pact performance of PCFST members were even
less reported. About twenty years ago, Usami
et al. (1997) investigated the behaviour of partially
concrete-filled steel bridge piers under cyclic and
dynamic loads, and found out that the partially
concrete-filled steel box columns showed good
earthquake-resistance characteristics. This research
also mentioned that the partially infilling concrete
provided extra protection to the steel columns in
case of vehicular collision and also reduced the
weight of the pier. Ishizawa et al. (2006) carried out
experimental study on PCFST columns to investi-
gate the effects of the concrete filling height and
the height of the inner diaphragm on the ultimate
strength and ductility of steel tubes. Yuan et  al.
(2013, 2014) investigated the behaviour of partially
concrete-filled cold-formed steel tubular bridge

415
piers under bi-directional seismic excitations and
the results showed that the concrete filling height
greatly affected the seismic behaviour. However, the
effect of the concrete filling height on anti-impact
performance of the PCFST members is yet not
known. In the above literatures, the lateral impact
loads were mostly provided by drop hammers and
were conducted at the mid span of column speci-
mens. However, the vehicle impact usually occurs
near the bottom of columns rather than at the mid
span (Yousuf et al. 2014). Moreover, the rebound-
ing of column specimens under lateral impact load
providing by drop hammers was restricted by the
gravity of the hammer, which was quite different
from the real vehicle impact.
This paper presented an experimental study on
the anti-impact performance of rectangular hollow
steel tubular (RHST) and PCFST columns under
lateral impact load. The impact was conducted at a
certain height from the column bottom. Responses
of the typical displacement and strain, as well as
the failure of the specimens were mainly analysed.
The influence of the parameters including the con-
crete filling height, the impact direction and the
impact energy on the anti-impact performance of
the specimens were also analysed.
2 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
2.1 Description of test specimen
A total of three RHST and nine PCFST column
specimens were tested. The specimens details and
dimensions were shown in Figure 1. The design sec-
tional dimension of the rectangular cold-formed
steel tubes applied in the test was 140 × 80 × 3 mm.
The inner radius of the cold-formed corner was
Figure 1. Specification of test specimens.
416
4.5  mm. The total length of the specimens was
1500  mm. The concrete filling heights (from
the column bottom) were respectively 400  mm,
700 mm and 1000 mm, which ranged from 0.26 to
0.67 times of the specimen length. The area near
the impact region was meshed with a minimum
grid size of 10 mm × 10 mm for better observation
of the local deformation.
The details of all specimens were listed in Table 1.
The specimen labels were defined according to the
concrete filling height (hc), the impact energy (Ei) and
the impact direction: “H” and “P” denoted hollow
and partially concrete-filled specimens, respectively;
the followed number represented hc (mm); the letter
after label “–” represented the impact direction. “F”
and “C” denoted “Front impact direction” (impact
direction I) and “Corner impact direction” (impact
direction II), respectively, as shown in Figure 1; the
last number separated the different specimens with
same hc and impact direction. For example, the
label “P700-F2” defined the PCFST specimen with
hc of 700  mm, and the specimen was tested along
the front impact direction, with a different impact
energy from specimen P700-F1.
Three steel tensile coupons were tested using
the Universal Testing Machine. The average tested
yield strength (fy) and ultimate tensile strength (fu)
of the coupons were 540.6  MPa and 616.9  MPa,
respectively. Self-consolidating concrete was
applied to fill the tubes partially. The average
measured cubic compressive strength (fcu) and the
elastic modulus (Ec) of concrete at 28  days were
41.7 MPa and 32,929 MPa, respectively.
2.2 Impact test
The impact test were carried out using a pendulum
hammer impact test device as shown in Figure 2.
The device consisted of a swing arm, pendulum
hammer and supporting device. The length of the
swing arm was 3 m, from the top shaft to the geo-
metric center of the pendulum hammer. The weight
of the swing arm was 66 kg. The pendulum ham-
mer consisted of a weight block and a rigid impact
indentor with contact surface of 200 mm × 50 mm.
The indentor was just used to conduct impact load
horizontally, at a certain height of 320  mm from
the specimen bottom. The hammer mass (m0) var-
ied from 243  kg to 321  kg. During the test, the
hammer was released at an effective height (he) and
the corresponding maximum impact velocity was
about 6.5 m/s. Thus the impact energy varied from
5.75 kJ to 7.39 kJ which were achieved by chang-
ing the weight block and the initial height of the
hammer. The supporting device consisted of a
reaction force device, a fixed base and a displace-
ment restricting structure. A hoist machine fixed
Table 1. Detailed information of each specimen.

hc he m0 Ei Δmax Δstab td δΔ
Group Specimen (mm) (m) (kg) (kJ) (mm) (mm) (ms) (%)

I Front impact H0-F1 0 2.55 243 6.82 52.39 44.28 28.2 15.5
H0-F2 0 2.15 243 5.75 34.42 24.51 24.0 28.8
P400-F1 400 2.15 243 5.75 – – – –
P400-F2 400 2.15 291 6.76 31.33 18.78 17.2 40.1
P700-F1 700 2.15 291 6.76 – – – –
P700-F2 700 2.15 321 7.39 29.88 17.90 16.2 40.1
P1000-F1 1000 2.15 291 6.76 21.80 10.85 14.8 50.2
P1000-F2 1000 2.15 321 7.39 28.64 16.96 15.6 40.8
II Corner impact H0-C1 0 2.15 243 5.75 13.75 5.32 22.2 61.3
P400-C1 400 2.15 321 7.39 29.23 18.35 17.8 37.2
P700-C1 700 2.15 321 7.39 25.78 10.80 15.8 58.1
P1000-C1 1000 2.15 321 7.39 26.48 11.68 15.8 55.9

Figure 2. Impact test set-up.

on the reaction force device was used to lift up the
pendulum hammer. Fixed and pinned boundary
conditions were respectively applied at the lower
and upper end plates of the specimen. Hereinto,
the lower end plate was fixed to the base plate by
bolted connection. The displacement of the upper
end plate, which was along the impact direction I,
was restricted using the displacement restricting
structure as also shown in Figure 2. Stiffeners were
used to enhance the connection strength between
the end plates and tubes.
A laser displacement sensor was used to meas-
ure the horizontal displacement and the position
of the initial displacement measuring point was
the back midpoint located at the height of 320 mm
(see Figure 3(a)).
Figure 3. The arrangement of strain gauges.
High-speed cameras were used to record the
impact process at a speed of 1000 frames per sec-
ond. A total of 13  strain gauges near the impact
region were used to measure the longitudinal and
transverse strains. The arrangement of the gauges
was shown in Figure 3. The figure (in mm) on the
left wall denoted the height of the strain gauge
away from the lower end plate. Strain gauges dis-
tributing on front and back walls (front wall was
directly impacted, as shown in Figure  1) mainly
recorded the longitudinal strains while gauges on
side walls (see Figure 1) mainly recorded the trans-
verse strains.

417
3 TEST RESULT the global flexural deformation. Compared the
failure modes between the RHST and PCFST
3.1 Failure modes specimens, the local buckling were effectively
reduced via applying the infilling concrete.
Figures  4 and 5 respectively showed the typical
And the global flexural deformation was also
failure modes and section shapes of column speci-
affected by the impact energy and the con-
mens. The dashed arrows in Figure 5 indicated the
crete filling height. With the increase of Ei or
impact direction. Details could be summarized as
the decrease of hc, the PCFST specimens were
follows:
inclined to display larger global flexural defor-
1. For the RHST specimens under front impact, mation. However, when hc was 1000  mm, the
the failure modes (shown in Figure  4(a)) were increase of impact energy only moderately
dominated by a combination of local buck- affected the deformation. Specimens P700-F1
ling and global flexural deformation. Due to and P700-F2  showed different failure modes,
the larger impact energy produced by a higher compared with PCFST specimens with hc of
initial position of the impact hammer, local 400  mm and 1000  mm. Near the interface
buckling and global flexural deformation of between the concrete-filled steel section and
specimen H0-F1 were larger than that of speci-
men H0-F2. Figures  5 (a) and (b) showed the
section shapes of specimens H0-F1 and H0-F2
at the impact height of 320  mm, respectively.
An indentation of the steel tube appeared in the
front wall and remarkable buckling appeared
in the side walls. Since the impact indentor
had larger width (200  mm) than the specimen
(140  mm), the deformed side walls were con-
tinuously impacted by the indentor. Thus the
original buckling expanded, which caused an
obvious change in the width and depth of the
cross-section at the impact height. The width
of 140 mm and depth of 80 mm were changed
respectively to 179 mm and 50 mm for specimen
H0-F1, while 175 mm and 56 mm for specimen
H0-F2, respectively.
2. For PCFST specimens under front impact, the
failure modes (Figure  4a) were dominated by Figure 5. Typical section shapes.

Figure 4. Failure modes of specimens after test.

418
 the hollow steel section, specimens P700-F1
and P700-F2 both displayed local buckling. As
bearing the larger impact energy, the local buck-
ling near the interface (see Figure 5 (c) and (d))
of specimen P700-F2 was larger than that of
specimen P700-F1.
3. For specimens under corner impact, the failure
mode (Figure 4b) combining of local buckling
and global flexural deformation occurred. The
shape of the cross-section near impact region
was no longer maintained. Figure 5 (e) showed
the section shape of specimens H0-C1 at the
impact height of 320  mm. The shape of the
corner was formed to be flat and local buck-
ling appeared on the edge of the newly formed
flat face. With the increase of hc, the area of
the flat face reduced as shown in Figure 4 (b).
With the increase of hc from 0 to 1000 mm, the
specific areas of the newly formed flat face for
specimens under corner impact were 53.5 mm2,
32.0 mm2, 19.5 mm2 and 18.3 mm2, respectively.
In general, all specimens displayed global flexu-
ral deformation. Two plastic hinges were formed,
with one at the impact region and the other near the
fixed end. For specimen P700-F2, an extra plastic
hinge was formed near the height of 700 mm. Yet
no fracture of the steel tube was observed near the
impact region. This phenomenon might be caused
by the lower impact position and the strength
enhancement of the cold-formed section due to
cold-working process (Yousuf et al. 2014).
After the impact test, half of the outer steel
tube of the PCFST specimens was removed to
inspect the failure modes of the infilling concrete.
Figure 6 showed the typical failure modes of infill-
ing concrete. For specimens under front impact,
cracks were found at the tensile side of the cross-
section in the impact area. Moreover, wider tensile
cracks appeared near the fixed end. For specimens
under corner impact, an indentation formed in the
impacted region and concrete near the impacted
corner was crushed. The concrete in other regions
Figure 6. Typical failure modes of infilling concrete.
419
kept well and no obvious crack or crushing was
found out. Thus the infilling concrete showed high
ductility due to the effective confinement of the
outer steel tube.
Failure modes of the RHST and PCFST speci-
mens obviously indicated that the interaction
between the outer steel tube and partially infilling
concrete played a significant role in improving the
resistance to local buckling and the capacity to
energy dissipation. The failure modes of PCFST
specimens were significantly influenced by the
impact directions. When specimens were under
front impact, the confinement effect of the outer
steel tube and the support of the infilling con-
crete in the span of the two plastic hinges were
large. Thus the local deformation was effectively
reduced. Nevertheless, when specimens were under
corner impact, the intensity of interaction at the
directly impacted region was large while the inten-
sity of interaction away from the impacted corner
was small. Hence the steel tubes bulked and the
concrete crushed.
3.2 Horizontal displacement
The time history responses of the back midpoint
displacement (Δ) at the height of impact center
were recorded using a laser displacement sensor,
as shown in Figure 7. From Figure 7, the response
process were similar and experienced three stages:
the rising stage, the rebounding stage and the sta-
ble stage. Take the curve of specimen H0-F1 as an
example. At the rising stage (from point O to point
A in Figure 7 (a)), the impact energy was quickly
dissipated by the elastic and plastic deformation of
specimens. Thus the displacement increased rapidly
until approaching the maximum. At the rebound-
ing stage (from point A to point B in Figure 7 (a)),
the specimen stared to rebound with the decrease
of displacement until reaching the position of the
maximum rebounded displacement. Part of the
elastic energy was released at this rebound stage.
At the stable stage (after point B in Figure 7 (a)),
the specimen vibrated slightly and the displace-
ment kept a relatively stable with the release of the
residual elastic energy of the specimen.
The maximum displacement (Δmax), the average
residual displacement (Δstab), the duration from
initial impact to the maximum displacement (td)
and the ratio of the rebounded displacement to
the maximum displacement (δΔ) were also listed
in Table 1. The displacement data of P400-F1 and
P700-F1 were not achieved because of the sensor
failure during the test. From Table 1 and Figure 7,
the maximum displacement and the average resid-
ual displacement increased as the impact energy
increased. Meanwhile, Δmax and td decreased while
the ratio (δΔ) increased as the concrete filling height
 increased. The Δmax, td and δΔ were 31.33  mm,
17.2 ms and 40.1% for specimen P400-F2, whereas
the corresponding Δmax, td and δΔ were 21.80 mm,
14.8 ms and 50.2% for specimen P1000-F1. Simi-
lar phenomenon were found in specimens P400-C1
and P1000-C1. The PCFST specimens with hc of
700 mm and 1000 mm almost had an overlapping
time-history curve of displacement. Figure  7 (b)
showed that displacement of the specimen H0-C1
was smaller than other specimens in the same con-
dition of corner impact. The possible reason was
that the displacement of the back midpoint in the
impact area consisted of both the global and local
buckling at the measuring point. The larger local
buckling and less global displacement occurring
at the back wall of specimen H0-C1 caused the
smaller back midpoint displacement.

3.3 Measured strain

Figure 7. The time history responses of the back mid-
point displacement.
By arranging strain gauges near impact region,
the responses of longitudinal and transverse strain
were obtained. The strain development also expe-
rienced three stages, i.e., the rising, the rebounding
and the stable stages. Taking the curve of meas-
uring points “F1”, “F2” and “F3” of specimen
P1000-F2 as an example (see Figure  8): Firstly,
the strain reached the maximum value rapidly;
Then, the strain decreased when the elastic energy
released and finally the strain kept relatively sta-
ble value. The maximum strain (εmax) of measuring
points were listed in Table 2. In Table 2, the sign “-”
denoted a compressive (negative) strain. It should
be noted that most strain gauges of specimen
H0-F1 were broken due to the quite large local
buckling. Thus the strain data of specimen H0-F1

Table 2. The maximum strain (εmax) of each measuring.point (με).

Group: Front impact specimens Group: Corner impact specimens

Label H0-F2 P400-F1 P400-F2 P700-F1 P700-F2 P1000-F1 P1000-F2 H0-C1 P400-C1 P700-C1 P1000-C1

F1 5821 −3286 −3723 −3503 −2990 −4079 −4100 −14543 −5004 −2834 −3521
F2 4519 −1833 −4347 −3599 −2773 −3985 −3934 4314 5845 1384 1981
F3 – −2321 −6611 −4082 −3111 −3967 −4205 – 9379 17111 15905
F4 5469 −910 −1435 −1408 −1064 −1408 −1486 −5420 −10551 −5776 −4498
F5 5863 −838 −1272 −1320 −1339 −1405 −1483 13650 14115 5476 3419
F6 2879 −775 −1052 −687 −1381 −1082 −1215 −3238 −2023 – −1574
F7 10464 1755 1100 1456 3624 – 6789 11851 6491 – 4980
S1 3621 944 241 229 −488 −211 564 4049 2704 1664 1161
S2 – 570 178 461 470 295 2101 5466 9532 14983 11851
S3 –4826 −4784 −1025 1317 2933 −1332 −1103 – 6081 8483 5930
S4 4914 −2571 −2942 −3325 −3162 −1046 −3340 5453 −3361 – −6056
B1 2255 5405 4706 4537 6153 9638 8634 1245 3494 8130 8640
B2 1037 1733 1745 1878 2219 2005 2478 – 4718 226 1079

420

Figure  8. The time history responses of measuring
points “F1”, “F2” and “F3” of specimen P1000-F2.
were missed. From Table  2, conclusions could be
drawn as follows:
1. For specimen H0-F2, the strains near impact
region were mostly tensile strains and only
measuring point “S3” showed a transverse
compressive strain. Especially, measuring point
“F7” which near the stiffener had a large longi-
tudinal tensile strain up to 10464 με due to the
stress concentration.
2. For PCFST specimens under front impact,
strains near impact region were mostly com-
pressive strains, which was quite different
from specimen H0-F2. Due to the existence
of the infilling concrete, the stress mechanism
of steel tube changed and two compression
zones formed in the impact region and the back
stiffener. Meanwhile, the neutral axis shifted
towards these compression zones. Thus, the
strains of measuring points “F1”-“F6” and
“S4” changed from tensile strain to compressive
strain when comparing specimen H0-F2 with
the PCFST specimens. Measuring points “S1”
and “S2” with a small strain indicated that there
was a small shifting of the neutral axis near
the area with height of 400  mm. Besides, the
measuring points “B1” and “B2” in the tension
zone showed a large longitudinal tensile strains,
because the dominant deformation of PCFST
specimens was the global flexural deformation
as mentioned in section 3.1.
3. For specimens P400-F2, P700-F1 and P1000-F1
which applied identical impact energy, the
maximum strains for most measuring points
were close. Since part of the impact energy was
dissipated by the local buckling near the area
with the height of 700  mm, strains of speci-
men P700-F1 near the impact region were com-
monly lower than those of specimens P1000-F1
421
and P400-F2. Similar phenomenon could also
be found in specimens P700-F2 and P1000-F2.
4. Compared with the specimen P400-F1, the
strains of specimen P400-F2 near the impact
region increased remarkably as the impact
energy increased. Yet there was only a slight
strain increase comparing the specimens
P1000-F2 and P1000-F1.
5. For specimens under corner impact, strains at
the same measuring point of RHST and PCFST
specimens were both compressive strains or ten-
sile strains, except the measuring point “S4”.
The different signs of strain at measuring point
“S4” between specimens RHST and PCFST,
when the specimens were impacted along the
corner impact direction, due to the contribution
of the infilling concrete. Moreover, there was
no obvious local deformation at the interface
between the concrete-filled steel section and the
hollow steel section for specimen P700-C1. Yet
the added front measuring point at the height
of 740 mm still was recorded a large longitudi-
nal strain up to 18486 με.
In conclusion, the stress mechanism of the steel
tube was significantly influenced by the infilling
concrete. The magnitude of strain was also affected
by the impact energy. Moreover, large strains were
inclined to occur at the regions where the local
buckling, flexural deformation or the stress con-
centration were comparatively large.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented an experimental investigation
on the anti-impact performance of three RHST
and nine PCFST specimens under lateral impact
load. The impact load was conducted at the height
of 320  mm from the column bottom. The effects
of the concrete filling height, the impact direction
and the impact energy on the failure mode as well
as the responses of the typical displacement and
strain were mainly analysed.
Firstly, the partially infilling concrete signifi-
cantly affected the local anti-impact performance
of the steel tube. Specifically, the resistance to local
buckling and the capacity to energy dissipation
were greatly improved by the interaction between
the steel tube and concrete. Ductility of the speci-
men became better when the concrete filling height
increased.
Secondly, the impact direction affected the fail-
ure mode greatly. Specifically, the local buckling
of steel tube and crushing of the infilling concrete
were inclined to occur in the region where the inter-
action was weak and the impact load was relatively
large. The interaction also differed much when
the specimens were conducted the impact loads in
front and corner directions. Thus the specimens
displayed different failure modes.
Finally, the effect of the impact energy on the
responses of specimens increased when the con-
crete filling height decreased. Namely, specimens
with the proper concrete filling height could bear
larger impact energy.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the supports
of the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No.51378233 & No.51629801) and the
Funda-mental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (No.2016YXMS095).
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Bambach M.R., Jama H., Zhao X.L. & Grzebieta R.H.
2008. Hollow and concrete filled steel hollow sections
under transverse impact loads. Engineering Structures,
30: 2859–2870.
Han L.H., & Hou C.C., et al. 2014. Behaviour of high-
strength concrete filled steel tubes under transverse
impact loading. Journal of Constructional Steel
Research, 92: 25–39.
Han L.H., Li W. & Bjorhovde R. 2014. Developments
and advanced applications of concrete-filled steel
tubular (CFST) structures: Members. Journal of Con-
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Ishizawa T., Nakano T. & Lura M. 2006. Experimental
study on partially concrete-filled steel tubular col-
umns. Steel and Composite Structures. 6: 55–69.
Remennikov A., Kong S.Y. & Uy B. 2011. Response of
Foam- and Concrete-Filled Square Steel Tubes under
Low-velocity Impact Loading. J. Perform. Constr.
Facil., 25(5): 373–381.
Shakir A.S., Guan Z.W. & Jones S.W. 2016. Lateral
impact response of the concrete filled steel tube col-
umns with and without CFRP strengthening. Engi-
neering Structures, 116: 148–162.
Usami T., Ge H.B. & Saizuka K. 1997. Behavior of Par-
tially Concrete-filled Steel Bridge Piers Under Cyclic
and Dynamic Loading. J. Construct. Steel Res. 41:
121–136.
Yang Y.F., Zhang Z.C. & Fu F. 2015. Experimental and
numerical study on square RACFST members under
lateral impact loading. Journal of Constructional Steel
Research, 111: 43–56.
Yousuf M., Uy B. & Tao Z., et  al. 2013. Transverse
impact resistance of hollow and concrete filled stain-
less steel columns. Journal of Constructional Steel
Research, 82: 177–189.
Yousuf M., Uy B. & Tao Z., et al. 2014. Impact behav-
ior of pre-compressed hollow and concrete filled mild
and stainless steel columns. Journal of Constructional
Steel Research, 96: 54–68.
Yuan H., Dang J. & Aoki T. (2014). Behavior of partially con-
crete-filled steel tube bridge piers under bi-directional
seismic exciations. Journal of Constructional Steel
Research, 93: 44–54.
Yuan H., Dang J. & Aoki T. 2013. Experimental study of
the seismic behavior of partially concrete-filled steel
bridge piers under bidirectional dynamic loading.
Earthq Eng Struct Dyn. 42: 2197–2216.
Fatigue
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Fatigue crack in an unloaded brace

M. Lefranc & R. Gladsø

FORCE Technology Norway AS, Hvalstad, Norway

ABSTRACT: During inspection of a monotower a large crack (about 1 m in length) was discovered
along the weld toe of a tubular joint. This location had not been inspected in the first 13 years of the
life time due to the very low calculated fatigue damage and stress level. Investigations were made includ-
ing: vortex shedding, installation damage, etc. But none were satisfactory. The calculations of the jacket
structure were then studied in more detail but those were not able to capture the local effect relevant for
this detail. Furthermore, since the member was connected to a pile sleeve, the stiffness of the sleeve was
overestimated. A detailed local model including the sleeve, the grout, the pile and using gap elements
between sleeve and grout was developed, and a non-linear fatigue analysis was carried out. The results
show a damage life of 4–6 years, also well correlated to the facts.

1 INTRODUCTION increasing to 11 m at elevation −31 m. The tower

A presentation and a discussion of the propaga-
tion of a crack at the connection between a brace
and a pile sleeve will be given.
The platform was installed in the North Sea in
1998 in a water depth of 84 m. The platform is a
monotower supporting a light wellhead topside.
The radius of the tower is 8  m at the water level
is supported by 4 main diagonal braces connecting
the central column to the 4 sleeves where the piles
were driven. The 4  sleeves were interconnected
with horizontal braces. The actual detail is the con-
nection of the peripheral horizontal brace to the
sleeve (Figure 1).
2 BACKGROUND

13 years after installation, the operator did apply

for a life extension of the platform. As part of this
application a total survey of the platform was per-
formed in December 2010. During this inspection,
a crack was discovered at the connection of one of
the horizontal brace and the pile sleeve. The crack
had developed around almost half of the brace
perimeter, and had begun to propagate vertically in
the sleeve. This was unexpected, since all analyses
performed during engineering, verification work,
re-analyses and analyses performed for the life
extension program did predict fatigue life varying
from 400 to 1000 years.
The design of the platform was performed in
1997. The design fatigue life was set to 2 years.
Due to more favorable findings, the design life was
increased to 15 years during the project.
The platform was installed on the sea bottom by
lifting. Due to the light weight and large buoyancy,
all braces were flooded.
The pile sleeve has a diameter of 2670  mm,
thickness 40 mm, the main diagonal a diameter of
2465 mm, thickness 65 mm and the horizontal has
a diameter of 1030 mm, thickness of 30 mm.
The pile in the sleeve has a diameter of 2436 mm,
Figure 1. General arrangement of the platform. thickness 100 mm, and grout thickness is 77 mm.

425
 The force distribution in the structure is simple:
both self-weight and wave loads are transferred
directly to the piles by the main diagonals. The
horizontal braces are only for functional purposes
and to maintain the geometrical distance between
the piles. The forces in the main diagonal will bend
the piles. This will induce a force in the horizontals
which are connected to the sleeve at 6 m above the
mudline. The induced stresses are small. Further
since the sleeve is grouted to the pile, the joint can
is relatively stiff, leading to a moderate stress con-
centration factor. The results of this short analy-
sis explain the very large fatigue life calculated at
this location (several hundred years). The joint was
accordingly classified as non-critical and not part
of the inspection program.
3 CRACK DESCRIPTION
Even though the platform geometry is symmetri-
cal, cracks were found only at one location of the
eight similar ones.
The crack was developing at the toe of the brace
on chord side.
Figure 2. Crack at horizontal-sleeve connection.
426
Figure 3. Description of the crack.
The crack is shown in the Figure 2 and Figure 3.
It can be seen that the crack extends from mark
7 o/c to 11 o/c: a length of 1110 mm.
The depth was measured as approximately
50 mm, also, through the sleeve thickness.
At the upper end, the crack has different
branches with changing direction, and show a ten-
dency to continue vertically in the sleeve.
From the inspection, it was assumed that the
crack did start from the position 9 o/c,
It was also stated that this weld was of lower
quality than the similar weld on the seven other
horizontal/sleeve connections, as the indication of
undercut may suggest.
4 POSSIBLE CAUSES
The locations in this structure for possible fatigue
damages were identified at the lower part of the
weld between the main diagonals and the sleeves.
The welds were carefully welded and ground
smooth. The next hot spot locations were at the
opposite locations: also at the upper part of the
main diagonal to center column weld. At these
locations, however, the fatigue life was well in
excess of the requirement.
Since all calculations showed large fatigue life at
the discovered crack location for in-place fatigue
calculations, another cause was sought.
4.1 Vortex shedding
Excitation due to vortex shedding is often a cause
for crack development. This may happen onshore
during the fabrication period or in-place in the sea.
 Since the crack has developed from the position
9 o/c the vibration in a vortex shedding scenario
should be in the horizontal plan: that is an in-line
vortex shedding excitation.
This kind of phenomena is not realistic for the
onshore period since wind has not sufficient energy
to initiate it.
The phenomenon is possible in water, but calcu-
lation showed that the water velocity at the actual
depth (−78 m) is not sufficient.
4.2 Galloping
A possible action of the flow which may induce
vibration and damage is galloping.
This is due to a change of the shape of the body
when the flow acts on the body. Since the body is a
tubular this action is not possible.
Another argument will be that galloping will
induce cross-flow vibrations which in this case
will be in the vertical plan not in the horizontal
plan.
4.3 Overstress
A possible scenario could be that during installa-
tion the connection could have been over stressed
creating a small crack, which could develop
further.
The selected scenario was that during installa-
tion the platform may have landed on one sleeve,
leading to a bending of the connections.
Here too the stresses at the location of interest
were small and far below the threshold for damag-
ing the connection.
4.4 Delay during piling
The record of the installation was studied and it
was clear that the pile in the sleeve under question
was stabbed first. But the installation was stopped
and the pile was not driven to its penetration for 2
to 3 days. The question is: could an oscillating pile
in the sleeve create damage.
A dynamic analysis of the pile in the actual sea
states was performed and the stresses at the critical
location were extracted.
But the hot spots in the studied configuration
were not at the assumed position 9 o/c but at 12
o/c.
4.5 Conclusion
All attempts to find a probable mechanism for the
present crack failed.
As a conclusion, the only possibility left was
to re-visit the fatigue analysis for the in-place
condition.
427
5 NON-LINEAR FATIGUE ANALYSIS
A review of the performed analyses was done with
an aim to identify the simplifications and idealiza-
tions and discuss their validity.
This exercise highlighted 4 issues:
1. The main fatigue calculations were made on a
beam model where elements are connected at
the theoretical intersection lines. Consequently,
the fatigue was calculated for main diagonal-
sleeve, and horizontal-sleeve connections.
2. Geometrically the horizontal and the main
diagonal are very near each other: the distance
between the two is 200  mm. This was identi-
fied by the designer and the contractor which
conducted the life extension work. Both made a
FEM analysis of the detail, but both used only
2 elements between the main diagonal and the
horizontal: element size about 100  mm for a
sleeve thickness of 40 mm. If this may be done
for 20 years ago by the designer, the second one
should have based the analysis on recommenda-
tion available in 2010. Therefore, it is expected
that those analyses were not refined enough to
identify a possible hot-spot.
3. The can of the joint in question is a composite
structure: 100 mm for the pile, 75 mm of grout
and 40  mm for the sleeve. All analyses were
made based on an equivalent thickness per the
rules. None had simulated the real situation.
4. Due to the self-weight and the location of the
horizontals, those braces are in tension. For
most of the fatigue inducing waves the horizon-
tals remain in tension. Therefore, the use of the
close formula for an equivalent thickness was
questioned.
To manage to investigate those issues a non-
linear fatigue analysis was necessary. The model
of the joint had to be quite detailed with proper
representation of the pile, the grout and the sleeve.
The boundary between the grout and the steel
surface had to be done with contact formulation
to assess the effect of the tension forces. Finally,
the mesh had to be fine with element size below
30 mm.
The standard procedure for fatigue damage
calculation for this type of structure is based on
spectral theory. However, this supposes linearity of
the response to wave height, which is not the case.
A deterministic methodology has been adopted.
Such procedure is expected to give a conservative
estimate of the fatigue life compared to a spectral
analysis.
The next challenge was to perform the com-
putation in a reasonable time frame. The calcu-
lations were split in separate tasks as shown in
Figure 4.
 Figure 5. Local mesh of the joint.
Figure 4. Calculation procedure.

Create a deterministic long term distribution of

waves (step 1)
Global analysis: classic frame analysis model
with regular waves. The forces at the boundary
of the FE model of the node are extracted (step
2 to 5)
Apply the forces on the non-linear FE model of
the node (step 6 to 8)
Extract the stress ranges all around the hori-
zontal to sleeve connection using the hot-spot
method and interpolation as described in IIW
recommendations (Hobbacher 2009) (step 9).
Post processing of the results for fatigue damage
calculations (step 10 and 11).
Since the steps 2 to 5 are linear analyses, this
methodology assumes implicitly that the local non-
linearity at sleeve grout interface does not affect
the global flow of the forces in the structure. This
was evaluated to be a correct assumption.
The mesh of the joint is shown in Figure 5.
The software used were: Sesam for the linear glo-
bal analysis, LS-Dyna for the local non-linear anal-
ysis and spreadsheets were developed for the post
processing of the fatigue damage calculations.
The results are shown in the Figure 6.
The graphs show very clearly a hot spot at loca-
tion 9 o/c, location which was assumed to be the
start point of the crack. It shows also that the life
around the brace is quite large up to 1000 years.
Finally, it is also clear that using a mesh with larger
elements sizes will fail to identify this hot spot.
The calculated fatigue life is low and therefore
explains the fact that a crack has propagate at this
location.
As conclusion, it may be stated that the hot spot
is the results of several combined effects:
Figure 6. Fatigue life around the connection.
Proximity of the 2 braces: diagonal main brace
and horizontal.
Tension in the brace making the stiffening effect
of the grout less significant.
As mentioned previously, the workmanship at
this brace was of significantly lower quality than
for other similar locations. This fact explains why
the other similar locations did not present any
crack at that time.
6 DISCUSSION
In the recommended practice from DNV (Det
Norske Veritas AS 2011) it is stated:
“For joints where the annulus between tubular mem-
bers are filled with grout such as joints in legs with
insert piles, the grouted joint shall be treated as
simple joint, except that the chord thickness in SCF
calculation for brace and chord shall be substituted
with an equivalent chord wall thickness given by:
Te = T + 0.45Tp
where T is the chord thickness and Tp is thickness
of insert pile.”

428
 thickness according to the recommended practice,
it is found to be about 30 years: a factor of 5.
This comparison shows that the equivalent
thickness concept should be used with care and
that clarifications should be given in the recom-
mended practice on how and when it is correct to
be used.

7 CONCLUSIONS

This case study has highlighted several issues which

should be considered when analysing a tubular
Figure 7. Fatigue life when equivalent wall thickness is structure.
used.
First the classical modelling based on represen-
tation of the structural behaviour with members
connecting the centre line intersections gives an
In the present case, the equivalent thickness of
overall force distribution, but may not identify
the sleeve is 85 mm for SCF calculation.
local interaction between tubulars. An evaluation
The commonly used approach is to increase the
of the geometry is necessary to identify potential
thickness of the sleeve in local FE-simulations.
interaction.
Further it is usual to apply the effective hot spot
Secondly a local FE analysis should be per-
stress from the local FE-simulation. The effective
formed as per the IIW recommendation and the
hot spot approach involves reduction of the bend-
choice of the element size should be chosen as
ing component of the stress by a factor of 40%.
such, that the hot-spot can be identified.
This approach is described in section  4  in rec-
Finally, it is found that the use of equivalent
ommended practice. It is however unclear if this
thickness as described in the recommended practice
approach can be used together with the increased
(F. E. from DNV) gives non-conservative results
thickness approach recommended for grouted
for this case. This may be due to a non-intended
joints. It is obvious that simply increasing the
use of the formulas by the designers. The applica-
thickness for accounting for the presence of grout
tion of such formula should be more precise and
will not result in a correct distribution of axial and
restricted to specific configurations.
bending stress at a local level. The procedure of
When these issues were corrected in the analy-
reducing the bending stress will then be performed
sis, the crack propagation discovered at a location
on a bending contribution which is already incor-
classified as non-fatigue critical could be explained
rectly calculated. The bending stress component
and the relative short life of the connection could
will normally be very dominant in a simulation
be proven.
without grout; hence a significant reduction of the
calculated stress will be the result.
To illustrate the effect of the use of the equiva-
REFERENCES
lent thickness the analyses were performed using
this approach. The mesh was modified to represent Det Norske Veritas AS, DNV-RP-C203: Fatigue of Off-
only a sleeve of 85 mm. Figure 7 shows the results shore Steel Structure, 2011.
in the form of fatigue life. Hobbacher A., IIW document IIW-1823-07: Recom-
The fatigue life as calculated by the full FE mendations for Fatigue Design of Welded Joints and
model was about 4 years while with equivalent Components, 2009.

429
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Multiaxial loading of RHS by wheel loads

S. Herion & T. Ummenhofer

KIT Stahl- und Leichtbau, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

A. Lipp
gbd ZT GmbH, Dornbirn, Austria

ABSTRACT: Within the scope of a German research project supported by Deutsche Forschungsge-
meinschaft (DFG), two thick-walled hot rolled Rectangular Hollow Sections (RHS) were welded together
side by side in longitudinal direction to act as top girders for crane runways. For systematic investiga-
tions of the complex stress state, component tests were carried out for two different weld designs. These
experiments were performed for stationary wheel loads and roll-over tests. This realistic loading leads to a
multi-axial stress condition with longitudinal, transverse and shear stresses. For the various failure modes
found during the experiments fatigue design lines were derived. It was found that, within the range of
practical relevant dimensions of the hollow sections and the rails, this type of crane runway girders shows
an unexpected high fatigue resistance. Here the main results of this research are presented, which was part
of a joint project together with University of Stuttgart and MPA Stuttgart.

1 INTRODUCTION

Welded structural details under wheel loads, such

as those encountered in crane construction, build-
ing construction and bridge construction experi-
ence a multiaxial fatigue stress in the wheel load
introduction area. Due to the phase shift of the
individual stress components these multiaxial
stresses are non-proportional. This is character-
ized by the fact that the main stress directions
change permanently during the wheels are driving
along the crane runway. Figure 1c shows the quali-
tative stress distribution in the web and rail of the
crane constructions shown in Figure  1a. Stresses
in Figure  1c, which cannot be detected with the
elementary strength of materials, are referred to as
local stresses caused by the wheel load.
From the literature, it is known that the classical
strength hypotheses, such as normal or shear stress
hypothesis for static stress, can also be used to evalu-
ate multiaxial proportional fatigue stress. In the case
of non-proportional fatigue stresses, these classical
strength hypotheses fail (Kuhlmann & Euler (2007).
Since only isolated experiments on multiaxial Figure 1. Details of load introduction by wheels: (a) rail
fatigue exist so far, the following experimental pro- on I beam (Detail No. 1), (b) rail on upper chord of crane
gram was planned for two different design details: runway made of RHS (Detail No. 2), (c) nominal stress
(1) Tests with moving wheel loads (roll-over tests) distribution (2D stress state) in the web and the rail of a
(superposition of longitudinal, transversal and single span girder according (a) under centric wheel load F.
shear stresses) and (2) Tests with stationary wheel
loads (superposition of longitudinal and transver- In the present research first systematic investi-
sal stresses). The comparison between (1) and (2) gations on this complex behavior is carried out.
can be used to quantify the damage contribution In the tests, the influence of the bending of the
of the moving wheel load. crane girder was deliberately neglected in order to

431
concentrate on the fatigue stress caused by the
wheel loads.
These investigations also support and enhance
the experimental investigations and the data base
presented by Dittmann et  al (2008) and Herion
et al (2010).
For this type of crane girders the rails have to
be fixed by clamps (rail anchors) which are welded
directly on the beams, what is not allowed accord-
ing the former German DIN 15018 (1984) and
DIN 4132 (1982). According to EN1993-6 (2010)
this should be avoided also. As more research on
this detail was carried out in the scope of two
larger research projects, FOSTA P778 (2011) and
FOSTA P895 (2017), no further experiments were
carried out on welded rail clamps in the research
presented here.

2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS

2.1 Test specimens and test set-up

The test specimens were fabricated in two differ-
ent variants of the upper longitudinal weld seam
(see Figure 2). Variant 1 is characterized by a hol-
low space under the rail. Thus, the crane rail is not
completely supported by the two RHS.
In Variant 2, the web of the IPE section ends
at the upper edge of the QHP and the two QHPs
are welded to the web of the IPE section by two
HY seams. The disadvantage of this weld seam
formation is that inherent stresses are introduced
into the thickness direction of the web of the IPE
profile by the welding process Finally, the surface
was ground, what resulted in an almost full-area
bedding of the crane rail.
The tests with stationary wheel load were car-
ried out as 3-point bending tests on a servo hydrau-
lic testing machine with a maximum test load of Figure 2. Crane girders Variant 1 and Variant 2.
6300  kN (see Figure  3). The free support widths
were 2000  mm or 1500  mm. The test specimens
were loaded in the middle of the field by a hard- was moved horizontally for- and backward under
ened half-bridge (C45, EN 1.0503) with a diameter the stationary constant wheel load (see Figure  3).
of 320 mm and a width of 100 mm. The support width during the roll-over tests was
The sections investigated are hot rolled seamless 2000 mm.
square hollow sections according EN 10210 (2006)
with widths of 100 and 200 mm and wall thickness up
2.2 Test results variant 1 (hollow space under
to 16 mm. The steel grade of all SHS was S355 J2H.
the rail)
The IPE 330 section was made of S355 J0.
Two standard rail types have been used for the For this variant of the crane runway beam with
tests: A45 and A55 according German standard a hollow space under the rail and under station-
DIN 536-1 (1991), which gives for both rails a ten- ary 3-point bending tests in all cases fatigue cracks
sile strength of 690 N/mm2 and a yield strength of in the railway occurred. It was found that local
415 N/mm2. flexural tensile stresses at the underside of the
The test set-up for the roll-over tests was similar elastically bedded rail caused these failures (see
to the 3-point bending tests. The wheel load was Figure 4). After the rail failure, the rail including
brought in by the testing machine while the railway the elastomeric intermediate layer was removed.

432

Figure  3. Test set-up for stationary wheel load tests
(3-point bending tests) (upper picture) and roll-over tests.
The test was then continued with a steel block for
the introduction of the wheel load.
In this way, longitudinal cracks could also be pro-
duced in the upper longitudinal seam of the crane
beam Variant 1 under stationary load, Figure  5.
These cracks were caused by the bending in the wall
of the RHS due to the non-full-surface rail support.
In the case of a further test specimen, transverse
cracks were also produced due to the expansion
constraints caused by the steel block applied.
2.3 Test results variant 2 (no hollow space under
the rail)
The test specimens Variant 2, in which the seam
completely filled the cavity underneath the rail, did
433
Figure  4. Failure of the rail, Variant 1 with RHS
100 × 100 × 14.2 and σo = 400 kN.
Figure 5. Macro section of longitudinal weld, +50 mm
and 75 mm away from center of crane beam (crack length
around 100 mm) after 2 Million load cycles.
not show any failure in the upper chord area either
in the roll-over tests or in the tests with stationary
3-point bending tests (up to the numbers of cycles
during the tests).
In summary, it was found that, with practical
dimensions of the hollow sections and the rails,
both seam variants had an unexpected high fatigue
resistance. In none of the tests on test specimens of
the Variant 2, cracks were found in the load intro-
duction region. Accordingly, this seam variant is
particularly recommended for applications with
high single loads.
2.4 Fatigue design curves
In the case of fatigue design, as in the case of static
design, the applied stresses have to be compared
Figure 6. Fatigue crack in the IPE 330 in the flange in
tension: Comparison of experimental data and fatigue
class 160 of EN 1993-1-9.
with the resistance of the component or of the
structural detail. As a failure condition, the tech-
nical crack or the subsequent fracture may occur
when fatigue is claimed. Fatigue design curves are
generally obtained from a variety of fatigue tests.
In this case, the test specimens are tested with dif-
ferent loads or load amplitudes (ΔF and Δσ). In EN
1993-1-9 (2010) fatigue strengths are determined by
a series of (log ΔσR) – (log N) curves and (log Δτ R)
– (log N) curves for nominal stresses, wherein each
curve is assigned to a specific detail category.
In the fatigue tests carried out within the scope
of this research project, the failure modes failure of
the crane rail and failure of the tension flange
of the IPE beam could be observed. In Figure  6
comparison of the test results for both variants,
Variant 1 and Variant 2 with failure of the tension
flange of the IPE and Detail Category 160 accord-
ing to EN 1993-1-9 (2010) is shown. Detail Cat-
egory 160. Two test specimens of variant 2 showed
a fracture of the tensile flange. For the remaining
test specimens—except for one, which was tested
destructively after 65.207 load cycles—the fatigue
tests have been stopped at 2 Million load cycles.
3 NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS
The FEM program system ANSYS Workbench
14.0 was used for the numerical simulation of
the experiments. The calculation was carried out
assuming static load large deformations (equilib-
rium in the deformed system). In addition, non-
linear, friction-free contacts (coefficient of friction
μ = 0) were used in the analysis.
In the modeling of the different materials, differ-
ent approaches were chosen for the respective com-
ponents (weld support, wheel, crane rail, elastomer
and steel insert in the elastomer intermediate layer).
434
Figure  7. Meshing of the Finite Element model,
detailed view of the load introduction area.
Figure  7  shows the meshing of the numerical
model. Three-dimensional hexahedral elements
(SOLID186) with 20 nodes, with three degrees of
freedom of displacement per node and reduced
integration, were used in all simulations.
A linear-elastic material model, without a plas-
ticity, with a modulus of elasticity E = 210,000 MPa
and a cross-contraction number ν = 0.3 was selected
for the wheel, the laid-on rail and the welded run-
way beam. A bilinear relationship between stress
and elongation, with a yield strength of 355 MPa
and a plasticity modulus of 1500  MPa, was
assumed for the steel interlayer in the elastomer
between the rail and the welded beam.
A hyperelastic material model, the Neo-Hooke
model, was used to model the elastomeric interlayer.
This hyperelastic model is defined by two parame-
ters, the initial shear modulus G and the incompress-
ibility parameter d. For the numerical investigations,
the references G = 2 MPa and d = 2 × 10–2 MPa–1
were selected, were the shear modulus results from
an estimation over the Shore A hardness HA ≈ 70
according to Stojek et al. (1998).
The FEM models were verified by means of the
longitudinal elongations of the upper chord and
the vertical deflections of the lower chord of the
respective runway beam. Both, the longitudinal
elongations in the upper chord as well as the ver-
tical deflections were experimentally determined
in tests V1_N_1 and V1_N2 in the middle of the
beams. The experimental data are then compared
with the results of the numerical calculations.
Structural stresses in the rail as well as in the
longitudinal weld seam of the runway beam were
determined at an upper load of Po  =  300  kN.
Figure  8  shows the von Mises reference stress σv
in the field center in the region of the wheel load
introduction. The height of the stresses is indicated
Figure 8. Von Mises stresses center of the crane girder
in the load introduction area.

in the section line of the two symmetry planes of

the weld support (xz-plane and yz-plane).
The shear stresses τxz, which are phase-shifted to
the longitudinal stresses σx in the load introduction
region is low. Figure  9  shows the situation in the
center of the beam.
Within the scope of the research project, vari-
ous parameters of the numerical model V1_N
were varied. The influences of the thickness of the
upper longitudinal weld seam as well as the stiff-
ness of the elastomer intermediate layer on the
local stress distribution under the wheel load were
numerically investigated. According to the pro-
duction drawings, the nominal longitudinal weld
thickness is 8 mm. Within the scope of the param-
eter study a modified weld thickness of 10 mm was
also considered as this thickness was found by the
measurements at the macro sections (see Figure 5).
Furthermore, the initial shear modulus G of
the elastomer intermediate layer was varied or
the intermediate layer removed from the model. Figure  9. Phase-shifted shear stresses τxz in the load
Table  1 provides an overview of all variants of introduction region is low, the red arrow shows the evalu-
the numerical model. In this Figure a denotes the ation path.
thickness of the upper longitudinal weld seam, and
G denotes the initial shear modulus of the elas-
tomer intermediate layer. Table 1. Numerical models with different intermediate
Figure  10  shows the cross-sectional compo- layers of elastomer.
nent σy and the longitudinal stress component σx
in the longitudinal weld along the evaluation line Weld thicness Shear modulus
(red arrow in Figure  9) for the investigated vari- Model a [mm] G [Mpa]
ants of the numerical model. While the course of V1_N1) 8 2
the longitudinal stress component σx does not have V1_N_G=4 8 4
a strong dependence on the shear modulus of the 8 8
V1_N_G=8
elastomer intermediate layer, the transverse tensile V1_N_none 8 –2)
stresses increase significantly when the stiffness of 10 2
V1_N_a=10
the elastomer increases.
The removal of the elastomeric intermediate 1)
reference.
layer results in the greatest transverse tensile stress 2)
Model without elastomer layer.

435
Figure 10. σx and σy in the longitudinal weld along the evaluation line as given in Figure 9.

Figure 11. σV in the longitudinal weld along the evaluation line as given in Figure 9.

with a pronounced transverse graduation gradient 4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

dσy/dx near the load introduction point.
Furthermore, the experimentally determined
stresses of sample body V1_N_2 are contained in
Figure 11. The experimental values of the transver-
sal stress component, determined with the results
of the strain gauge measurement, are below the
numerically determined stresses. Figure  11  shows
the stress profiles of the Mises reference stress σv
in the longitudinal weld along the evaluation path
as shown in Figure 9.
As further investigations show, the stresses in
the rails are decreasing with increasing stiffness of
the elastomer intermediate layer.
Within the scope of a German research project
supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
(DFG), two thick-walled hot rolled rectangular
hollow sections (RHS) building a new type of a
crane runway beam have been investigated. For
systematic investigations experiments were per-
formed with stationary wheel loads and roll-over
tests as well for RHS with wall thickness up to
16 mm. This resulted in a multi-axial stress state
with longitudinal, transversal and shear stresses.
For the various failure modes found during
the experiments comparison with existing fatigue

436
design lines were done. In all cases very high fatigue
resistances of the whole system were found, which
were even above the highest detail class according
EN 1993-1-9 (2010).
In summary, it was found that, with practi-
cal dimensions of the hollow sections and the
rails, both weld seam variants investigated had
an unexpectedly high fatigue resistance. In none
of the tests on test specimens of the Variant 2,
cracks were found in the load introduction region.
Accordingly, this seam variant is particularly rec-
ommended for applications with high single loads.
Numerical computations were carried out to
simulate the fatigue tests. The calculation was
carried out statically taking into account large
deformations. In addition, non-linear, friction-free
contacts were used in the analysis.
The numerical investigation of the influence of
the elastomer layer shows that a higher stiffness
of the layer reduces the stresses in the rail and
increases the fatigue life if the rails.
In summary, it was found that, with practical
dimensions of the hollow sections and the rails,
both weld seam variants investigated had an unex-
pectedly high fatigue resistance. In none of the tests
on test specimens of the Variant 2, cracks were
found in the load introduction region. Accordingly,
this seam variant is particularly recommended for
applications with high single loads.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The investigations presented here are part of
a large research project supported by the Ger-
man research fond Deutsche Forschungsgemein-
schaft DFG and were carried out together with
the University of Stuttgart, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ulrike
Kuhlmann and the Materials Testing Institute
University of Stuttgart, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Eberhard
Roos. Special thanks to Dr.-Ing. Mathias Euler,
who coordinated the whole project and was
responsible for the roll-over tests.
REFERENCES
DIN 15018. 1984. Part 1—Cranes; principles for steel struc-
tures, stress analysis. Beuth Verlag. Berlin, Germany.
DIN 4132. 1981. Crane runways; steel structures; design
and construction principles. Beuth Verlag. Berlin,
Germany.
437
DIN 536-1. 1991. Kranschienen—Teil 1: Maße, statische
Werte, Stahlsorten für Kranschienen mit Fußflansch
Form A; Beuth Verlag; Berlin.
Dittmann, C., Herion, S., Josat, O. & Sunder, P. 2008.
Kranbahnträger aus warmgewalzten Mannesmann-
Stahlhohlprofilen (MSH). Der Stahlbau, Heft 11.
Ernst & Sohn. Berlin, Germany.
EN 10210-1. 2006. Hot finished structural hollow sec-
tions of non-alloy and fine grain structural steels—
Part 1: Technical delivery requirements. European
Committee for Standardisation. Brussels, Belgium.
EN 10210-2. 2006. Hot finished structural hollow sections
of non-alloy and fine grain structural steels—Part 2:
Tolerances, dimensions and sectional properties.
European Committee for Standardisation. Brussels,
Belgium.
EN 1993-1-9. 2010. Eurocode 3: Design of steel struc-
tures Part 1–9: Fatigue. German Version EN 1993-
1-9:2005  +  AC:2009. European Committee for
Standardisation. Brussels, Belgium.
EN1993-6. 2010. Design of steel structures—Part 6:
Crane supporting structures. German Version EN
1993-6:2007  +  AC:2009. European Committee for
Standardisation. Brussels, Belgium.
FOSTA P778. 2011. Bemessung von ermüdungsbeans-
pruchten Bauteilen aus hoch- und ultrahochfesten
Feinkornbaustählen im Kran- und Anlagenbau
(Design of fatigue-stressed building parts made of
high- and ultra-high strength fine grained steels in
crane and plant construction). Final Report. Düssel-
dorf, Germany.
FOSTA P895. 2017. Versuchsbasierte Ermüdungsfestig-
keiten der Radlasteinleitung (Experimentally deter-
mined fatigue resistances for wheel loads), Köln,
Germany.
Herion, S., Josat, O., Dittmann, C., Sunder, P., Fleischer,
O. & Dechent, J. 2010. Crane Runways made of Hot-
Rolled Mannesmann Steel Hollow (MSH) Sections.
In: Young B. (Ed.): Proceedings of the 13th Interna-
tional Symposium on Tubular Structures. December
15–17.2010, Hong Kong. China. Pp. 567–574.
Kuhlmann, U. & Euler, M. 2007. Multiaxial fatigue of
crane runway beams with hot rolled I-section and
welded block rail. In: Lieurade, H.-P. (Ed.): Fatigue
design 2007. Proceedings of the International Confer-
ence on the respective input of the numerical simula-
tion and the experimental approach in Fatigue design,
November 21./22., 2007, Senlis, France, Pp. 85–86.
Stojek, M., Stommel, M. & Korte, W. 1998. FEM zur
mechanischen Auslegung von Kunststoff—und Elas-
tomerbauteilen. [Hrsg.] Walter Michaeli, Düsseldorf,
Springer-VDI, 1998.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Fatigue behavior of CFDST chord to CHS brace T-joints

W. Li, D. Wang & L.-H. Han

Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

X.L. Zhao
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a preliminary experimental investigation on the fatigue behavior of
composite T-joint consisted of circular Concrete-Filled Double-Skin Steel Tubular (CFDST) chord and
Circular Hollow Section (CHS) brace. The brace was subjected to repeating cyclic tension during the test.
The test parameters include the load range, the chord to brace diameter ratio and the hollow ratio of the
cross section. The development of cracks and the degradation of joint stiffness are also monitored. It is
found that the sandwiched concrete constrains the deformation around the connection zone. Steel cracks
usually initiate between the saddle and the crown points of the composite joint.

1 INTRODUCTION Therefore it is of great importance to investigate the

The concrete-filled double-skin steel tubular
(CFDST) member consists of inner tube and
outer tube, with concrete filled in between. Many
researchers have devoted efforts to the behavior of
CFDST structures under different loadings, such
as short-term static loading, quasi-static loading
and long-term static loading (Tao et al., 2004; Han
et al., 2009; Li et al., 2015). Attributing to the excel-
lent structural performance brought by the compos-
ite effect between tubes and concrete, the CFDST
members have been used in electrical transmission
poles and towers (Han et  al., 2014). The CFDST
member could serve as chord member, and be con-
nected with hollow steel braces in truss structures.
Moreover, they have great potentials being used in
other structures, such as buildings, bridges and off-
shore structures.
In order to enhance the structural strength, the
high-strength steel (nominal yield strength higher
than 460 MPa) has been used in many engineering
projects. For the CFDST truss structures used in
transmission towers, bridges and offshore structures,
the application of high-strength steel could reduce
the structural self-weight. Besides, the structural
capacities could also be enhanced as higher struc-
tural strength can be easily achieved. However, the
high-strength steel usually has lower ductility than
the normal-strength one, which may result a worse
structural performance under dynamic loadings.
On the other hand, the transmission towers,
bridges and offshore structures are often subjected to
repeating dynamic cyclic loading, such as wind load-
ing, traffic loading and wave loading, respectively.
structural joint behavior under fatigue loading.
Filling concrete to the chord is one way to
reduce the stress concentrations of the joint, for
the concrete hinders the deformation of the tube
face. Previously, few studies have been conducted
to determine the fatigue strength and hot-spot
stress concentrations of welded tubular joints with
concrete-filled chords (Tong et  al., 2009; Mashiri
& Zhao, 2010; Qian et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2015).
It was found that the fatigue strength of the com-
posite joints was higher than that of the hollow
steel tubular counterparts. However, currently
there are no fatigue design rules for welded com-
posite tubular joints in codes of practice.
In this study, fatigue tests were carried out to
investigate the performance composite T-joint
consisted of circular CFDST chord and circular
hollow section (CHS) brace. The brace is usually
subjected to tension in the truss. Therefore the
brace was subjected to repeating cyclic tension
during the tests. The deformation and crack pat-
tern of the joints were recorded and analyzed.
2 TEST PROGRAM
2.1 Specimens
Five CFDST chord to CHS brace T-joint speci-
mens were designed for the fatigue test.
The schematic view of the specimen is depicted
in Figure  1. In this figure, d0, d1 and d2 represent
the diameter of outer tube, brace and inner tube,
respectively; t0, t1 and t2 represent the thickness of

439
 Table  1. Information of CFDST chord to CHS brace
T-joint specimens.

Inner
tube Brace Load Fatigue
Di × ti Dw × tw range life/
Label /mm /mm χ β /kN Cycles

Z1 219 × 3.4 219 × 8.3 0.63 0.62 130 1.026 × 106

Z2 219 × 3.4 219 × 8.3 0.63 0.62 110 4.052 × 106
Z3 219 × 3.4 219 × 8.3 0.63 0.62 150 3.17 × 105
Z4 219 × 3.4 159 × 8.3 0.63 0.45 130 1.30 × 105
Figure  1. A schematic view of the CFDST chord to
CHS brace T-joint. Z5 168 × 3.4 219 × 8.3 0.49 0.62 130 8.02 × 105

outer tube, brace and inner tube, respectively; γ is the Table 2. Material properties of steels.
radius to thickness ratio of the chord outer tube; and
τ is the thickness ratio between brace and chord. Modulus
The test parameters included the load range (the Profile, Yield Ultimate of
difference between maximum and minimum load), D × t/ stress, strength, elasticity,
the brace to chord diameter ratio β and the hol- No. Type mm fy/MPa fu/MPa Es/MPa
low ratio of the CFDST cross section χ. The val-
ues of γ and τ were 32.4 and 1.5 for all specimens, 1 Brace-1 219 × 8.3 322 470 2.11 × 105
respectively. 2 Brace-2 159 × 8.3 330 477 2.09 × 105
The definitions of these parameters are also 3 Inner tube-1 219 × 3.4 356 487 2.02 × 105
shown in Figure 1. 4 Inner tube-2 168 × 3.4 357 432 2.05 × 105
The commercial steel tubes with straight weld 5 Outer tube 356 × 5.5 609 669 2.03 × 105
were used for both outer and inner tubes. For the
outer tube, grade Q500 steel was used and the pro-
file was 356 × 5.5 mm for all specimens. For the inner
tube, grade Q235  steel was used and the profiles
were listed in Table 1. The tubes were machined at
both ends and welded to the flat plate at one end.
The length of the chord was 1780 mm including the
thickness of two end plates. The length of the brace
was 540 mm including the thickness of the top plate.
More details of specimens can be found in Table 1.
The brace was welded to the chord at the factory
using grade 607 welding rods. The height of the weld
toe was about 12 mm. After welding the tubes to the
end plate, the concrete was placed between two tubes.
The material properties of steel and concrete
were also measured. The compressive cube strength
(fcu) and the modulus (Ec) of inner concrete were
58.2 MPa and 37500 N/mm2 respectively. The yield
stress (fy), tensile strength (fu) and the elastic mod-
ulus (Es) of steel components are listed in Table 2.

2.2 Test setup and measurement

The test setup is shown in Figure  2. The chord
was attached with two hinged supports at both
ends, and the distance of two rotation points was
2400 mm. A loading frame was designed to trans-
fer the axial tensile load to the brace. High-strength
bolts were used to attach the brace with the frame.
The repeating axial tensile load was recorded
by load sensor, and was applied through
SCHAFFHOUSE fatigue testing machine.
The ratio of the minimum and maximum load was Figure 2. Test setup.

440
set as 0.1. The fatigue loading with constant ampli-
tude was imposed on the specimen, and the loading
frequency was approximately 4  Hz. The displace-
ment transducers were placed near the joint region
in order to monitor the joint stiffness change dur-
ing the test. The strain gauges were also mounted in
specimens to determine the stress concentrations.

3 TEST RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

3.1 General description

All tests were conducted in a smooth and control-
led way. The fatigue life for each specimen, i.e. the
number of cycles to half fracture of the specimen
is listed in Table 1.
Figure 3 shows the typical failure pattern of the
specimen. It can be found that the steel fracture of
outer tube occurred on the heat affected zone of the
brace to chord weld, as shown in Figure 3(a). After
the test, the outer tube was removed to identify
the crack pattern of the concrete, as shown in Fig-
ure 3(b). It was found that for some specimens, the
transverse crack appeared at the center of the joint.
It is due to the fact that the chord was under bend-
ing. Therefore the crack occurred on the tensile side.

3.2 Crack initiation and propagation

Figure 4 illustrates the crack initiation and devel- Figure  3. Steel fractures and concrete cracks of com-
opment of specimen Z2, where the crack was posite T-joint (Z2).
found by eye observation during the break. It was
found that the fracture of outer steel tube occurred
between the crown and saddle points at approxi-
mately 90% of fatigue life, and developed quickly
after several cycles. The fracture width was about
a quarter of the brace perimeter when the cycles
reached approximately 98% of the fatigue life. The
measured deformation also showed that the joint
stiffness changed moderately before the crack
occurred on the steel tube, and decreased rapidly
after the crack was observed.
The concrete cracks were found on those speci-
mens with longer fatigue lives. There was no con-
crete crack found on specimen Z3, for the number
of cycles was less. For the specimen Z1, the fatigue
life was approximately 1 million times, and a trans-
verse crack was found on the joint region. For the
specimen with the longest fatigue life, i.e., specimen
Z2, the crack width and depth were larger than
those of specimen Z1. It is concluded that the con- Figure  4. Crack propagation of composite T-joint
crete crack development was mainly determined by (Z2).
the total fatigue cycles of the specimen.
comparison of specimens Z1∼Z3. It is due to the
fact that increasing the load will raise the joint
3.3 Influence of test parameters
stress level, and cause an earlier fracture of steel.
For the load range, the fatigue life of specimen is For the brace to chord diameter ratio β, the
reduced under larger load range according to the fatigue life is reduced when β decreases from

441
0.62 to 0.45, as the smaller brace diameter brings
severer stress concentrations to the joint.
For the hollow ratio χ, the fatigue life is reduced
when χ decreases from 0.63 to 0.49. A compan-
ion study on stress concentration factors (SCF)
showed that the SCF of the outer tube increased
when χ decreased. It is due to the fact that the
sandwich concrete could reduce the ovalization
of the cross section, and the stress concentrations
could be severer when the cross sectional stiffness
is higher.
4 CONCLUDING REMARKS
The fatigue behavior of CFDST chord to CHS
brace T-joints was experimentally studied. The
following preliminary conclusions can be drawn
within the parameter scope investigated:
1. The sandwiched concrete could reduce the
deformation around the connection zone.
The failure pattern of the tested T-joint was
the fracture of steel tube. The cracks of steel
tube usually initiate between the saddle and
the crown points. Cracks of concrete at tensile
side could occur on the specimens with long
fatigue lives.
2. The fatigue life of specimen was decreased with
the increase of load range. The decrease of
brace to chord diameter ratio and the decrease
of hollow ratio also reduce the specimen fatigue
life in current parameter scope.
More work should be conducted to fully under-
stand the influences of various parameters on
the joint fatigue behavior in the future. Study on
the stress and strain concentrations of the joint
should be carried out, as well as the numerical
investigation and comparison with current design
standards.
442
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research reported in the paper is part of Tsin-
ghua University Initiative Scientific Research
Program (No.2013Z02). The financial support is
highly appreciated.
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Tubular Structures XII. pp. 389–395.
Xu, F., Chen, J. & Jin, W.L. 2015. Experimental inves-
tigation of SCF distribution for thin-walled con-
crete-filled CHS joints under axial tension loading.
Thin-Walled Structures 93: 149–157.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Investigation on stress concentration factor in concrete-filled steel

tubular T-joints under out-of-plane bending moment

I.A. Musa, F.R. Mashiri & X. Zhu

School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT: Experimental investigation of Stress Concentration Factor (SCF) in circular cross sec-
tion Concrete-Filled Steel Tubular (CFST) T-joints under out-of-plane bending has been conducted. The
distribution of SCF around the welded brace-to-chord intersection on both the brace and chord has
been investigated in three CFST T-joint specimens. The dimensions of three CFST T-joints were cho-
sen considering variation in non-dimensional parameter β only. The experimental SCF results have been
compared with the predicted SCF in CFST and empty T-joints. The results have shown that the concrete
has a significant effect in reducing the SCF and that the trend in variation of the maximum SCF with
parameter β is similar in both CFST and empty T-joints yet it is steeper in empty T-joints.

1 INTRODUCTION in-plane bending moment. (Chen et al., 2010), con-

One of the major concerns in the welded tubular
joints design is the high stress concentration at
the vicinity of the weld. High stress concentration
areas are prone to fatigue cracks. Fatigue cracks are
followed by fatigue failure which is usually brittle.
Hence eliminating fatigue damage is of extremely
important task. Research has shown that concrete
filling the tube effectively reduces stress concentra-
tion in the tube in addition to overall load capacity
enhancement.
The hot spot stress method is one of the widely
used fatigue design methods. The hot spot stress
method uses stress concentration at the vicinity of
the weld in the fatigue design. It uses the geomet-
ric stress where the effect of geometry but not the
local notch is considered in the design. The maxi-
mum geometric stress is the hot spot stress. The
maximum stress concentration factor (SCFmax) is
the ratio of the maximum geometric stress to the
applied nominal direct stress. SCFmax is used in the
hot-spot stress method along with an appropriate
S-N curve to estimate fatigue life of tubular joints.
The Stress concentration in welded T-joints
made of steel circular hollow section (CHS) brace
welded to concrete-filled circular hollow section
(CFCHS) chord have been investigated experi-
mentally by several researchers. (Jardine, 1993),
investigated SCF in previously fatigue damaged
then repaired CHS-to-CFCHS T-joints under
axial force, in-plane bending and out-of-plane
bending. (Tong et  al. 2007a, 2007b) Performed
an experimental study on the distribution of the
SCF around the brace-chord intersection in CHS-
to-CFCHS T-joints subjected to axial loading and
ducted experiments on CHS-to-CFCHS T-joints
subjected to axial loading and in-plane bending
to investigate the distribution of SCF in the joints.
(Wang et al., 2013), investigated the distribution of
SCF in CHS-to-CFCHS T-joints for fatigue pur-
poses. (Xu et al., 2015), experimentally investigated
SCF in thin walled CHS-to-CFCHS T-joints sub-
jected to axial tension. Generally, from the above
mentioned studies, it was concluded that it would
be conservative to use SCF design predictions for
empty joints in predicting SCF in CFST joints
since it was found that concrete-filling the chord
effectively reduced SCF in CFST joints. Apart
from (Jardine, 1993) study, which was on repaired
CFST T-joints, no investigation on SCF in CFST
T-joints under out-of-plane has been reported in
the literature. The T-joints in arch bridges will def-
initely undergo out-of-plane moments and hence
requires thorough investigation.
In this paper, three circular cross section con-
crete-filled steel tubular (CFST) T-joints have been
subjected to static test under out-of-plane bend-
ing. The effect of concrete filling the chord on the
SCF was assessed. The SCF results were compared
against SCFs in empty T-joints calculated from
parametric equations for empty T-joints reported
in CIDECT (International Committee for the
Development and Study of Tubular Construction)
(Zhao et al., 2001), The Norwegian Veritas (DNV,
2011), American Petroleum Institute (API, 2000)
and Lloyd’s Register design guide (Smedley and
Fisher, 1990, Smedley and Fisher, 1991). Also the
SCF results were compared against SCFs in CFST
T-joints reported in the Norwegian Veritas (DNV,
2011).

443
 Table 1. Dimensions and geometric parameters.
Notations:
D = chord external diameter Chord Brace Parameter
d = brace external diameter
T = chord thickness D T d t
Specimen (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) β τ γ
L = length of chord
t = Brace thickness T-1 165.1 5.32 48.3 5.27 0.29 0.99 15.5
γ = chord wall slenderness ratio = D/2T T-2 165.1 5.33 60.3 5.2 0.365 0.98 15.49
β = brace-to-chord diameter ratio = d/D T-3 165.1 5.33 114.3 5.23 0.69 0.98 15.49
α = chord length-to-chord diameter ratio = 2 L/D
τ = brace-to-chord thickness ratio = t/T
Es = modulus of elasticity of the steel
Table 2. Mechanical properties of the steel.
Ec = modulus of elasticity of the concrete
v = Poisson ratio Es fy fu εf
fy = Yield strength of the steel Specimen Part (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%)
fu = Ultimate strength of the steel
εu = Elongation in the steel at fracture T-1 Chord 224 300 370 47
εhs = Hot spot strain Brace 227 373 399 23.3
εn = Normal strain T-2 Chord 204 290 370 41.42
Cc = Chord crown Brace 218 358 388 32.62
Cs = Chord saddle T-3 Chord 204 290 370 41.42
Bc = Brace crown Brace 180 300 365 35.93
Bs = Brace saddle
SCF = stress concentration factor
SCFmax = the maximum stress concentration factor specifications (AWS, 2010). The chord was filled
CFST = circular cross section concrete-filled steel with concrete along its full length. The average
tubular compressive strength of the concrete test cylin-
CHS = circular hollow section ders at 28 days of age was 36 MPa. Two 20 mm
CHS-CFCHS  =  steel circular hollow section thick steel plates were welded to both ends of
brace welded to concrete-filled circular hollow the chord to facilitate connection of the two end
section chord brackets. Additionally, a 20  mm steel plate was
CIDECT = International Committee for the Devel- welded to the top end of the brace to facilitate
opment and Study of Tubular Construction load application.
API = American Petroleum Institute
DNV = The Norwegian Veritas
LR design guide = Lloyd’s Register design guide 2.2 Loading and boundary conditions
The chord ends were bolted to two end brackets
which were pin connected (as shown in Figure 1).
A universal test rig was employed to test the speci-
2 EXPERIMENTAL TESTS
mens under out-of-plane bending (see Figure 2).
A horizontal load perpendicular to the chord cen-
2.1 Test specimen
terline was applied to the top end of the brace to
(Tong et  al., 2007b) found that parameter β is develop out-of-plane bending moment. During
the most influential parameter on SCF in CFST loading process, the specimen was loaded sev-
T-joints under axial loading. Hence, the dimen- eral times in a shakedown process to release any
sions of the three CFST T-joint specimens were residual stresses and to break the bond between the
chosen so that only parameter β varies while all chord wall and the concrete as recommended by
the other parameters were kept constant. The non- DNV manual (DNV, 2011) (Though it is expected
dimensional geometric parameters and dimen- to self-break due to shrinkage of concrete). This
sions of the specimens are given in Table  1. The is because in the real world, the bond between the
test specimens were fabricated from cold formed chord wall and the concrete is expected to deterio-
circular hollow steel tubes of grade C250  LO. rate after a few cycles of loading.
Tensile coupons were taken from both the brace
and chord and subjected to tensile tests according
2.3 Strain gauge location
to (AS1391, 2007). The mechanical properties of
the chord and brace for the three specimens are Five element strip strain gauges were attached
given in Table 2. The brace was butt welded to the around the brace-chord intersection at 45° inter-
chord according to the American Welding Society vals as shown in Figures 3–4. To measure the actual

444
Figure 1. Boundary conditions.

Figure 3. Strain gauge arrangement.

Figure 2. Specimen set up under out-of-plane bending.

applied load on the brace, four single element

strain gauges were attached on the outer surface
half way between the two brace ends at intervals
Figure 4. Strain gauge positions.
at a distance more than 2.5d from weld toe as
recommended by CIDECT (Zhao et  al., 2001).
Table  3. Extrapolation region recommended by
Additional two single element strain gauges were
CIDECT.
attached on the brace half way between the brace
top end and the four single element gauges at the Chord side Brace side
mid-brace so that one of them was at the in-plane
position and the other was at the out-of-plane Crown and Saddle
position (see Figures 1 and 4). This is to have suf- Crown location Saddle location location
ficient strain readings to be used for obtaining l r*,min = 0.4T l r*,min = 0.4T l r*,min . t
the nominal strains at the weld toe. The arrange-
ment of the strip strain gauges around the weld **
lr,max . 4
rtRT **
lr,max . R **
lr,max . rt
at the brace-chord intersection followed the linear
extrapolation region recommended by CIDECT *) Minimum value for lr,min is 4 mm.
(Zhao et al., 2001) (shown in Table 3). **) Minimum value for lr,max is lr,min+0.6t.

weld toe notch. Hence, strain measurements out-

2.4 Determination of stress concentration factor
The strains at the weld toe around the intersec-
tion to be considered in the calculations need to
be geometric strains without the effect of the local
side the region influenced by weld toe notch need
to be extrapolated to the weld toe to get hot spot
strains. The extrapolation region recommended by
CIDECT (Zhao et al., 2001) has been adopted in

445
this study. Two extrapolation methods can be used The SNCF was then converted to stress concen-
in the determination of hot spot strains, the linear tration factor (SCF) using the relationship recom-
or quadratic extrapolation of the strain measure- mended by CIDECT, which is:
ments. According to CIDECT, the linear extrapo-
lation can be used in empty circular hollow section SCF
C 1 2 SNC
CF (2)
joints because strain gradient around the weld toe
is generally linear. From test results obtained in
the current study, it was observed that the strain 3 TEST RESULTS AND COMPARISON
gradient under out-of-plane bending around the
intersection was linear on the chord, yet it was rela- The distribution of the average SCF around the
tively non-linear on the brace in specimens T-1 and weld toe, under out-of-plane bending, on the
T-2. The non-linearity in the strain gradient on the chord and brace side is shown in Figures  7–11.
brace was insignificant since the difference between
SCFs obtained using both the quadratic and linear
extrapolation methods was very little. Hence, the
linear extrapolation method over an extrapolation
region recommended by CIDECT for CHS joints,
was used to obtain hot spot strains at the weld toe.
Figures 5–6 show strains at weld toe on the tension
side at chord and brace saddle positions, respec-
tively, are linearly extrapolated to get the hot spot
strains. The strain concentration factor (SNCF)
was obtained as the ratio of the hot spot strain at
the weld toe to the maximum normal strain in the
brace. This relationship is given in equation (1).
Figure  7. Distribution of SCF around chord-brace
ε intersection in T-1 under out-of-plane bending.
SNCF = hhs (1)
εn

Figure  8. Distribution of SCF around chord-brace

Figure  5. Linear extrapolation of the strains at the intersection in T-2 under out-of-plane bending.
chord saddle position on the tension side in specimen T-3.

Figure  6. Linear extrapolation of the strains at the Figure  9. Distribution of SCF around chord-brace
brace saddle position on the tension side in specimen T-3. intersection in T-3 under out-of-plane bending.

446
 Table  4. Comparison of SCFs of the CFST T-joints
test results under out-of-plane bending moment and
design prediction for empty T-joints according to
CIDECT and DNV.

Predicted by Comparison
Test results CIDECT and test/
(Tension side) DNV Predicted

Specimen Cs Bs Cs Bs Cs Bs

T-1 3.89 1.47 7.46 5.58 0.52 0.26

T-2 5.23 2.33 9.14 6.61 0.57 0.35
T-3 6.2 2.41 14.20 8.56 0.44 0.28
Figure 10. Distribution of SCF around the chord in the
three specimens under out-of-plane bending.
Table  5. Comparison of SCFs of the CFST T-joints
test results under out-of-plane bending moment and
design prediction for empty T-joints according to API.

Predicted by Comparison
Test results API test/Predicted

SCFmax SCFmax SCFmax SCFmax SCFmax SCFmax

Specimen chord brace chord brace chord brace

T-1 3.89 3.54 10.53 8.67 0.37 0.41

T-2 5.23 2.94 10.42 7.78 0.50 0.38
T-3 6.2 2.41 10.42 6.03 0.60 0.40

Figure 11. Distribution of SCF around the brace in the

three specimens under out-of-plane bending. Table  6. Comparison of SCFs of the CFST T-joints
test results under out-of-plane bending moment and
design prediction for empty T-joints according to LR
It can be observed in Figures 7–9 that the SCF on design guides (Smedley and Fisher 1990, 1991).
the tension side is always greater on the chord than
that on the brace, while on the compression side, Predicted by Comparison
the SCF on the brace is greater. Figure 10 shows Test results LR design test/
that the SCF on the chord side under tension is (Tension side) guides Predicted
greater than that on the compression side for the Specimen Cs Bs Cs Bc Cs Bs
three specimens. Figure  11  shows that the SCF
on the brace saddle—compression side is greater T-1 3.89 1.47 6.22 3.74 0.63 0.39
than that on the brace saddle—tension side except T-2 5.23 2.33 7.73 4.42 0.68 0.53
in specimen T-3 where it is slightly greater on the T-3 6.2 2.41 13.03 6.74 0.48 0.36
brace saddle—tension side. Tables 4–6 show com-
parison of the experimental SCF results for CFST
T-joints under out-of-plane bending obtained in brace and chord to an equivalent chord wall thick-
the current study with those for empty T-joints ness. Table 7 show comparison of the experimental
under out-of-plane bending predicted in CIDECT SCF results for CFST T-joints under out-of-plane
(Zhao et al., 2001), (DNV, 2011), API (API, 2000) bending obtained in the current study with those
and LR design guides (Smedley and Fisher 1990, for CFST T-joints under out-of-plane bending pre-
1991). It can be observed that the design predic- dicted by the DNV manual (DNV, 2011). It can be
tion for SCF in empty T-joints is not suitable for observed in Table 7 that there is good comparison
CFST T-joints as the prediction is conservative. on the chord saddle position yet it gives conserva-
Except for the DNV manual (DNV, 2011), no tive results on the brace saddle position.
current fatigue design guideline provides parametric
equations for predicting SCFs in CFST T-joints. In
the DNV manual, parametric equations for predict- 3.1 The maximum SCF
ing SCFs in empty joints can be used to predict SCF It can be easily observed from Figures  7–11 that
in CFST joints after modifying the chord wall thick- the maximum SCF under out-of-plane bending
ness in the γ term for the saddle SCF calculation for always existed on the tension side at the chord sad-

447
Table  7. Comparison of SCFs of the CFST T-joints • The maximum SCF under out-of-plane bending
test results under out-of-plane bending moment and in CFST T-joints is located on the tension side at
design prediction for CFST T-joints according to DNV. the chord saddle.
Predicted by Comparison
Test results DNV for test/
(Tension side) CFST Predicted
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Specimen Cs Bs Cs Bs Cs Bs The authors wish to thank Western Sydney Univer-

sity for providing Candidature Support Funds for
T-1 3.89 1.47 3.71 2.88 1.05 0.51 this project. The authors are also grateful for the
T-2 5.23 2.33 4.56 3.41 1.15 0.68 support given by the WSU Structures Laboratory
T-3 6.2 2.41 7.08 4.42 0.88 0.55 staff, Mr Robert Marshall and Mr Murray Bolden.

REFERENCES

API, American Petroleum Institute (2000) RP 2 A-WSD.

Figure 12. Variation of the maximum SCF under out-
of-plane bending with parameter β – CFST and empty
T-joints..
dle. Figure 12 shows the variation of the maximum
SCF under out-of-plane, in CFST T-joints from
test results and predicted by CIDECT (Zhao et al.,
2001), (DNV, 2011), (API, 2000) and LR design
guides (Smedley and Fisher 1990, 1991) in empty
T-joints, with parameter β. It can be observed in
Figure 12 that concrete infill has effectively reduced
the maximum SCF. It can also be observed that
the trend in variation of the maximum SCF with
parameter β is similar in both CFST and empty
T-joints yet it is steeper in empty T-joints.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Three CFST T-joints have been tested experimen-
tally under out-of-plane bending in the brace. SCF
measurements in the three specimens have been per-
formed and compared with those for empty T-joints.
The following remarks have been concluded:
• Concrete infill effectively reduces SCF.
• Parametric equations for predicting SCFs in
empty T-joints are not suitable for CFST T-joints.
• Effect of parameter β on the maximum SCF in
CFST T-joints is significant under out-of-plane
bending moment.
Recommended Practice for Planning, Designing and
Constructing Fixed Offshore Platforms-WSD.
AS1391, Australian Standard (2007) Metallic materi-
als—Tensile testing at ambient temperature. Sydney,
Australia.
AWS, D.D.M. (2010) Structural Welding Code—Steel.
American Welding Society.
Chen, J., Chen, J. & Jin, W.-l. (2010) Experiment inves-
tigation of stress concentration factor of concrete-
filled tubular T joints. Journal of Constructional Steel
Research, 66, 1510–1515.
DNV, Det Norske Veritas. (2011) Fatigue design of off-
shore steel structures. No. DNV-RP-C203.
Jardine, B. (1993) Fatigue life enhancement of tubular
joints by grout injection. Offshore Technology Report-
Health and Safety Executive OTH.
Smedley, P. & Fisher, P. (1990) A review of stress concen-
tration factors for tubular complex joints. Integrity of
Offshore Structures.
Smedley, P. & Fisher, P. (1991) Stress concentration fac-
tors for simple tubular joints. The First International
Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference. Interna-
tional Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers.
Tong, L., Wang, K., Shi, W. & Chen, Y. (2007a) Experi-
mental investigation on stress concentration factors of
CHS-to-CFCHS T-joints subjected to in-plane bend-
ing. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on
Advances in Steel Structures.
Tong, L., Wang, K., Shi, W. & Chen, Y. (2007b) Experi-
mental study on stress concentration factors of
concrete-filled circular hollow section T-joints under
axial loading. Proceedings of 8th pacific structural con-
ference. Wairakei, New Zealand.
Wang, K., Tong, L.-W., Zhu, J., Zhao, X.-L. & Mashiri,
F.R. (2013) Fatigue behavior of welded T-joints with a
CHS brace and CFCHS chord under axial loading in
the brace. Journal of Bridge Engineering, 18, 142–152.
Xu, F., Chen, J. & Jin, W.-l. (2015) Experimental
investigation of SCF distribution for thin-walled
concrete-filled CHS joints under axial tension load-
ing. Thin-Walled Structures, 93, 149–157.
Zhao, X.L., Herion, S., Packer, J.A., Puthli, R.S.,
Sedlacek, G., Wardenier, J., Weynand, K.,
Wingerde, A.M. v. & Yeomans, N.F. (2001) Design Guide
for Circular and Rectangular Hollow Section Welded
Joints Under Fatigue Loading, Cologne-Germany,
CIDECT and TÜV-Verlag.

448
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Fatigue behavior of diamond bird-beak T-joints and design

recommendations

L.W. Tong & G.W. Xu

State Key Laboratory for Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Y.Q. Liu
Hunan Provincial Architectural Design Institute, Hunan, China

D.Q. Yan
China Architecture Design and Research Group, Beijing, China

X.L. Zhao
Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

ABSTRACT: A Diamond Bird-Beak T-joint (DBB T-joint) is a new type of welded joints made of
Square Hollow Section (SHS) members, different from a conventional SHS T-joint for rotating both chord
and brace by 45°. This paper presents a series of research on fatigue behavior of DBB T-joints. Static hot
spot stress testing was firstly carried out on a set of DBB T-joints under brace loading. Compared with
conventional SHS T-joints, DBB T-joints have much lower SCFs. FE analysis on SCFs was then performed
for further parametric study, so that SCF formulae were obtained by multiple regressive analyses. Fatigue
tests were conducted to explore crack patterns, failure modes and fatigue lives of DBB T-joints. For the
need of fatigue design, new fatigue design curves (S-N curves) in terms of hot spot stress ranges were rec-
ommended. It is concluded that DBB T-joints have longer fatigue lives than conventional SHS T-joints.

1 INTRODUCTION

Welded tubular structures have been widely used

in structural applications for a long time (Warde-
nier et  al., 2010). Due to considerable stress con-
centration, fatigue issue of welded tubular joints is
always a research topic, although large amounts of
research have been carried out for different kinds
of joints. This paper focus on fatigue behavior
of a special type of welded tubular joint named
Figure 1. Diamond bird-beak SHS T-joint vs. conven-
diamond bird-beak (DBB) T-joint, which can be
tional SHS T-joint.
formed from a conventional SHS (square hollow
section) T-joint by rotating both chord and brace
by 45°, as shown in Figure 1. design rules have been available for DBB T- and
DBB joints were originally proposed for their K-joints in CIDECT Design Guide No.3 (Packer
good appearance (Cheng et  al., 2014). After- et al., 2009).
wards, extensive research demonstrated greater However, fatigue behavior and design of DBB
static performance of DBB joints compared with joints are still lack of research. Ishida (1992) con-
conventional SHS joints, including T-type (Ono ducted fatigue tests on 10 DBB T-joints and dem-
et  al., 1991, Ishida et  al., 1993, Ono et  al., 1993, onstrated that DBB T-joints have longer fatigue
Ono et al., 1994, Davies et al., 1996, Owen et al., life than conventional SHS T-joints. Nevertheless,
1996, Chen & Wang, 2015), K-type (Davies et al., no further information on stress concentration fac-
2001), X-type (Owen et al., 2001, Peña & Chacon, tor (SCF) or S-N curve in terms of hot spot stress
2014, Chen et  al., 2015), TX-type (Zhu & Liu, range was reported by Ishida. Through finite ele-
2012) and XX-type (Liu et al., 2013). So far, static ment (FE) analysis, Keizer et al. (2003) pointed out

449
that DBB T-joints have lower SCFs than conven-
tional SHS T-joints. However, the conclusion has
no experimental support.
This paper presents a series of research on fatigue
behavior of DBB T-joints conducted in Tongji Uni-
versity in recent years. Firstly, a set of well-designed
DBB T-joints were tested for SCFs. Based on the
experimental results, FE analysis on SCFs was
then performed for further parametric study, so
that SCF formulae were obtained. Using the same
specimens, fatigue tests were conducted to explore
crack patterns, failure modes and fatigue lives of
DBB T-joints. Finally, new fatigue design curves
(S-N curves) in terms of hot spot stress range were
proposed for fatigue design of such joints.
Figure 2. Test setup for hot spot stress testing.
2 SCF OF DBB T-JOINTS

2.1 Experimental investigation

2.1.1 Specimens and test setup
Aiming to capture the SCFs of DBB T-joints, seven
specimens with different geometries were manu-
factured for hot spot stress testing (see Table  1).
As shown in Table  1, three key non-dimensional
parameters, i.e. β (= b1/b0, ratio of brace width to
chord width), 2γ (= b0/t0, ratio of chord width to
chord thickness) and τ (= t1/t0, ratio of brace thick-
ness to chord thickness), were varied twice respec-
tively. The square tubes were hot rolled using low
carbon steel with steel grade of Q235, which con-
forms to Chinese standard GB/T 700 (2006).
Figure 2 shows the test setup for hot spot stress
testing. Each end of the chord was pin-supported. Figure 3. Measuring locations for hot spot stress.
Axial loading and in-plane bending were separately
applied on the brace. Strip strain gauges were placed
at chord crown (CC, CC1), chord saddle (CS, CS1), tion factors (SNCFs) were obtained. Then SCFs
brace crown (BC, BC1) and brace saddle (BS, BS1), were calculated by means of relationship between
as shown in Figure 3. More details can be found in SNCF and SCF, which can be given by the follow
Refs. (Tong et al., 2014, Tong et al., 2015). equations:

2.1.2 Experimental results and discussion SCF . SNCF (For Brace ) (1)
Using quadratic extrapolation method recom- SCF . SNCF (For Chord ) (2)
mended in CIDECT Design Guide No.8 (Zhao
et al., 2001), hot spot strains and strain concentra-
The experimental SCFs of the tested specimens
are listed in Table 2. Under axial loading in brace,
Table 1. Specimens. the maximum SCF in brace usually occurred at the
saddle, whereas the maximum SCF in chord may
b0 × t0 b1 × t1
No. (mm) (mm) β = b1/b0 2γ = b0/t0 τ = t1/t0
occur either at the crown or at the saddle. Under
in-plane bending in brace, since saddle positions
T1 250 × 12 100 × 6 0.40 20.83 0.50 locate at neutral axis, the SCFs measured at these
T2 250 × 12 140 × 6 0.56 20.83 0.50 positions were very small and considered negligible.
T3 250 × 12 180 × 6 0.72 20.83 0.50 Therefore, the maximum SCFs both in brace and in
T4 250 × 12 140 × 8 0.56 20.83 0.67 chord occurred at the crown in the case of in-plane
T5 250 × 12 140 × 10 0.56 20.83 0.83 bending.
T6 250 × 10 140 × 5 0.56 25.00 0.50 Figure  4  makes a comparison of maximum
T7 250 × 8 140 × 4 0.56 31.25 0.50 SCFs between DBB T-joints and conventional SHS
T-joints. It is assumed that the conventional SHS

450
Table 2. Experimental SCFs of specimens. CIDECT (Zhao et  al., 2001). It can be seen from
Figure 4 that DBB T-joints have much lower maxi-
SCF in brace SCF in chord mum SCFs than conventional joints, which means
a longer fatigue life of DBB T-joint. In addition, for
No. BC BC1 BS1 BS CC CC1 CS1 CS
DBB T-joints, SCFs caused by axial force in brace
Axial force in brace are higher than those caused by in-plane bending in
T1 2.85 2.05 1.85 3.21 4.47 3.29 3.97 4.19 brace. The SCFs in chord are higher than those in
T2 4.27 1.30 3.63 4.75 5.50 3.88 4.49 4.95 brace under axial force in brace, whereas the situ-
T3 2.98 3.00 5.13 4.62 5.37 2.97 3.68 5.84 ation is reversed under in-plane bending in brace.
T4 3.03 2.22 2.71 5.28 7.30 3.46 5.20 5.87
T5 3.91 3.09 4.94 6.00 8.68 6.74 8.17 10.42 2.2 Finite Element Analysis (FEA)
T6 2.42 2.15 2.68 6.05 5.34 5.44 7.15 6.67
T7 3.28 3.15 3.56 – 6.31 3.55 8.23 7.82 Three dimensional finite element models were
In-plane bending in brace developed using solid elements C3D20R in general
T1 1.52 1.12 0.0 0.0 0.82 0.78 0.0 0.0 finite element software ABAQUS. In solving hot
T2 2.10 0.90 0.0 0.0 0.85 0.61 0.0 0.0 spot stress, the materials are always kept in linear
T3 2.07 2.21 0.0 0.0 0.97 0.77 0.0 0.0 elastic stage; therefore, linear elastic properties
T4 2.00 1.40 0.0 0.0 0.97 0.69 0.0 0.0 with Young’s modulus (E) of 205 GPa and Pois-
T5 1.99 1.38 0.0 0.0 1.10 1.02 0.0 0.0 son’s ratio (ν) of 0.3 were adopted in FE models. It
T6 2.31 1.33 0.0 0.0 1.54 1.02 0.0 0.0 was assumed that the weld metal had the same elas-
T7 2.46 2.18 0.0 0.0 2.02 1.09 0.0 0.0 tic properties with the steel tubes. Figure 5 shows
an example of FE models. To ensure the accuracy
*The strain gauge at BS location in specimen T7 was of FEA, the meshes around the connection area
broken. are refined to no larger than t0/3, which is recom-
mended in CIDECT Design Guide No.8 (Zhao
et  al., 2001). Hot spot stresses in FEA were also
determined by extrapolation method.
Figure 6 compares the results of FEA with the
test results in terms of the maximum SCFs in brace
and chord respectively. It can be seen from Figure 6
that the FEA results are well matched with the test
results in most cases. The FEA results are generally
larger than the test results, which is conservative

Figure 5. FE model of a DBB T-joint.

Figure  4. Comparison of maximum SCFs between

DBB T-joints and conventional SHS T-joints.

T-joints have the same geometric parameters with

the tested DBB T-joints and their maximum SCFs Figure 6. Comparison of SCFmax between FEA and test
were estimated using formulae recommended by results.

451
in fatigue design. Therefore, the FE models devel-
oped in this project can be considered reasonably
accurate to conduct further numerical study.

2.3 Parametric study and formulae

Using the validated FE models, an extensive
number of DBB T-joints were analyzed under four
basic load conditions, i.e. i) axial force in brace,
ii) in-plane bending in brace, iii) axial force in
chord and iv) in-plane bending in chord. For each
load condition, SCFs at corresponding locations
were calculated. Totaling 125  models with non-
dimensional parameters varied within the follow-
ing ranges were analyzed.
.4 ≤ β ≤ 0.8
12.5 2γ ≤ 25.0 (3)
0.35 τ 1.0

Typical FEA results were illustrated in Figures 7

and 8 for brace loading and chord loading, respec-
tively. By analyzing the SCFs from FEA, the fol-
lowing remarks can be drawn (Tong et al., 2015):
1. For brace loading, axial force may usually cause
larger SCFs than in-plane bending does (see
Fig. 7). This agrees with the experimental con-
clusion mentioned in Section  2.1.2. For chord
loading, however, the SCFs caused by in-plane
bending is generally about 10% larger than that
caused by axial force.
2. Under brace loading, the SCFs are gener-
ally positively correlated with β and 2γ. When
parameter increases, the SCFs in chord will
increase, but the SCFs in brace may slightly
decrease in most cases (see Fig. 7).
3. Under chord loading, the maximum SCF (only
occurred at chord crown, CC) is always nega-
tively correlated with τ. The other two param-
eters, i.e. β and 2γ, almost have no effect on SCF,
especially in the case of axial force (see Fig. 8). Figure 7. Influence of non-dimensional parameters on
SCF of DBB T-joints under brace loading (typical FEA
Utilizing the numerous FEA results, multiple results): (a) SCFCC,a1 vs. β; (b) SCFCC,a1 vs. 2γ; (c) SCFCC,a1
nonlinear regressive analyses were conducted so vs. τ; (d) SCFBC,m1 vs. τ.
that a series of SCF formulae were proposed for
engineering applications of DBB T-joints. The pro-
– For brace saddle under axial force in brace:
posed formulae are given by Equations (4) to (11).
CFBS ,a1 = ( .160 + 0.900 β − 0.714 β 2 )
SCF
– For chord crown under axial force in brace: (7)
⋅ ( γ )1.288− 0.565 β +1.049 β ⋅ τ 0.028
2

.104 + 0.071β − 0.102 β 2 )

CFCC ,a1 = ( .104
SCF
⋅ ( γ )0.933+ 0.832 β − 0.311β ⋅ τ 1.175
2 (4) – For chord crown under in-plane bending in
brace:
– For chord saddle under axial force in brace:
CFCC ,m1 = ( .0623 + 0.222 β − 0.0594τ )
SCF
CFCS ,a1 = ( .788 − 1.745 β + 0.979 β 2 )
SCF ⋅ ( γ )0.904 ⋅ τ 0.906+ 0.00894⋅ 2γ
(8)
⋅ ( γ )0.488++11.286 β +1.056 β ⋅ τ 0.944
2 (5)
– For brace crown under in-plane bending in
– For brace crown under axial force in brace: brace:
CFBC ,a1 = ( .640 + 7.747 β − 5.103β 2 + 0.
SCF γ) CFBC ,m1 = ( .597 − 0.554 β − 0.463τ + 0.
SCF γ)
⋅ ( γ ) 0.079 0.311β 0.400 β τ 0.006
2
(6) ⋅ ( γ )0.428 β ⋅ τ 0.123 (9)

452

Figure 8. Influence of non-dimensional parameters on
SCF of DBB T-joints under chord loading (typical FEA
results): (a) SCFCC,a0 vs. β; (b) SCFCC,a0 vs. 2γ; (c) SCFCC,a0
vs. τ; (d) SCFCC,m0 vs. τ.
– For chord crown under axial force in chord:
CFCC ,a 0 = ( .533 − 0.
SCF β ) ⋅ τ 0.272− 0.003⋅ 2γ 0.109 β (10)
– For chord crown under in-plane bending in
chord:
CFCC ,mo = ( .460 + 0.
SCF β ) ⋅ ( γ )0.067 β ⋅ τ 0.231− 0.002⋅ 2γ
(11)
SCFs at locations that are not mentioned above
are considered negligible and a value of zero can
be given. In addition, it should be noted that a
minimum value of 2.0 should be adopted for SCFs
caused by brace loading (Zhao et al., 2001).
453
Figure 9. Comparison of SCFs between formulae and
FEA.
Figure 10. Comparison of SCFs between formulae and
test results.
The validity of the proposed SCF formulae is
verified by comparing with FEA and experimental
results, respectively (see Fig.  9 and Fig.  10). More
information can be seen in Reference (Tong et  al.,
2015).
3 FATIGUE TESTS ON DBB T-JOINTS
3.1 Test setup
Fatigue tests were conducted on the DBB T-joints
after hot spot stress testing. Figure  11  shows the
test setup for fatigue tests. Similar to static tests,
the specimens were pin-supported at two ends of
the chord. Then cyclic axial loading (tensile force)
was applied on the brace through a loading frame
in a frequency of 200  cycles per minute. Load
ranges for each specimen are listed in Table 3.
 Figure 12. Typical fatigue cracks in DBB T-joints sub-
jected to cyclic axial loading in brace: a) crack at chord
saddle; b) crack at chord crown.

Figure 11. Test setup for fatigue testing.

Table 3. Information of fatigue tests.

Nmax ΔN Sr,nom
No. (kN) (kN) (MPa) N3 N4 N4/N3 L3/C

T1 120 100 43.26 742000 866000 1.17 0.15

T2 135 115 35.26 844760 874000 1.03 0.25
T3 125 105 25.63 1126000 1252000 1.11 0.26
T4 160 140 33.31 600000 632000 1.05 0.33
T5 90 65 12.86 2960000 3230000 1.09 0.28
T6 90 70 26.65 1300000 1436000 1.10 0.27
T7 70 50 22.35 1902000 2214000 1.16 0.27 Figure 13. Sr,hs-N curves vs. experimental Sr,hs-N data.
Mean 1.10 0.26
COV 0.05 0.21
to the axis of the chord (see Fig. 12b). Usually, at
least two through-thickness cracks were found in a
3.2 Results and discussion DBB T-joint at the end of fatigue test.

Two kind of fatigue lives, i.e. i) through thickness

fatigue life (N3) and ii) end-of-test fatigue life
(N4), were recorded for each specimen, as pre-
sented in Table 3.
For the tested DBB T-joints, the ratio of N4/N3
falls within the range of 1.03 to 1.17, with a mean
value of 1.10. In addition, the surface crack length
of the through-thickness crack (L3) was measured
at N3, and normalized by the circumference of the
SHS brace (C). As shown in Table 3, the ratio of
L3/C has a mean value of 0.26, which means that
thorough-thickness fatigue failure may occur when
the length of the longest surface crack reaches
about a quarter of the circumference of the SHS
brace. This may be helpful in engineering applica-
tions to quick check of a through-thickness crack.
The fatigue tests reveal that all the tested DBB
T-joints suffered from a uniform failure mode that
can be named as the chord-saddle-into-crown (Ch-
S-C) failure mode. For each specimen, first crack
initiated at weld toe at chord saddle (CS) and prop-
agated along the weld in both directions towards
chord crown (see Fig.  12a). When the first crack
grew to a certain degree, new cracks initiated at
chord crown and propagated nearly perpendicular
4 FATIGUE DESIGN
RECOMMENDATIONS
4.1 Sr,hs-N curve
Utilizing the experimental Sr,hs-N data, least-square
analysis was carried out to determine Sr,hs-N curve
for DBB T-joints. In least-square method, design
Sr,hs-N curve can be taken as mean-minus-two-
standard-deviation (Mean-2SD) curve, which is
given by the following equation:
g log Srr,, − 2σ llogg N (12)
where A is determined by regressive analysis and
σlogN is the standard deviation for log N.
The obtained Mean-2SD curve and the experi-
mental Sr,hs-N data are illustrated in Figure  13.
In addition, some existing Sr,hs-N curves includ-
ing CIDECT curves (Zhao et  al., 2001) and API
(or AWS) curves (API, 2000, AWS, 2010) are also
plotted for comparison. It can be concluded from
Figure 13 that neither CIDECT curves nor API (or
AWS) curves can be directly adopted for fatigue

454
design of DBB T-joints. The CIDECT curves may
overestimate the fatigue life of DBB T-joints. On
the contrary, the API (or AWS) curves are too con-
servative, which is not economical.
It is worth noting that the CIDECT t = 16 mm
curve is very close to the Mean-2SD curve derived
from the test data (t = 12 mm). Moreover, all the
test data points lie above the CIDECT t = 16 mm
curve. Therefore, for simplifying design proce-
dure, new Sr,hs-N curves can be developed for DBB
T-joints by simply modifying the thickness correc-
tion factor of CIDECT curves. The new curves
then can be given by the following equations:
– For 103 < N ≤ 5 × 106:
1 ⎛ 12 ⎞
( 476 log
l g ) 0.06 log log ⎜
⎝ t ⎟⎠
log Sr ,hs l g
3
(13)
– For 5 × 106 <N ≤ 108 (variable amplitude only):
1 ⎛ 12 ⎞
( . l g N ) + 0.402 ⋅ log ⎜ (14)
⎝ t ⎠⎟
log Sr ,hs log
5 1. DBB T-joints have much lower SCFs than con-
More information about the determination of
the Sr,hs-N curves for DBB T-joints is available in
Reference (Tong et al., 2016).
4.2 Comparison of fatigue strength between DBB
T-joints and conventional SHS T-joints
In hot spot stress method, fatigue strength of
welded tubular joint is closely related to SCF and
Sr,hs-N curve. Using the SCF formulae and Sr,hs-N
curves recommended in the present paper as well
as those recommended in CIDECT (Zhao et  al.,
2001), the ultimate nominal stress ranges for design
purpose, which is corresponding to 2 million cycles,
were estimated for numbers of DBB T-joints (Sr,DBB)
and conventional SHS T-joints (Sr,SHS), respectively.
The non-dimensional parameters of the considered
joints cover the ranges given by Equation (3).
Figure 14 plots the ratio Sr,DBB/Sr,SHS vs. β, as well
as a trend line determined by regressive analysis.
Figure  14. Comparison of fatigue strength between
DBB T-joints and conventional SHS T-joints under axial
loading in brace.
455
It can be concluded from Figure  14 that DBB
T-joints have higher fatigue strength than conven-
tional SHS T-joints in most cases. This means that
DBB joint is a favorable design for SHS T-joint,
especially when the brace width is smaller than
70% of the width of chord member (i.e. β ≤ 0.7).
5 CONCLUSIONS
In the present paper, fatigue behavior of DBB
T-joints has been investigated experimentally and
numerically. Hot spot stress testing and fatigue
testing were successively conducted on a series of
well-designed full-scale DBB T-joints. Parametric
study on SCF was carried out using FEA to extend
the test data, which lead to a series of formulae
for estimating SCFs of DBB T-joints. By analyzing
the fatigue test data, new Sr,hs-N curve was recom-
mended for fatigue design of DBB T-joints. The
following main conclusions can be drawn:
ventional SHS T-joints.
2. For DBB T-joints, the SCFs in chord are higher
than those in brace under axial force in brace,
whereas the situation is reversed under in-plane
bending in brace.
3. For brace loading, the SCFs caused by axial
force are higher than those caused by in-plane
bending. Whereas in the case of chord loading,
the SCFs caused by axial force are general lower
than those caused by in-plane bending.
4. Under axial fatigue load in brace, the DBB
T-joints suffered from a so-called chord-saddle-
into-crown (Ch-S-C) failure mode, in which the
joints failed due to through-thickness cracks
occurred at/near chord saddle and crown loca-
tions successively.
5. New S-N curve in terms of hot spot stress range
for DBB T-joints was developed by modifying
the existing curve recommended in CIDECT
Design Guide No.8 (Zhao et  al., 2001) with
proper thickness correction factor.
6. Generally, DBB T-joints have higher fatigue
strength than their conventional counterparts
owing to their remarkable lower SCFs. When
parameter β is smaller than 0.7, DBB type is
expected to give a favorable design for T-joints
made of square hollow sections.
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Numerical modelling
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Partial interaction analysis of multi-component members

with the D-GBT approach

A. Ferrarotti
School of Civil Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
DICCA, Polytechnic School, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

G. Ranzi
School of Civil Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

G. Piccardo
DICCA, Polytechnic School, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a partial interaction model for the analysis of multi-component mem-
bers that accounts for the in-plane deformability of the cross-section. The D-GBT approach is formu-
lated extending the applicability of the dynamic cross-sectional procedure developed for open, closed or
partially-closed thin-walled cross-sections within the framework of the Generalised Beam Theory and
introducing a simpler procedure for the identification of the deformations modes, i.e. conventional, exten-
sion and shear modes, to be used for the GBT analysis. The proposed partial interaction enables relative
movements to take place in the plane of the interface between adjacent components in the longitudinal
and transverse directions. The ease of use of the proposed method is outlined by means of an application
performed on a multi-component beam subjected to an eccentric load. Its accuracy is validated against
numerical solutions obtained with a shell finite element model developed in ABAQUS/Standard.

1 INTRODUCTION Nguyen et al. 2011), and transverse shear interac-

Multi-component thin-walled members, such as
those formed by built-up sections, represent an
efficient form of construction and provide an
enhanced structural performance when compared
to the one exhibited by the combined contribution
of the isolated structural components. Their struc-
tural response is influenced by the deformability
of the connections between adjacent components,
commonly referred to in the literature as partial
interaction. The first model capable of account-
ing for this deformable interface connection was
proposed by Newmark et al. (1951) and it coupled
two Euler-Bernoulli beams by means of a longitu-
dinally shear-deformable connection distributed at
the interface along the length of the member. Since
then, the model was further extended for a wide
range of applications, for example to account for
shear lag effects (e.g. Dezi et al. 2003, Gara et al.
2009), geometric and material nonlinearities (e.g.,
Salari et al. 1998, Dall’Asta & Zona 2004, Spacone,
& El-Tawil 2004), time-dependent behaviour (e.g.,
Bradford & Gilbert 1991, Dezi & Tarantino 1993,
Macorini et  al. 2006, Ranzi & Bradford 2009,
tion (e.g., Adekola 1968, Ranzi et al. 2006).
When dealing with thin-walled components, the
local deformability of the cross-section in both in-
plane and out-of-plane (i.e. warping) directions has
to be taken into account, since it affects the over-
all member response. A number of formulations
have been proposed in the literature to describe
the behavior of thin-walled members, including
the finite strip method (Lau & Hancock 1986,
Mahendran & Murray 1986, Young 2005, Adany
& Shafer 2006, Vrcelj & Bradford 2008, Eccher
et al. 2009), the finite element method (Ren et al.
2006, Pham & Hancook 2015), the perturbation
methods (Luongo 1991, 1992) and the General-
ized Beam Theory (GBT) (Schardt 1994, Silvestre
& Camotim 2002, Camotim et  al. 2010). Among
these formulations, only the latter approach will
be considered in this paper. In particular, the GBT
falls within Kantorovich semi-variational methods
(Washizu 1982), where a three-dimensional prob-
lem is simplified into a one-dimensional problem
by defining the displacement field to be a linear
combination of known deformation fields speci-
fied at the cross-section and unknown intensity

459
functions that describe their variation along the
member length. In particular, the solution proce-
dure relies on the following two steps: (1) a cross-
section analysis aimed at identifying a suitable set
of deformation fields (also referred to as deforma-
tion modes), and (2) a member analysis for the
identification of the intensity functions.
The first GBT model for composite beams was
presented by Camotin and co-workers (Silva et al.
2006, Gonçalves & Camotin 2010). It included the
deformability of the shear connection in the longitu-
dinal direction for two-layered composite members.
A different approach for the longitudinal partial
interaction of two-layered composite members was
recently proposed in (Taig & Ranzi 2015, Taig et al.
2015b), and recently extended, for the first time
within the GBT approach, for both transverse and
longitudinal partial interaction in (Taig & Ranzi
2016). These formulations relied on a dynamic
cross-sectional analysis for the identification of the
deformation modes (referred to as D-GBT) and
were applicable for the analysis of thin-walled open,
closed and partially-closed sections, e.g., (Ranzi &
Luongo 2011, Piccardo et  al. 2014a, b, Taig et  al.
2015a, 2016, Ferrarotti et al. 2017).
In this context, the present paper extends
the applicability of the partial shear interaction
model based on the D-GBT and developed for
two-layered members to the analysis of multi-com-
ponent members within the framework of the GBT.
The partial interaction is included in the analysis
by means of rectilinear lines of shear-deformable
linear elastic springs assumed to be uniformly
distributed along the member length. The model
allows the determination of a complete and suit-
able set of deformation modes, including conven-
tional, extension and shear modes, able to account
of both transverse and longitudinal shear interac-
tion between the various elements composing the
multi-component cross-section. The capability
and ease of use of the proposed GBT approach
is illustrated by means of a numerical application
to a multi-component member. The accuracy of
the numerical results is validated against the val-
ues obtained with a shell element model developed
using the finite element software ABAQUS/Stand-
ard (Dassault 2008).
2 BASIS OF THE GBT APPROACH
A prismatic multi-component thin-walled beam
is considered (Fig. 1), composed by the combina-
tion of N elements, each one with open, closed or
partially-closed cross-section and cross-sectional
area Ai (i  =  1, …, N). Without loss of generality,
each component is assumed as a set of thin (but
not necessarily) flat plates connected along edges
and free to bend in the plane of the cross-section.
Figure 1. Displacement field.
The displacement fields of a generic point lying on
the mid-surface S of the plates forming the cross-
section (i.e., at y = 0) can be expressed as:
u( , ) ( , ) i + v( , z ) j ( )k (1)
where s  =  curvilinear abscissa along the section
mid-line C; z = coordinate along the member axis;
i, j, k  =  unit vectors in the tangent, normal and
bi-normal directions, respectively; u, v, w = scalar
displacement components in the direction x, y, z,
respectively.
In the spirit of GBT, the displacement field is
expressed as linear combination of known defor-
mation modes, defined on C, and unknown inten-
sity functions, defined on z, as follows:
⎡ ∑K ⎤
⎢ k = 1U k ( )ϕ k ( ) ⎥
u( , z ) = ⎢ ∑K
k=1 k V ( )ϕ k ( ) ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ K Ω ( )ϕ ( ) J W ( )ψ ( z ) ⎥
∑
⎢⎣ k = 1 k k
k,, z ∑ j=1 j j ⎥⎦
(2)
where Uk, Vk, Ωk  =  displacement components
of deformation modes in the tangential, trans-
verse and longitudinal directions, respectively;
Wj = displacement component of shear modes; ϕk,
ψj = intensity functions associated with the k-th and
j-th deformation modes; the comma denotes dif-
ferentiation with respect to the following variable.
The Kirchhoff plate model is assumed to describe
the displacement field of an arbitrary point located
within the thickness of the plate segment (e.g.,
Ranzi & Luongo 2011). The infinitesimal strains
are calculated and the membrane components, rel-
evant to y = 0, are distinguished from the flexural
ones:

460
ε ( s, y, ) =
⎡ ε sm ⎤ ⎡ ∑K k = 1U k ,sϕ k
⎤
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ ε zm ⎥ ⎢ ∑K
k=1 Ω k ϕ k ,zz + ∑ J Wψ
j j , z
⎥
⎥ ⎢ ⎥
j
j=1
⎢
m⎥ ⎢ K U + ⎥
⎢ γ sz
⎢
∑
⎥ = ⎢ k=1
(k ) J
k s ϕ k ,z + ∑ j = 1W j sψ j ⎥
⎢ ε sf ⎥ ⎢ − y∑ K
⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ k = 1Vk ,ssϕ k ⎥
⎢ εf ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ z ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
K
− y ∑ k = 1Vkϕ k ,zz
⎢γ f ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎣ sz ⎦ ⎢⎣ − y∑ Kk = 1Vk ,sϕ k ,z
⎥
⎦
(3)
where m and f denote membrane and flexural com-
ponent, respectively.
The Nm materials composing the multi-component
cross-section are assumed isotropic linear elas-
tic and the constitutive law for the α-th material
(α = 1, …, Nm) can be expressed as:

σ =E ε (4)
α α

where σα  =  membrane and flexure stress vector;

Eα = elastic matrix, defined as:

⎡ Eα να Eα ⎤
⎢ 0 0 0 0 ⎥
⎢ 1− να2 2
1− να ⎥
⎢ Eα
⎥
⎢ 0 0 0 0 ⎥
⎢ 2
1− να ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ Gα 0 0 0 ⎥ (5)
E = ⎢ ⎥
α
⎢ Eα να Eα ⎥
0
⎢ 2
1− να 2
1− να
⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎢ Eα ⎥
⎢ sym
2
0 ⎥
⎢ 1− να ⎥
⎢ Gα ⎥⎦
⎣
Figure  2. Shear connections locations and definitions
of longitudinal and transverse slips.
being Eα  =  elastic modulus; να  =  Poisson’s ratio;
Gα = shear modulus of the α-th material.

slip component δTn (perpendicular to the mem-

3 PARTIAL INTERACTION ber axis), as depicted in Figure  2b. They can be
calculated in the GBT context as function of the
The composite action is provided by NSC recti- adopted deformation modes as follows (e.g., Taig
linear continuous deformable shear connections & Ranzi 2016):
placed along the lines Λn (with n  = 1,…, NSC) at
the interface between the N components (Fig. 2a). ⎡ ⎤
⎡ δTn ( z ) ⎤ ∑K n
k = 1Vk ϕ k
The shear connections are here assumed to allow δ (z) = ⎢ ⎥ = ⎢ ⎥ (6)
relative displacement between adjoining elements n
⎢⎣ δ Ln ( z ) ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ ∑ k = 1 Ω k ϕ k , z + ∑ j = 1W j ψ j ⎥
K n J n
⎦
in both longitudinal (i.e. along the z coordinate)
and transverse (i.e. along the s coordinate) direc- where:
tions, while separation of the adjacent elements
⎡ j ⎤
V n = ⎢ U k ⎛ sn ⎞ − ynVk ,s ⎛ sn ⎞ ⎥
is prevented. The relative displacement of the j j
adjoining elements, commonly referred to as k ⎣ ⎝ ⎠ ⎝ ⎠ ⎦
( ) ( )
(7)
slip, is characterized by a longitudinal slip term − ⎡ U k sni − yniVk ,s sni ⎤
δLn (parallel to the member axis) and a transverse ⎣ ⎦

461
 ⎡ j ⎤
Ω ⎛ s ⎞ − ynVk ⎛ sn ⎞ ⎥
j j
Ωn
k ⎣ k⎝ n⎠ ⎝ ⎠ ⎦
( ) ( )
(8)
− ⎡ Ω k sni − yniVk sni ⎤
⎣ ⎦
W n = W ⎛ sn ⎞ − W ( sni )
j available finite element procedures, e.g. (Ranzi &
(9)
j j⎝ ⎠ j Gilbert 2015). Assembling the contribution of each
while snk, ynk identify the location of the n-th shear
connector on the k-th element (k = i, j), as depicted
in Figure 2c. A linear elastic uncoupled constitutive
model is assumed for the n-th shear connection:
⎡ fTn ( z ) ⎤ ⎡ kTn 0 ⎤ ⎡ δ n ( z )⎤
⎢ ⎥ =⎢ ⎥ ⎢ T ⎥ (10)
⎢ fLn ( z ) ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ 0 n⎥
kL ⎢ δ n ( z )⎥
⎣ ⎦ ⎣ L ⎦
where fTn (fLn) = transverse (longitudinal) force per
unit length induced in the spring; kTn (kLn) = trans-
verse (longitudinal) elastic rigidity per unit length.
4 CROSS-SECTION ANALYSIS
The aim of the cross-section analysis is the iden-
tification of a suitable set of deformation modes,
including conventional, extension and shear (warp-
ing) modes. In particular, the conventional modes
are based on the Vlasov’s hypothesis (Vlasov 1961)
of (i) in-plane inextensibility of the cross-sectional
elements, and (ii-a) nil membrane shear strain
for open sections and/or (ii-b) piecewise constant
membrane shear strain for closed sections. As a
consequence, they may be supplied with a linear
warping distributions with discontinuities at shear
connection locations. Extension modes are associ-
ated to non-nil in-plane elongation of the cross-
sectional element and nil warping distributions,
while shear modes have nil in-plane deformation
and non-nil warping distributions.
In this paper, the cross-section analysis is per-
formed with the GBT dynamic cross-section
approach denoted as D-GBT (Ranzi & Luongo
2011, Piccardo et  al. 2014a, b, Taig et  al. 2015a).
The deformation modes are identified from the free
dynamics of an unrestrained planar frame model
representing the cross-section, leading to two con-
strained eigenvalue problems: one within the plane of
the cross-section, to identify the planar eigenmodes,
and another out-of-the-plane of the cross-section to
determine the shear (warping) eigenmodes. For bet-
ter clarity, the two problems are analyzed separately.
4.1 Planar Eigenvalue Problem (PEP)
The free dynamics of a planar frame, free to deform
in its plane and having the shape of the cross-sec-
tion, is performed to determine conventional and
extension modes. The analysis is carried out using
462
the finite element method and, for this purpose, the
multi-component cross-section is discretized using
one-dimensional Euler-Bernoulli beam elements.
Their behaviour is characterized by the local stiff-
ness matrix KPe and mass matrix MPe, based on
element, the following algebraic eigenvalue problem
is obtained:
K − λ M )q = 0 (11)
P P P
where (λ, qP) = eigenpair; KP = assembled stiffness
matrix; MP  = assembled mass matrix, while sub-
script ‘P’ denotes the planar problem.
The partial interaction behaviour is achieved
through the inclusion of the NSC shear connec-
tions, which allow for the relative longitudinal and
transverse slip between the adjoining elements
while preventing their separation and interpenetra-
tion. Their flexibility in the transverse direction is
accounted by the incorporation in the PEP of lin-
ear elastic springs (with negligible masses) placed
at the interface between adjacent components.
Separation or penetration between adjacent com-
ponents is prevented by requiring the connectors
to be inextensible along their length, i.e.:
uj ui = 0 (12)
with i and j denoting the two rigid link element end
nodes. The compatibility of the in-plane rotation is
ensured by requiring:
θ j θ i =0 (13)
Equations 12–13 form a linear system of equa-
tions that can be included in the PEP through a
reduction method (e.g., Taig et al. 2016). The cal-
culated set of eigenvector, in number K, include the
nodal values of planar deformation modes that,
at this stage, couple flexure with extension of the
plate segments composing the cross-section. In the
spirit of GBT and in order to facilitate the physi-
cal interpretation of the problem, the obtained set
of modes is subdivided into two complementary
subspaces characterized by plate segments which
are: (a) inextensible, traditionally referred to as
conventional modes (in number NC) and (b) free to
extend, referred to as extension modes (in number
NE = K – NC). This is achieved by solving the fol-
lowing eigenproblem:
(C − μ D ) u = 0 (14)
where (μ, u) = eigenpair; C, D = energetic matrices,
whose coefficients are defined as:

Nm
Eα
C = ∑ ∫A U U dA (15)
hk
α =1 α 2 h,s k ,s
1− να
Nm
Eα
D = ∑ ∫A V V dA
hk
α =1 α 1− να2 h,ssss k ,ss
(16)
NSC
+ ∑ kTnVhnV n
k denotes virtual quantity. Based on the GBT for-
n= 1
The eigenproblem described in Equation 14 admits
NCD = NC – 3 zero eigenvalues, whose corresponding
eigenvectors ui, (i = 1, …, NCD) identify modes char-
acterized by pure flexural behavior, and NE non-zero
eigenvalues, whose corresponding eigenvectors ue,
(e = 1, …, NE) describe deformation modes involving
transverse elongation of the plate segments. Starting
from them, the final set of conventional and exten-
sion mode can then be calculated by following the
procedure outlined in (Taig et al. 2016).
The conventional warping component Ωk is then
calculated by applying the second Vlasov’s condi-
tions to the plate segments of the multi-compo-
nent section for each conventional mode (e.g., Taig
et al. 2016).
4.2 Warping Eigenvalue Problem (WEP)
Shear (warping) modes are obtained by the
dynamic analysis of the multi-component mem-
ber assumed as pure shear beam in the s-z plane
and therefore able to deform only out-of-plane. By
assuming the same discretization adopted in the
PEP previously describes, the local stiffness matrix
KWe and mass matrices MWe are calculated based on
the available finite element procedure (e.g., Ranzi
& Gilbert 2015), and the following algebraic eigen-
value problem is obtained by assembling the con-
tribution of each element:
( K − λ M )q = 0 (17)
W W W
where (λ, qW) = eigenpair; KW = assembled stiffness
matrix; MW  =  assembled mass matrix, while sub-
script ‘W’ denotes the warping problem. The shear
connector flexibility in the longitudinal direction
is accounted by the incorporation in the WEP of
linear elastic springs (with negligible masses) placed
at the interface between adjacent components. The
calculated set of eigenvector, in number J, are the
nodal values of shear (warping) deformation modes.
5 MEMBER ANALYSIS
The weak form of the partial interaction problem
can be achieved by the principle of virtual works:
463
Nm N SC
ˆT
∑ ∫V ˆT Vα δ n ndz
dV
V
α
α =1
1 n 1
Nm (18)
= ∑ ∫∂V uˆ T pdV
α
α =1
where Vα (δVα)  =  volume (surface area) of the
α-th material; p = surface load vector; the hat (^)
mulation previously described, the weak form of
the problem can be expressed as a function of the
unknown amplitude functions d = [ϕk;ψj] and writ-
ten in compact form as:
( )T
∫L A ˆ (A ) ( )T qdz
ˆ
L Bd (19)
where A, B = differential operators; B = GBT stiff-
ness matrix; q = GBT load vector (Taig et al. 2016).
By performing standard steps of calculus of vari-
ations, a set of (K+J) coupled ordinary differen-
tial equations, referred to as GBT equations, can
be obtained from Equations  19. In this paper, as
common practice in literature, a displacement-
based finite element procedure is used to perform
the member analysis. The following description is
adopted for the unknown amplitude functions:
d( ) Ne ( ) d e (20)
d
where Nde  =  member shape functions matrix;
de  =  generalized nodal displacements vector. By
following standard finite element procedures, the
finite element representation (Eq. 20) is used to
rewrite the weak form of the problem into a system
of algebraic coupled equations in the unknown
generalized nodal displacements de, in the form:
Ke d e = pe (21)
being Ke = stiffness matrix; pe = load vector.
6 APPLICATION
The ease of use of the proposed approach is
presented by performing an analysis of a multi-
component member taken from (Georgieva et  al.
2012) and consisting of a built-up multi-component
box girder Figure 3. The member is 3.0 m long and
is assumed simply-supported, with boundary con-
ditions allowing free warping at end supports and
restrain warping at mid-span. The material proper-
ties for the steel are described by an elastic modu-
lus of 200  GPa and a Poisson’s ratio of 0.3. Three
levels of longitudinal and transverse shear rigidities
have been considered to highlight their influence
on the partial interaction behaviour of the multi-
component member, and these have been expressed
in term of dimensionless parameters αLL and αTL,
respectively, as commonly provided in literature for
two-layered composite beams (e.g. Girhammar & Pan
1993). Results are provided in the following for weak
(αLL = αTL = 1), intermediate (αLL = αTL = 5) and
strong (αLL = αTL = 20) shear connection rigidities.
The accuracy of the proposed GBT model
has been validated against the numerical results
obtained from a finite element model developed
in ABAQUS/Standard (Dassault 2008). In the
ABAQUS model, each component of the member
has been modelled with flat plate segments, adopt-
ing the reduced-integration general purpose shell
element S4R5 available in the standard ABAQUS
element library. All materials have been modelled
as isotropic linear elastic. The shear connection is
implemented through the ABAQUS planar connec-
tion type, which is able to allow relative displacement
on the selected plane and avoid relative displace-
ment along the direction normal to that plane. For
this purpose, closely-spaced wires spread along the
rectilinear lines of the shear connection have been
Figure  3. Built-up multi-component member: cross-
section dimensions and loading arrangement. NOTE: all
dimensions are in mm.
Figure 4. Deformation modes for the built-up multi-component member: (a) conventional planar modes, (b) exten-
sion modes, (c) conventional warping modes, and (d) shear (warping) modes.
464
specified to describe the continuous interface con-
nection model formulated in the GBT approach.
The sets of conventional, extension and shear
modes are obtained using the procedure out-
lined in Section  4. The first 6  modes of each set
are presented for illustrative purposes in Figure 4
(obtained for weak shear connection rigidity).
Figure 5 shows the influence of the shear connec-
tion rigidities on the displacement fields and the most
relevant stress fields. All variables have been plotted
at the member coordinate in which they reach their
maximum values, occurring at mid-span for the in-
plane displacement uv (Fig 5a) and the membrane
longitudinal stress σzm (Fig 5c), and at the end section
for the warping displacement w (Fig. 5b) and mem-
brane shear stress τszm (Fig 5d). The plotted displace-
ment and stress fields are scaled for clarity by a factor
specified in each figure. Warping and stress distribu-
tions have been plotted separately on each compo-
nent (Fig. 5b-d). The case of weak shear connection
rigidity (αLL  =  αTL  =  1) denotes high flexibility of
the interface connections in the in-plane (Fig.  5a)
and warping directions (Fig.  5b) and it exhibits, as
expected, a negligible interaction between the cross-
section components. This is highlighted by the dis-
tribution of membrane longitudinal stress σzm and
shear stress τszm (Fig.  5c–d), showing that the com-
ponents forming the member behave as independent
flexural beams, with the Σ-section resisting most of
the applied load. In case of medium shear connec-
tion (αLL = αTL = 5), the components of the mem-
ber interact with each other to a certain degree as
depicted by the distributions of membrane longitudi-
nal stress σzm and shear stress τszm. The case of strong
shear connection rigidity (αLL = αTL = 20) shows, as
expected, a stiffer response and an higher interaction
between the components forming the multi-compo-
nent cross-section. A very good agreement between
the solutions obtained with the proposed GBT model
and the reference ABAQUS solution is pointed out.
Figure 5. Displacement and relevant stress fields for the built-up multi-component member for different levels of
shear connection rigidities.
7 CONCLUSIONS
A semi-analytical approach, developed in the
framework of the Generalized Beam Theory, was
presented for the analysis of the partial interac-
tion behaviour of multi-component beams. The
particularity of the approach relies in its ability to
account for partial interaction behaviour in both
longitudinal and transverse directions that occurs
between different elements of the cross-section.
In the spirit of the dynamic cross-section analysis,
the deformation modes are defined as the dynamic
eigenmodes of a free planar frame model represent-
ing the cross-section and, for this purpose, using the
D-GBT procedure. Two dynamic eigenvalues prob-
lems were defined, namely (a) Planar Eigenvalue
Problem (PEP), in which the composite section was
free to deform in the plane of the cross-section, and
(b) Warping Eigenvalue Problem (WEP), where it
was free to deform perpendicular to the cross-sec-
tion plane. The longitudinal and transverse slip at
the interface was taken into account by introduc-
ing shear deformable link elements at the location
of the shear connections in both PEP and WEP. In
this way, the obtained deformation modes exhibit
slip in both transverse and longitudinal directions.
A numerical example of a built-up multi-com-
ponent member subjected to an eccentric load
was analysed to demonstrate the ease of use of
the proposed approach. The example highlighted
a more flexible behaviour of the multi-component
member in case of weak shear connection, associ-
ated with stress fields poorly distributed between
the various components forming the cross-sec-
tion. On the contrary, stronger shear connections
ensure an increasingly stiff behaviour of the multi-
component member, together with a better redistri-
465
bution of the relevant stress fields. The results were
validated against those obtained from a shell finite
element model developed in ABAQUS/Standard.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The work of this paper was supported by the Aus-
tralian Research Council through its Future Fel-
lowship scheme (FT140100130). Support from
the University of Sydney (Materials & Structures
Research Cluster) is gratefully acknowledged.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Direct strength prediction of innovative corrugated columns

A.N. Ajamyan, M. Nassirnia, A. Heidarpour & X.L. Zhao

Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

L. Gardner
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK

ABSTRACT: This paper responds to the need for a theoretical model to describe the structural strength
capacity of innovative hollow corrugated columns consisting of four cold-formed corrugated mild steel
plates. Interest in these columns has been growing over a number of years, due to high ratio of axial load
bearing capacity to weight. The paper utilises the Direct Strength Method (DSM) to calculate the axial
strength of aforementioned columns while the results are compared with those obtained from experiments
and finite element models. Existing formulations are extended to predict local failure of these columns
over a vast range of slenderness with a good degree of accuracy. The results show the appropriateness of
this method as an alternative for analytical capacity prediction of innovative corrugated columns.

1 INTRODUCTION

Thin-walled structures are a favourable option in

the construction of structural elements such as
columns as they are lightweight and tend to carry
higher structural loads. These favourable attributes
of thin-walled columns may have the influence
of opening new avenues for mega-structures and
larger infrastructure projects. From the other side,
optimising the design of steel sections for strength
and other requirements can increase safety,
decrease cost, minimise resource consumption,
and generally provide a better engineering solu-
tion. This research focuses on the use of corruga-
tion style to improve the structural performance of
mild steel flat plates.
In this study, innovative hollow corrugated col-
umns consist of four corrugated mild steel plates,
are welded together using butt weld. Each of four
corrugated steel plates are produced from 3  mm
thick flat mild steel plates, and corrugated through
a cold-forming process. This set-up is shown in
Figure  1a. In Figure  1b, the geometric layout for Figure 1. (a) Schematic view of an innovative column,
comprising plates is depicted. and (b) plat’s geometric layout (Nassirnia et al. 2015,
Corrugated columns have already demonstrated 2017a).
to absorb higher amount of energy, which can be
beneficial in structures that are subjected to impact Tensile tests demonstrated significant material
loading, wind and earthquake loads (Nassirnia enhancements during the cold forming of corruga-
et  al., 2017b). Innovative hollow columns, having tions, which contributed to axial loading at least
a substantial structural capacity, are relatively easy two times greater than conventional columns. A
and cheap to be produced, in comparison to the finite element model was developed and verified
conventional welded box sections. with experimental results. Preliminary cost-benefit
The structural behaviour of columns formed analyses indicated that the structural enhance-
with corrugated mild-steel plates was first investi- ments of corrugated columns make for an eco-
gated by Nassirnia et  al. (Nassirnia et  al., 2015). nomical introduction to civil construction.

467
 In a recent study, design expressions for the hol-
low columns were developed based upon the effective
width method (Nassirnia et al., 2017a). These were
explored for a wider range of corrugation designs,
and corroborated with an expanded finite element
analysis. The results of this finite element model will
be used for verification purposes in this study.
In a previous study conducted at Monash Uni-
versity, four cases of corrugated columns were
experimentally tested (including a control column,
whose plates are not corrugated). Each column
was also analysed using Finite Element Model
(FEM) on ABAQUS (Simulia, 2012). From both
the experimental and finite element models, it was
concluded that the geometry of the corrugation
has a major impact on the load carrying capacity
of the columns (Nassirnia et  al., 2015). The two
geometric factors that have shown to affect the
capacity of the column is the angle (α) and height
(h) of the corrugation. Table 1 shows values of dif-
fering corrugation angles and heights with their
effect on experimental and FEM capacity values.
From Table 1, it can be seen that by increasing the
corrugation angle and the corrugation height, the
load carrying capacity of the column increases. By
corrugating the mild steel sheets, there seems to be
a 2.5 times increase in the load carrying capacity of
the column, when comparing Case 3 with control.
Asides from the geometric consideration of the
column’s cross section, there are other attributes
that contribute to the load carrying capacity of the
column. One of them is due to the Heat Affected
Zone (HAZ) of the welding. When welding pieces
of metal together, the mechanical properties in and
around the weld position change. This creates a
residual stress around the weld position, as tem-
peratures of up to 1200°C have been used, which
in effect lowers the structural strength and capacity
of the column. Another factor is the introduction
of cold forming process to the virgin steel plates.
These attributes should be taken into account when
discussing and interpreting the structural capacity
of corrugated columns. Moreover, corrugated sec-
tions are made of typical mild-steel plates. As men-
tioned above, the act of cold forming corrugations
Table  1. Geometric and load carrying capacity values
for innovative columns (Nassirnia et al., 2016).
Load carrying
capacity (kN)
Column α (°) h (mm) FEM EXP
Control – – 362 371
Case 1 45 15 808 795
Case 2 75 15 848 839
Case 3 75 22 955 953
Note: FEM – Finite Element Model, EXP – Experimental.
468
Figure  2. Corner stiffened region (Nassirinia et al.,
2017a).
enhances material properties at the location of the
bend, and so the section cannot be modelled with
homogenous strength. Based upon tensile testing
results, a yield of 262 MPa is taken for flat strips of
the corrugated section and 462 MPa for enhanced
regions including corners (Nassirnia et al., 2015).
The enhancement is assumed to extend a distance
equal to the thickness of the sheet beyond the cor-
ner sections, as demonstrated in Figure 2.
The main purpose of this paper is to employ
DSM to develop an analytical model to describe the
structural strength capacity of innovative hollow
columns, which could be useful in the implementa-
tion of such columns in the codes of practice.
1.1 Direct Strength Method (DSM)
Direct Strength Method (DSM) has been devel-
oped for the sole purpose of analysing the struc-
tural capacity of thin walled structures and
elements and to simplify the current complexity
for the analysis of cold formed steel members.
DSM provides a more robust and flexible design
procedure which integrates current and established
numerical models (Schafer, 2008).
DSM was developed for cold-formed steel
sections as an alternative to the sometimes cum-
bersome effective width method. Part of this sim-
plicity comes from DSM’s use of gross section
properties, rather than effective section properties,
which avoids the iteration that characterises effec-
tive width method calculations. DSM is applicable
to a wider and larger library of cross sections. Most
importantly, DSM provides a rational and analyti-
cal procedure for sections that have not been stud-
ied (American Iron and Steel Institute, 2004a).
Currently, Australian Standards AS4600 sec-
tion 7.2.1 describes the steps required to calculate
the structural capacity of cold formed structures.
However, these equations have been developed for
open thin-walled members. DSM bypasses this
restriction, as it can analyse various cross sections.
However DSM does require the elastic buckling with thin-walled structures, like those which will be
behaviour of the member and from that, a series studied in this paper.
of ultimate strength curves developed to predict
the strength of the section (Schafer, 2008).
The characteristics of this study that make DSM 2 DSM DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS
an attractive method to investigate the behaviour
of corrugated sections are the complexity of these 2.1 Evaluation of Innovative column stresses
sections under analysis and DSM’s more sophisti-
Before any analysis of the innovative columns
cated approach to different elastic buckling loads.
can be made, the average stress of each column is
Firstly, the multiple segments of a corrugated
needed. Table 2 shows the geometric properties of
section make analysis based upon effective width
all the innovative columns investigated in this study,
unwieldy. Secondly, DSM better addresses distor-
which will be used to calculate the average stress
tional buckling, ensuring that any solutions are as
across each cross-section. A total of 23 column
accurate as possible. Compared to a full spectrum
cases were investigated throughout this study, each
finite element analysis, DSM is computationally
with a different geometric layout. The angle of cor-
less demanding, and has benefits for use in indus-
rugation, thickness of the plates, corner radius, and
try as it presents a closed-form solution.
flat region lengths are needed as inputs in order to
In order to develop formulations which describe
calculate the yield stress of the column. The follow-
the innovative hollow sections, the CUFSM pro-
ing equations are used to evaluate the yield stress
gram (Schafer and Ádány, 2006) has been utilised.
for any innovative column configuration:
This program applies the theory of DSM on input-
ted cross section. In order to assess the credibility
LE [(rc ⋅ a ) (2t )] ⋅ n (1)
of the program, the experimentally tested columns
were modelled on CUFSM. LF 3a + 3b c (2)
The method of DSM works on the principle of
elastic buckling behaviour. Elastic buckling behav- LU LF − LE (3)
iour can be categorised into three different classes:
Local, distortional and global. Local buckling shows Table  2. Geometric properties of the innovative col-
a significant distortion of the cross section, however umns investigated.
there is no translation at cross-section. Distortional Column
bucking also shows a significant distortion of the case α rc a b c h
cross section, however distortional buckling shows
both rotation and translation of the cross section. Case 1 45 7 20 20 21.21 15
Global buckling doesn’t involve a distortion of the Case 2 75 4.75 25.7 25.7 15.53 15
cross section, however there is instead a transla- Case 3 75 4.75 18.44 18.44 22.78 22
tion (flexure) and/or rotation (torsion) of the entire Case 4 15 7 20.63 20.63 20.63 5.34
cross section. Within this study, these three modes Case 5 25 7 20.63 20.63 20.63 8.72
of buckling are utilised by DSM to determine the Case 6 10 7 20 10 25 4.34
structural capacity of the innovative columns, and Case 7 10 7 10 10 10 1.74
ultimately the formulation of equations to deter- Case 8 20 7 20 20 20 6.84
mine the structural capacity of these columns. Case 9 20 7 15 15 15 5.13
DSM has attributes in analysing thin-walled Case 10 90 7 25 25 25 25
structures, however, it does have a few limitations Case 11 90 7 20 20 20 20
in both theory and practice. DSM doesn’t provide Case 12 80 7 40 40 60 59.09
provisions to shear, web crippling and members that Case 13 80 7 30 30 30 29.54
contain holes as well as no provisions for noticeable Case 14 15 7 12 12 13 3.35
strength increase due to cold-work of forming of sec- Case 15 15 7 20 20 10 2.59
tions. DSM also has a limited number of geometries Case 16 10 7 20 20 12 2.08
for pre-qualified members. DSM can also deliver an Case 17 85 7 35 35 40 39.85
over conservative estimate of strength capacity if Case 18 75 7 20 40 40 38.64
Case 19 60 7 30 30 40 34.64
given members are very slender (American Iron and
Case 20 65 7 40 30 40 36.25
Steel Institute, 2006). In terms of using CUFSM, the
Case 21 70 7 40 40 30 28.19
cross-section and loads cannot vary along the length
Case 22 85 7 40 40 30 29.89
of the member. CUFSM can only deal with mem-
Case 23 55 7 30 40 40 32.77
bers that are pinned or simply supported (American
Iron and Steel Institute, 2006). Even though these Note: α is the corrugation angle (in degrees), rc is the cor-
limitations can have a small effect on the data that ner corrugation radius, a, b and c are specific geomet-
CUFSM will produce, the method of DSM can be ric properties and h is the corrugation height (all length
regarded as the most suitable method when dealing dimensions are in mm).

469
 [( LE σ E ) + ( LU σ F )] 3 are compared with the rest of the cases studied.
σ0 = (4) (Nassirnia et  al., 2015) had measured the corner
LF
radii and enhanced yield stresses for Cases 1 to 3
and the results showed that the yield of the column
where LE is the enhanced length, rc is the corner cor-
is related to the corner radius. Therefore through
rugation radius, α is the angle of corrugation, t is
coupon tensile experiments, enhanced yield stresses
the thickness of the plate, n is the number of corners
were found for Case 2 and 3 to be the same. The cor-
(which is 4 for a single corrugated unit), a, b and c
ner radii for Case 2 and 3 were also found to be the
are geometric properties of each column (shown in
same. For the remaining cases that weren’t experi-
Table 2), LU is the unstiffened length of the plate, LF
mentally tested, a constant radius value is used (cor-
is the flat region length of the plate, σ0 is the average
ner radius for Case 1). The same can be said for the
yield stress of the cross section, σE is the enhanced
enhanced yield stress. The value of the average yield
yield stress and σU is the flat region yield stress. It
stress shown in Table 3 was then used to calculate
is noted that the enhanced length is defined as the
the load that is applied to each innovative column,
length of the metal plate that has undergone corru-
which was then used to in DSM calculations.
gation while the unstiffened length is the length of
the metal plate that hasn’t undergone corrugation.
2.2 CUFSM
Table 3 shows each column with its correspond-
ing enhanced length, unstiffened length and yield CUFSM software works by initially inputting the
stress. It is assumed that the thickness of the cor- desired cross-section, modelled through nodes
rugated sheet used for each case is 3  mm and the linked up by elements with a specific material and
corner radii is 7 mm (excluding Case 2 and 3, where thickness, as defined by the user. For this study,
the corner radius is taken as the measured value of the material properties in Table 4 are used for each
4.75  mm). It is also assumed that the flat region column case.
yield will be taken as 262 MPa, while the enhanced The points over which the column will be evalu-
yield will be 423 MPa for every case (excluding Case ated on must then be specified. By decreasing the
2 and 3, where the values is taken from experiments number of points over which CUFSM iterates on,
as 462  MPa). There is a difference in both corner the attained results will be more accurate, however
radii and enhanced yield values when Case 2 and the computation time increases. After inputting the
number of points, the column is analysed through
Table 3. Yield stress values for each innovative column the method of DSM. The output of CUFSM is a
studied. signature curve of the column cross-section (Schafer
and Ádány, 2006). The signature curve contains
Column information which is crucial in determining the load
case LE (mm) LU (mm) σ0 (MPa) carrying capacity of innovative columns. The hori-
zontal axis of the signature curve is length, while the
Control – – 262 vertical axis is the load factor. Within the signature
Case 1 138.0 109.3 352
curve, there are a number of dips. These dips cor-
Case 2 146.6 100.8 381
respond to particular characteristics of the column
Case 3 146.6 100.7 381
under loading. The first dip which usually occurs
Case 4 94.0 153.6 323
in the signature curve corresponds to the local
Case 5 108.7 138.9 333
buckling of the column and the second dip corre-
Case 6 86.7 153.3 320
Case 7 86.7 33.3 378
sponds to the distortional buckling of the column.
Case 8 101.3 138.7 330
The asymptotic behaviour of the signature curve
Case 9 101.3 78.7 353 demonstrates the global buckling behaviour of the
Case 10 204.0 96.1 371 column (for which the Euler buckling formula can
Case 11 204.0 36.1 399 be utilised). Each minima observed on the signature
Case 12 189.3 410.7 313 curve has a corresponding load factor value which
Case 13 189.3 170.7 347 corresponds to each of the buckling modes. For the
Case 14 94.0 56.0 363 global buckling mode, the load factor is calculated
Case 15 94.0 86.0 346 through the use of the Euler buckling formula, as
Case 16 86.7 105.3 335 shown below (Australian Standard As 4100, 1998):
Case 17 196.6 253.4 332
Case 18 182.0 238.0 332 Table 4. Material properties utilised in CUFSM.
Case 19 160.0 260.0 323
Case 20 167.3 282.7 322 Ex (MPa) Ey (MPa) νx νy Gxy (MPa)
Case 21 174.6 245.4 329
Case 22 196.6 223.0 337 209000 209000 0.3 0.3 80385
Case 23 152.6 297.4 317
Note: E – Modulus of Elasticity, G – Modulus of Rigidity.

470
 π 2 EI
PE =
( kel )2
where PE is the buckling load, E is the modulus
of Elasticity, taken as 209000  MPa in this work,
I is the second moment of area (mm4), ke is mem-
ber effective length factor (taken as 1, as column is
pin-pin) and l is the length of the member taken as
1000 mm in this study. Initially, the control and the
three cases of innovative columns were tested using
CUFSM. This is to ensure that the software pack-
age gives approximate values to those obtained
through experimental and finite element model
investigations, as well as calibrating CUFSM to
further investigate other column configurations.
3 RESULTS
Table  5  shows all the cases that were considered
in this study, along with their geometric proper-
ties, local and distortional factors obtained from
CUFSM, design strength capacity (φPn), slen-
derness values for local, distortional and global
buckling as well as the load factors obtained from
Table 5. Calculated CUFSM and direct stiffness method values for each innovative column investigated.
CUFSM. The method for how to calculate the
(5) design strength capacity can be found in the Direct
Strength Method Design guide (American Iron and
Steel Institute, 2006). From Table 5, an observation
is made with respect to the four columns that were
experimentally tested. It is observed that the con-
trol and the first three innovative cases have slightly
different values of design capacity loads (φPn) than
those found through experiments and finite ele-
ment models. This is due to the way that global
buckling factor was calculated. Global buckling in
a column governed by Euler buckling (equation 5)
is used to calculate the global buckling load factor.
The results in and the analysis through CUFSM
further solidifies the fact that as we increase the
angle of corrugation, the load carrying capacity of
the column also increases. For example, those cases
that have 90° corrugation angles are seen to have the
largest design strength capacity when compared with
other cross sections that have low corrugation angles.
Within this report, the torsional buckling failure
mode is ignored. As mentioned before, torsional
buckling failure doesn’t appear for closed innova-
tive sections. Also, the load factor corresponding
to distortional buckling is much higher than that
of local buckling, which means that local buckling

Column
case Ptest (kN) Py (kN) Pcrl/Py Pcrd/Py Pcre/Py λd λl φPn (kN)

Control 371 778.14 0.424 7.845 80.38 0.36 1.53 417.82

Case 1 795 1043.95 1.568 6.5523 47.94 0.39 0.80 866.32
Case 2 839 1129.63 1.722 5.8309 32.56 0.41 0.76 947.93
Case 3 953 1129.45 2.464 10.022 24.1 0.41 0.63 943.50
Case 4 612 1017.52 0.654 6.485 66.73 0.39 1.23 634.83
Case 5 741 988.24 0.991 6.784 60.81 0.38 1.00 708.57
Case 6 561 921.99 0.629 7.157 62.59 0.37 1.26 567.34
Case 7 417 544.71 1.62 12.79 13.17 0.28 0.77 448.52
Case 8 667 950.31 0.882 7.026 58.99 0.38 1.06 655.59
Case 9 572 881.03 1.043 7.561 33.26 0.36 0.97 639.90
Case 10 1292 1479.86 2.407 4.548 27.21 0.47 0.64 1238.68
Case 11 1084 1148.59 2.942 6.329 15.90 0.40 0.58 950.94
Case 12 2165 2252.1 1.383 3.092 134.33 0.57 0.85 1803.21
Case 13 1435 1497.54 1.812 4.687 54.50 0.46 0.74 1263.17
Case 14 479 653.19 1.342 10.545 21.28 0.31 0.85 512.29
Case 15 484 747.51 0.898 9.069 32.15 0.33 1.05 516.66
Case 16 465 771.08 0.740 8.686 38.06 0.34 1.16 500.22
Case 17 1733 1794.66 1.694 3.956 71.28 0.50 0.77 1516.53
Case 18 1604 1672.02 1.761 4.324 74.36 0.48 0.75 1413.24
Case 19 1559 1629.53 1.331 4.158 113.66 0.49 0.87 1288.56
Case 20 1706 1738.01 1.250 3.920 124.70 0.51 0.89 1347.09
Case 21 1570 1657.86 1.193 4.072 109.26 0.50 0.91 1265.53
Case 22 1625 1700.34 1.411 4.072 79.29 0.50 0.84 1368.21
Case 23 1645 1709.69 1.096 3.874 149.60 0.51 0.95 1270.69

Note: Py is the calculated load, Ptest is the test or verified FEM load, Pcrl/Py, Pcrd/Py, and Pcre/Py ratios are the local, dis-
tortional, and global buckling load factors respectively, Pcre is calculated using equation 5, λd is the distortional buckling
slenderness ratio (DSM), λl is the local buckling slenderness ratio (DSM) and φPn is the design strength capacity of
each column.

471
failure is governing the failure mode of closed
innovative columns.
4 FORMULATION AND DISCUSSION
Since the main purpose of this study is to formu-
late a new set of equations which describe innova-
tive columns, both local and distortional buckling
factors extracted from CUFSM are utilised to cre-
ate a set of points.
4.1 Local and distortional buckling comparison
Before any investigation into the desired formu-
lation, further data analysis was conducted. This
included the calculation of the flexural/torsional/
torsional-flexural buckling load (Pne), Ptest/Py
(which corresponds to λd) and Ptest/Pne (which cor-
responds to λl). The values of Ptest are the tested
or verified loads for each case. Figure  3  shows a
plot of λl against Ptest/Pne. This is very similar to the
analysis done for open channels (American Iron
and Steel Institute, 2004b), to verify that the design
strength equations given in AS4600 are valid. Fig-
ure 3 shows the data relationship for local buckling
for the innovative columns under investigation.
The local buckling data follows a noticeable curve,
which is consistent with previous thin-walled mem-
bers (American Iron and Steel Institute, 2004b).
The DSM calculations showed that for each
case, the local buckling mode showed the lowest
design capacity for the innovative columns. This is
common, as the columns were modelled as being
only 1 m long, and therefore distortional buckling
effects would not have a large impact on the major
buckling mode of the column. Therefore, for this
reason, the design capacity equation for these inno-
vative columns will be modelled based on the local
buckling data set. A further study may attempt to
find the mathematical relationship for the distori-
onal buckling mode of innovative hollow columns,
however this would ultimately require more cases
to be introduced.
Figure 3. Local buckling data for given innovative hol-
low corrugated members (Nassirinia et al., 2017a).
472
4.2 Formulation for innovative columns
Following from Figure 3, a mathematical model is
to be introduced that will fit the given local buck-
ling mode data set. The final mathematical model
will follow the following form:
κ ξ
Ptest ⎡ ⎛ P ⎞ ⎤ ⎛ P ⎞
= ⎢ ε − η ⎜ crl ⎟ ⎥ ⋅ ⎜ crl ⎟ (6)
Pne ⎢
⎣ ⎝ Pne ⎠ ⎥⎦ ⎝ Pne ⎠
where Pcrl is the critical elastic column bucking
load, Pne is the nominal capacity of a member in
compression for flexural, torsional or flexural-
torsional buckling (American Iron and Steel Insti-
tute, 2004a), Ptest is the verified compression load
value and ε, η, κ and ξ are constants which will
be determined through curve fitting process. This
equation has the same form as that of the equation
given in AS4600 cl 7.2.1.3(2) (Australian Standard
As4600, 2005), however to make the model more
general, three variables have been introduced.
These variables will determine the new fitting
model for the given data set. Equation  6 can be
further simplified, by using the relationship from
DSM, given in equation 7:
Pnne
λl = (7)
Pccrl
where λl is the slenderness ratio at local buckling.
By substituting this relationship into equation 6,
the following relationship is:
κ ξ
Ptest ⎡ ⎛ 1 ⎞ ⎤ ⎛ 1 ⎞
= ⎢ ε−η⎜ ⎥ ⋅⎜ 2⎟ (8)
Pne ⎢
⎣ ⎝ λl ⎟⎠ ⎥⎦ ⎝ λl ⎠
Matlab was used in order to find the corre-
sponding constants. An inbuilt function called
Curve Fitting (Matlab, R2013a) was utilised to
firstly fit a curve through the data and then using
the fitted model, finding the required constants.
The model which will be determined through the
method of curve fitting will develop a mathemati-
cal relationship, which will evaluate the strength
capacity of these sections.
From the curve fitting toolbox, MATLAB
gives a range of values for each coefficient.
From using these ranges, a suitable selection was
made to fit the data. The chosen curve must also
take into account that at some determined local
buckling slenderness point (λl ≤ γ, where γ is a
value that also requires to be determined), the
value of Ptest/Pne will be of value 1. The newly
formulated curve will be a piecewise function,
satisfying:
 ⎧ 1, λl ≤ γ λl ≤ 0.495
⎧ 1,
⎪
Ptest ⎪ ⎡ κ ξ
=⎨ ⎛ 1 ⎞ ⎤ ⎛ 1 ⎞ (9)
Ptest ⎪ ⎡
=⎨ ⎛ Pcrl ⎞
0.38
⎤ ⎛ P ⎞ 0.71
7

Pne ⎪ ⎢⎢ ε − η ⎜ 2 ⎟ ⎥⎥ ⋅ ⎜ 2 ⎟ λl > γ Pne ⎪ ⎢ 1− 0.37 ⎜ ⎥ ⋅ ⎜ crl ⎟ λl > 0.495

⎝ λl ⎠ ⎦ ⎝ λl ⎠ ⎝ Pne ⎟⎠ ⎥⎦ ⎝ Pne ⎠
⎩⎪ ⎣ ⎩ ⎢⎣
(12)

where ε, η and κ are constants which will be deter- Therefore from equation 12, it can be seen that
mined through curve fitting. From the range of ε = 1, η = 0.37 and κ = 0.38 and ξ = 0.71.
values that the curve fitting tool has provided, CUFSM has been programmed to effectively
as well as the use of trial and error of values calculate very simple cross sections, most notably
between the limits that MATLAB had developed open channels such as C-sections and Z-sections.
for each of the constants, the following formula By modelling closed sections, CUFSM may pro-
is obtained: duce values that are not entirely accurate, and this
will propagate through to the mathematical fitting
⎧ 1, λl ≤ 0.65 of the data. This propagation will affect the values
Ptest ⎪⎪ ⎡ ⎛ 1 ⎞
0.7
⎤ ⎛ 1 ⎞
0.7 of Ptest that will be evaluated, and therefore a dif-
=⎨
Pne ⎪ ⎢⎢ 1− 0.248 ⎜ 2 ⎟ ⎥
⎥
⋅ ⎜ 2⎟ λl > 0.65 ference will be noticed when attempting to validate
⎝ λl ⎠ ⎝ λl ⎠ finite element Ptest values to those evaluated through
⎩⎪ ⎣ ⎦
(10) the newly founded mathematical model. Also it
seems that all of the cases studied were not of suf-
Equation  10 can be written in the original ficient slenderness, as none of the cases showed a
format: Ptest/Pne ratio of 1. This affects the accuracy of both
the limiting value of the local buckling slenderness
λl ≤ 0.65 value as well as the mathematical formulation of
⎧ 1, the strength capacity of innovative sections.
Ptest ⎪ ⎡ ⎛ Pcrl ⎞
0.7
⎤ ⎛ P ⎞
0.7
The introduction of more cases may provide a
=⎨
Pne ⎪ ⎢ 1− 0.248 ⎜ ⎥ ⋅ ⎜ crl ⎟ λl > 0.65 more in-depth insight into the structural strength
⎢ ⎝ Pne ⎟⎠ ⎥⎦ ⎝ Pne ⎠
⎩⎣ capacity of hollow corrugated columns. This will
(11) allow a more accurate mathematical model to be
derived, as more data points will be made avail-
Therefore from equations 10 and 11, it can be able, closing the large gap between data points and
seen that ε = 1, η = 0.248 and κ = ξ = 0.7. the proposed model. This will ultimately increase
Figure  4  shows the fitted curve on the local the accuracy of how the mathematical model will
buckling data. As the data is highly variable, the describe the structural capacity of a particular hol-
fitted curve does not align with all points. This will low column.
cause discrepancies between pretending strength The introduction of additional cases must also
values and those measured from tests. include cases that are significantly slender.
Equation  11 is derived from fitted models to Throughout this study, a common average stress
the mean of all data. For design purposes, another value was used at each corrugated joint (441 MPa).
curve is generated which constitutes the lower However, this doesn’t account for the fact of the
bound design curve for the innovative columns. HAZ (Heat Affected Zone) of the welding as well
Equation 12 models the lower bound design curve as the cold-forming process of the corrugation.
of the innovative columns shown in Figure 4. Even though the average stress value taken may
seem to counter act imperfections of the column
cross-section, it may be the case that one of the
imperfections may have more of an impact on the
structural capacity than the other.
To increase the validity of the mathematical
model, more cases need to be introduced. In addi-
tion to the proposed increase in cases, a more in-
depth analysis in correctly modelling the stresses
within the section on CUFSM, with respect to
the HAZ of the weld and the enhancement of the
cold-formed folding of the metal may be a topic
for further research.
Figure 4. Fitted mathematical model to mean of local Distortional failure modes were not critical
buckling data set (equation 11 – red) and lower bound in the 24 cases analysed, and the columns exhib-
model of local buckling data set (equation 12 – yellow). ited a small range of distortional slenderness. As

473
a consequence, the results are not readily extend-
able to predicting distortional failure. One of
the advantages of the DSM formulation is its
improved treatment of distortional failure, and
so this attempt has not taken full advantage of
the methodology selected. DSM still has benefits
of computational ease when compared to a more
typical effective width analysis and so this concern
does not erase the value of this approach.
Going forward, a wider variety of innova-
tive columns could be investigated to provide
the basis for a more comprehensive analytical
toolkit. This should focus on expanding under-
standing of both compact columns and distor-
tional failure.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This paper has discussed the need into the study of
innovative columns, and the importance of these
in structural applications and a new analytical
way in determining the structural capacity of such
columns.
By utilising DSM, a computing tool, CUFSM,
was utilised to study hollow corrugated columns
CUFSM was utilised to find bucking load factors
for innovative hollow columns. These load factors
were then used through the DSM calculations
to evaluate the design strength of each innova-
tive hollow column. The design strength capacity
loads were slightly different from those found in
both experimental and finite element models, as
global elastic buckling was introduced into DSM
calculations. From the DSM calculations, it was
also determined, that local buckling determined
the structural capacity of each column.
The formulation of the structural strength
capacity of innovative hollow corrugated columns
utilised the slenderness values calculated through
DSM for each column case. These slenderness val-
ues along with a ratio of load test values to global
load buckling was plotted, and a mathematical
model was fitted to the data.
An introduction of more cases in a further study
with an attention to the HAZ of the welding and
enhancements of the cold-forming corrugation in
CUFSM, may increase the accuracy of the fitted
model.
474
ACKNOWLEDEGEMENT
This research work was supported by the Austral-
ian Research Council through Discovery Projects
DP130100181 and DP150100442.
REFERENCES
American Iron and Steel Institute 2004a. Appendix 1:
Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members
using the Direct Strength Method. Specification for
the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members.
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Members with the Direct Strength Method. Specifi-
cation for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural
Members.
American Iron and Steel Institute 2006. Direct Strength
Method (DSM) Design Guide Committee on Specifi-
cations for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural
Members.
Australian Standard As 4100 1998. AS4100 – Steel struc-
tures. Standards Australia, NSW, Australia.
Australian Standard AS4600 2005. AS4600 – Cold-
formed Steel Structures. Standards Australia, NSW,
Australia. Australian Steel Institute.
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chusetts, United States: The MathWorks, Inc.
Nassirnia, M., Heidarpour, A. & Zhao, X.L. 2017a. A
benchmark analytical approach for evaluating ulti-
mate compressive strength of hollow corrugated stub
columns. Thin-Walled Structures, 117: 127–139.
Nassirnia, M., Heidarpour, A., Zhao, X.-L. & Mink-
kinen, J. 2015. Innovative hollow corrugated columns:
a fundamental study. Engineering Structures, 94: 43–53.
Nassirnia, M., Heidarpour, A., Zhao, X.-L. & Mink-
kinen, J. 2016. Innovative hollow columns comprising
corrugated plates and ultra high-strength steel tubes.
Thin-Walled Structures, 101:14–25.
Nassirnia, M., Heidarpour, A., Zhao, X.L., Wang, R.,
Li, W. & Han, L.-H. 2017b. Experimental Behavior
of Innovative Hollow Corrugated Columns under
Lateral Impact Loading. Procedia Engineering, 173:
383–390.
Schafer, B.W. 2008. The direct strength method of cold-
formed steel member design. Journal of constructional
steel research, 64: 766–778.
Schafer, B.W. & Ádány, S. Buckling analysis of cold-
formed steel members using CUFSM: conventional
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Numerical investigation on static strength of CHS X-joints using S700

and S900 steel

X.Y. Lan & T.M. Chan

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

B. Young
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT: This paper presents a numerical investigation on static strength of high strength steel
X-joints composed of circular hollow sections (CHS) with nominal steel yield stresses of 700 and 900 MPa.
The adopted material models were based on previous research and the parametric study covered a wide
range of parameters including brace to chord outer diameter ratio, chord outer diameter to wall thickness
ratio, angle between brace and chord members, brace to chord wall thickness ratio, and chord preload ratio.
The static strengths obtained from the numerical study were compared with those calculated from nominal
strength equations on which the design equations in Eurocode EN 1993-1-8 and CIDECT design guide are
based. The comparison study assessed the applicability of the nominal strength equations for CHS X-joints
using S700 and S900 steel. This paper reports the observations and findings of this pilot numerical study.

1 INTRODUCTION using S460  steel ranges from 10% to 16%. Some

Eurocode EN 1993-1-8 (2005) and CIDECT design
guides (Wardenier et  al. 2008; Packer et  al. 2009)
provide design guidance for steel tubular joints
with nominal steel yield stress (fy) not exceeding
355 MPa. EN 1993-1-8 (2005) imposes a reduction
factor of joint strength of 0.9 for steel tubular joints
with nominal yield stress higher than 355  MPa
and up to 460 MPa. EN 1993-1-12 (2007) further
extends the limitation of steel grades to S700 and
requires the application of a reduction factor of
0.8 for steel tubular joints using steel grades greater
than S460 and up to S700. Similarly, CIDECT
design guides (Wardenier et al. 2008; Packer et al.
2009) stipulate a reduction factor of 0.9 for steel
tubular joints using steel grades greater than S355
and up to S460 combined with the limitation on
yield stress to 0.8 of ultimate tensile stress (0.8fu).
The reduction factors are stipulated due to rela-
tively large deformation observed in chord plastifica-
tion failure, lower deformation capacity of steel with
yield stress exceeding 355 MPa, and required suffi-
cient joint ductility for punching shear and effective
width failure (Zhao et al. 2010). Such punitive provi-
sions are primarily based on limited research dating
back to 1980s. Kurobane (1981) reported that the
test strengths of circular hollow section (CHS) gap
K-joints using S460 steel are 18% lower than those
of K-joints using S235 steel in relative terms. Liu &
Wardenier (2004) found that the strength reduction
of rectangular hollow section (RHS) gap K-joints
recent studies re-examined the design rules for high
strength steel tubular joints. Puthli et al. (2011) found
that the reduction factors of CHS X-joints obtained
from numerical study are higher than 0.9 for
S460 joints and larger than 0.8 for S690 joints, and
the strengths of CHS X-joints using steel grades up
to S770 obtained from experimental tests generally
exceed the design strengths obtained from EN 1993-
1-8 (2005) without using the reduction factors. Simi-
lar findings that test and numerical strengths of high
strength steel tubular joints are generally higher than
design or nominal strengths predicted by CIDECT
design guides (Wardenier et  al. 2008; Packer
et  al. 2009) or EN 1993-1-8 (2005) were reported
by Becque & Wilkinson (2017) for RHS T- and
X-joints using C450 steel with a nominal yield stress
of 450 MPa failed by chord plastification and chord
side wall buckling, Mohan & Wilkinson (2015) for
RHS K- and N-joints in steel grade C450, and Lee
et al. (2017) for CHS X-joints using HAS800 steel
with measured yield stresses up to 800 MPa failed
by chord plastification.
This study aims to investigate the static strength
of CHS X-joints using S700 and S900  steel. A
finite element study was conducted to obtain the
numerical joint strengths. The numerical strengths
were compared with nominal strengths calcu-
lated from nominal strength equations on which
the design equations in EN 1993-1-8 (2005) and
CIDECT design guide (Wardenier et al. 2008) are
based.

475
2 FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING
ABAQUS (2013) was used to conduct finite ele-
ment (FE) analysis. Test results of specimens R32
and R33 using S690  steel (Puthli et  al. 2011) and
specimen X90-650-0.75-16 made of HSA800 steel
(Lee et  al. 2017) were used to validate the FE
model. These tested CHS X-joints were subjected
to axial compression in the braces and failed by
chord plastification. Table 1 shows the joint param-
eters including chord outer diameter (d), chord wall
thickness (t), brace outer diameter (d1), brace wall
thickness (t1) and the angle (θ) between brace and
chord members. It should be noted that the static
strength of CHS X-joints is determined by the peak
load or 3% indentation in load-indentation curves.
If the indentation at the peak load is smaller than
3%d, then the peak load is considered to be the
joint strength; if the indentation at the peak load is
larger than 3%d, then the load at the indentation of
3%d is considered to be the joint strength.
2.1 Material properties
The yield stress (fy) and ultimate stress (fu) of the
test specimens as shown in Table 2 were reported
by Puthli et al. (2011) and Lee et al. (2017). How-
ever, the stress-strain curves for the steel materials
of the tested specimens were not reported. Thus, a
bi-linear stress-strain curve for the steel materials
was adopted. The assumed values of elastic modu-
lus (E), and ultimate strain at ultimate strength (εu)
are 210 GPa and 10%, respectively, in accordance
with Puthli et  al. (2011). The Poisson’s ratio (v)
equals to 0.3. The true stress (σt) and logarithmic
plastic strain (εp) were converted from engineering
stress (σ) and engineering strain (ε), and input in
the FE model using Equations 1 and 2 according
to the ABAQUS user’s manual (2013). The von
Mises yield surface criterion and isotropic strain
hardening rules were used.
Table 1. Test specimens used for FE validation.
σt = σ ( + ε ) (1)
εp l ( + ε )− σt / E (2)
2.2 Element type and mesh size
A four-node quadrilateral shell element S4R with
reduced integration was used to model the joint
specimens as shown in Table  1. Five integration
points through the shell thickness were adopted.
The weld was not modelled due to its insignificant
effect on the static strength of CHS X-joints (Lee
et al. 1999; Lan et al. 2016a, 2016b). The mesh size
of FE models was determined by a mesh conver-
gence study. A coarse mesh size was used outside
the joint zone while a finer mesh size was employed
in the joint zone. It was found that mesh sizes of
shell element S4R of 10 mm and 20 mm for joint
zone and members outside joint zone of specimens
R32 and R33, and mesh sizes of 12 mm and 24 mm
for joint zone and members outside joint zone of
specimen X90-650-0.75-16 are suitable. The typical
mesh layout is shown in Figure 1.
2.3 Boundary condition and loading mode
The axial displacement at two brace ends was not
constrained with other degrees of freedom being
restricted, and all degrees of freedom at two chord
ends were not restricted. The loads were applied
in increments by using the method of “Static” in
ABAQUS library. The nonlinear geometry param-
eter (*NLGEOM) was adopted to consider the
effect of large displacement in the FE analysis.
2.4 Validation
Figure  2  shows the load-indentation curves of
specimens R32 and R33 (Puthli et  al. 2011),
and specimen X90-650-0.75-16 (Lee et  al. 2017)
obtained from tests and FE analysis. It is shown
that the adopted FE model can produce reasonably

d t d1 t1 θ
Specimen (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (°)

R32 324.7 14.8 177.9 8.4 90

R33 325.1 19.1 178.1 8.5 90
X90-650-0.75-16 400.0 25.0 300.0 15.0 90

Table 2. Material parameters of test specimens.

Specimen fy (MPa) fu (MPa) εu (%)

R32 734 802 10

R33 739 798 10
X90-650-0.75-16 806 938 10
Figure 1. Typical mesh layout of CHS X-joints.

476
 Table 4. Parameters for CHS X-joints.

Joint
number d (mm) θ (°) n τ 2γ β

1 120 90 0 1.0 20 1.0

2 120 90 0 1.0 20 0.9
3 120 90 0 1.0 20 0.8
4 120 90 0 1.0 20 0.7
5 120 90 0 1.0 20 0.6
6 120 90 0 1.0 20 0.5
7 120 90 0 1.0 20 0.4
8 120 90 0 1.0 20 0.3
9 120 90 0 1.0 20 0.2
10 120 90 0 1.0 10 0.5
11 120 90 0 1.0 15 0.5
Figure 2. Comparison of load-indentation curve. 12 120 90 0 1.0 25 0.5
13 120 90 0 1.0 30 0.5
14 120 90 0 1.0 35 0.5
15 120 90 0 1.0 40 0.5
16 120 90 0 1.0 45 0.5
17 120 90 0 1.0 50 0.5
18 120 90 0 0.0 20 0.5
19 120 90 0 0.8 20 0.5
20 120 90 0 0.7 20 0.5
21 120 90 0 0.6 20 0.5
22 120 90 0 0.5 20 0.5
23 120 75 0 1.0 20 0.9
Figure 3. Comparison of failure mode. 24 120 60 0 1.0 20 0.9
25 120 45 0 1.0 20 0.9
Table 3. Comparison of joint strengths. 26 120 30 0 1.0 20 0.9
27 120 90 0.2 1.0 20 0.5
Specimen NFE (kN) NTest (kN) NFE/NTest
28 120 90 0.4 1.0 20 0.5
R32 1642 1774 0.93 29 120 90 0.6 1.0 20 0.5
R33 2620 2531 1.04 30 120 90 0.8 1.0 20 0.5
X90-650-0.75-16 6750 6965 0.97

parameters including chord outer diameter (d),

accurate prediction of load-indentation curves. It
angle between brace and chord members (θ), chord
should be noted that the small discrepancy in the
preload ratio (n), the ratio (τ) of brace wall thickness
load-indentation curves is possibly due to the sim-
(t1) to chord wall thickness (t), the ratio (2γ) of chord
plified bi-linear material curve adopted in the FE
outer diameter (d) to chord wall thickness (t) and
analysis. Figure 3 further compares the failure mode
the ratio (β) of brace outer diameter (d1) to chord
of specimen R32. It is shown that the FE model can
outer diameter (d). The chord preload ratio (n)
predict the failure mode of chord plastification
equals to compressive chord preload (NP) to chord
accurately. Table 3 shows the comparison between
yield load (A0fy) ratio. The parameters were care-
FE strengths (NFE) obtained from numerical analysis
fully designed to cover a wide range of parameters.
and test strengths (NTest) (Puthli et al. 2011; Lee et al.
The parameter ranges are 0.2 ≤ β ≤ 1.0, 10 ≤ 2 γ ≤ 50,
2017). It is shown that static strengths of specimens
0.5 ≤ τ ≤ 1.0, 30°≤ θ ≤ 90° and 0 ≤ n ≤ 0.8. The length
are well predicted with a maximum discrepancy of
of chord members (l) is equal to 6 times of chord
7% of the test strengths. Therefore, the validated FE
outer diameter (6d) to prevent the short chord effect.
model was used in the numerical parametric study.
The length of brace members (l1) equals to 3 times
of brace outer diameter (3d1) to avoid overall buck-
ling of brace members. Specimen label of each joint
3 PARAMETRIC STUDY
consists of one letter and one number. The letter (H
or V) refers to the steel grade (S700 or S900). The
3.1 Finite element analysis
number represents the corresponding joint param-
A numerical parametric study on CHS X-joints eters as shown in Table 4. For example, V1 denotes
using S700 and S900  steel was conducted using CHS X-joints using S900  steel. The detailed joint
the validated FE model. Table  4  shows the joint parameters of V1 can be found in Table 4.

477
 The material properties and stress-strain curves Table  6. Comparison of nominal strengths of CHS
of S700 and S900 steel reported by Ma et al. (2015) X-joints made of S700 steel with numerical strengths.
were employed in the numerical parametric study.
Table  5  shows the material parameters including Comparison
elastic modulus (E), stress at plastic strain of 0.01% Specimen NFE (kN) NEC/NFE NCIDECT/NFE
(σ0.01), 0.2% proof stress (σ0.2), ultimate stress
(σu), and ultimate strain at ultimate stress (εu). H1 854.0 1.04 0.88
Figure  4  shows the adopted true stress-plastic H2 549.1 1.13 1.06
strain curves converted from the engineering stress- H3 436.9 1.09 1.06
strain curves (Ma et  al. 2015) using Equations  1 H4 361.0 1.07 1.04
and 2. The shell element S4R was used. The mesh H5 304.0 1.08 1.02
convergence study shows that a mesh size of 4 mm H6 258.2 1.09 1.01
for CHS X-joints listed in Table 4 is suitable. For H7 218.9 1.14 1.00
CHS X-joint without chord preload, all degrees of H8 181.6 1.22 1.02
freedom at two brace ends were restricted except H9 147.6 1.36 1.07
for the brace axial displacement, and the two chord H10 940.0 1.20 1.00
ends were free to translate and rotate. The com- H11 441.1 1.14 1.01
pression in the braces was applied by displacement H12 169.3 1.07 1.02
at the brace end. For CHS X-joints with chord H13 119.1 1.05 1.03
preload, all degrees of freedom at two brace ends H14 88.3 1.04 1.05
and two chord ends were restricted except for the H15 67.9 1.04 1.06
brace axial displacement at two brace ends and H16 54.2 1.03 1.07
chord axial displacement at one chord end. The H17 44.2 1.02 1.08
chord member was firstly preloaded, and then the H18 257.8 1.10 1.01
brace ends were loaded by displacement. H19 257.4 1.10 1.01
H20 256.8 1.10 1.01
H21 256.0 1.10 1.02
3.2 Numerical results H22 254.7 1.11 1.02
H23 575.7 1.11 1.04
The static strengths (NFE) obtained from the
H24 663.9 1.08 1.01
numerical analysis are summarized in Tables 6–7.
H25 834.2 1.05 0.98
It should be noted that CHS X-joints analysed in
H26 1132.3 1.09 1.02
this study failed by chord plastification.
H27 251.7 1.04 0.96
H28 242.1 0.97 0.91
Table 5. Material parameters for S700 and S900 steel. H29 227.0 0.89 0.85
H30 203.6 0.79 0.76
Steel E σ0.01 σ0.2 σu εu
grade (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%) Mean 1.08 1.00
COV 0.09 0.07
S700 214 582 772 816 4.64
S900 210 736 1054 1116 2.26
3.3 Comparison of nominal strengths
Design equations for normal strength steel CHS
X-joints under brace and chord axial compres-
sion failed by chord plastification are available in
EN 1993-1-8 (2005) and CIDECT design guide
(Wardenier et  al. 2008). To allow a direct and
objective comparison, the nominal strength equa-
tions which the design equations are based on
were adopted to predict the static strength of CHS
X-joints made of S700 and S900  steel. It should
be noted that no additional reduction factors were
employed in this study. Nominal strengths (NEC and
NCIDCT) were obtained from the nominal strength
equations adopted by EN 1993-1-8 (2005) and
CIDECT design guide (Wardenier et  al. 2008) as
follows (Wardenier 1992; van der Vegte et al. 2009):
kP f yt 2 6.67
N EC = (3)
Figure 4. True stress-plastic strain curves. sinθ 1 − 0.812 β

478
Table  7. Comparison of nominal strengths of CHS (d1) to chord outer diameter (d); γ = ratio of chord
X-joints made of S900 steel with numerical strengths. outer diameter (d) to twice chord wall thick-
ness (t); θ  =  angle between the brace and chord;
Comparison
NP = compressive chord preload; A0 = cross-section
Specimen NFE (kN) NEC/NFE NCIDECT/NFE area of chord members; n  =  chord preload ratio;
kP and Qf =  parameters that account for the influ-
V1 1088.1 1.04 0.89 ence of compression chord longitudinal stresses.
V2 697.0 1.14 1.07 Table  8  summarises the validity ranges of these
V3 547.2 1.12 1.08 nominal equations and the FE analysis performed
V4 445.8 1.12 1.09 in this study.
V5 371.6 1.13 1.08 Tables  6–7  show the comparison between the
V6 312.2 1.16 1.07 nominal strengths (NEC and NCIDECT) and numeri-
V7 260.7 1.23 1.08 cal strengths (NFE) of CHS X-joints using S700
V8 213.8 1.33 1.12 and S900 steel. Table 6 shows that the mean val-
V9 173.1 1.49 1.17 ues of NEC/NFE and NCIDECT/NFE ratios for CHS
V10 1202.0 1.21 1.00 X-joints using S700  steel are 1.08 and 1.00 with
V11 550.3 1.17 1.04 the corresponding coefficients of variation (COV)
V12 198.0 1.17 1.12 of 0.09 and 0.07. It is shown that the strength pre-
V13 135.4 1.19 1.17 dictions are relatively accurate. Table 7 shows that
V14 98.0 1.21 1.21 the mean values of NEC/NFE and NCIDECT/NFE ratios
V15 74.2 1.22 1.25 for CHS X-joints made of S900 steel are 1.15 and
V16 58.5 1.23 1.28 1.07 with the corresponding COV of 0.10 and
V17 47.2 1.23 1.30 0.10. It is shown that the strength predictions are
V18 311.5 1.17 1.08 generally unconservative. It is noted that EN 1993-
V19 310.6 1.17 1.08 1-8 (2005) and CIDECT design guide (Wardenier
V20 309.4 1.17 1.08
et al. 2008) produced unconservative strength pre-
V21 308.0 1.18 1.09
dictions with relatively lower β ratio and higher γ
V22 306.0 1.19 1.09
ratio.
V23 727.9 1.13 1.06
In general, the nominal strength equations
V24 837.3 1.10 1.03
adopted by CIDECT design guide (Wardenier et al.
V25 1056.2 1.07 1.00
V26 1472.4 1.08 1.01
2008) are generally more accurate than those of EN
V27 306.4 1.10 1.02
1993-1-8 (2005). The nominal strength predictions
V28 296.4 1.02 0.96 of CIDECT design guide without using the reduc-
V29 281.2 0.92 0.88 tion factor of joint strength are relatively accurate
V30 258.1 0.80 0.77 for CHS X-joints made of S700 steel. However, the
nominal strength predictions of EN 1993-1-8 and
Mean 1.15 1.07
CIDECT design guide are generally unconserva-
COV 0.10 0.10 tive and may not be applicable for CHS X-joints
using S900  steel. It is noted that the nominal
strength predictions for CHS X-joints using S700
Table 8. Validity ranges of parameters.
and S900 steel become less accurate when the joint
Parameter β = d1/t 2γ = d/t τ = t1/t θ (°) parameters of β ratio and γ ratio move away from
the middle of their validity ranges in Table 8. One
EN 1993-1-8 [0.2–1.0] [10–50] – [30–90] possible explanation for this phenomenon is that
CIDECT 2008 [0.2–1.0] ≤40 ≤1.0 [30–90] the nominal strength equations are mainly devel-
FE analysis [0.2–1.0] [10–50] [0.5–1.0] [30–90] oped by regression analysis using screened test and
validated FE strength data of steel tubular joints,
and the prediction errors are larger as the variables
of steel tubular joints move away from the middle
NP
kP .3nn(1 + n ) n = (4) of their variation ranges in general regression situ-
A0 f y ations (Kurobane et al. 1984). It is also noted that
the nominal strength predictions become more
1+ β f yt 2 conservative with increasing n ratio. It may indicate
NCIIDECT 3.16( )γ 0 15Q f (5)
1 − 0.7 β sinθ that the chord stress function (see Equations 4 and
6) proposed for normal strength steel CHS X-joints
Qf ( n )0.45 − 0.25 β (6)
are rather conservative for their high strength steel
counterparts.
where fy = yield stress of chord members; t = chord This study only investigated CHS X-joints using
wall thickness; β  =  ratio of brace outer diameter S700 and S900 steel under axial compression failed

479
by chord plastification and assessed the applicabil-
ity of the nominal strength equations adopted by
EN 1993-1-8 (2005) and CIDECT design guide
(Wardenier et al. 2008) for the CHS X-joints. Fur-
ther research is currently under way to investigate
other loading conditions e.g. axial tension in the
braces, less ductile failure modes e.g. chord punch-
ing shear, and the effect of lower ultimate strain at
ultimate stress of high strength steel on the struc-
tural behaviours of steel tubular joints.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The static strength of CHS X-joints using S700
and S900 steel subjected to axial compression in the
braces failed by chord plastification was investigated.
A numerical study was carried out to obtain the static
strength. The parametric study covered a wide range
of geometric parameters and chord preload ratios.
A comparison study was conducted between the
numerical strengths of CHS X-joints made of S700
and S900 steel and the nominal strengths calculated
from the nominal strength equations adopted by
Eurocode EN 1993-1-8 and CIDECT design guide.
The additional reduction factors of joint strength
were not adopted in this study. It is shown that the
nominal strength equations adopted by CIDECT
design guide are generally more accurate than those
of EN 1993-1-8. The nominal strength predictions
of CIDECT design guide are relatively accurate for
CHS X-joints using S700 steel. However, the nominal
strength predictions of EN 1993-1-8 and CIDECT
design guide are generally unconservative for CHS
X-joints using S900 steel.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors appreciate the support from the Hong
Kong Branch of the Chinese National Engineering
Research Centre for Steel Construction. The first
author is also grateful for the support given by the
Research Grants Council of Hong Kong for the
Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme.
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sion 6.13-1, USA.
Becque, J. & Wilkinson, T. 2017. The capacity of grade
C450 cold-formed rectangular hollow section T and X
connections: An experimental investigation. Journal of
Constructional Steel Research 133:345–359.
EN 1993-1-8. 2005. Design of steel structures-Part 1–8:
Design of joints. European Committee for Standardiza-
tion, CEN, Brussels.
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EN 1993-1-12. 2007. Eurocode 3: Design of steel struc-
tures-Part 1–12: additional rules for the extension of EN
1993 up to steel grades S700. European Committee for
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Kurobane, Y. 1981. New development and practices in
tubular joint design, IIW Doc. XV-448–81 and IIW
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X.F. 2016a. Joint strength reduction factor of internally
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Mohan, M. & Wilkinson, T. 2015. Finite element simula-
tions of 450 grade cold-formed K and N joints, Tubular
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ties and residual stresses of cold-formed high strength
steel hollow sections.  Journal of Constructional Steel
Research 109: 152–165.
Packer, J.A., Wardenier, J., Zhao, X.L., van der Vegte, A.
& Kurobane, Y. 2009. Design guide for rectangular hol-
low section (RHS) joints under predominantly static
loading. CIDECT, Verlag TUV Rheinland. Cologne,
Germany.
Puthli, R., Bucak, O., Herion, S., Fleischer, O., Fischl, A.
& Josat, O. 2011. Adaptation and extension of the valid
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van der Vegte, G.J., Wardenier, J., Zhao, X.L. & Packer,
J.A. 2009. Evaluation of new CHS strength formulae
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Wardenier, J. 1982. Hollow section joints. The Netherlands:
Delft University Press.
Wardenier, J., Kurobane, Y., Packer, J.A., van der Vegte,
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loading. CIDECT, Verlag TUV Rheinland. Cologne,
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

FE modeling techniques for hot spot stress analysis of diamond

bird-beak SHS joints

B. Cheng, Y. Lou & C. Li

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

X.L. Zhao
Monash University, Clayton, Australia

ABSTRACT: Parametric analysis of hot spot stresses is a complicated process for bird-beak Square
Hollow Section (SHS) welded joints due to their characteristic configurations. This paper presents an
efficient finite element modelling technique to simulate the hot spot stresses of diamond bird-beak joints.
ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL) was used and the novel configurations including sad-
dle and crown areas of bird-beak joints were mainly considered during the model establishing process.
Tetrahedral-shaped solid elements were used so that the refined FE meshes satisfy the requirements of
extrapolation regions that have been specified in IIW and CIDECT fatigue design guides. All procedures
are automatically completed by pre-coded programs so that the parametric analysis and design formula
fitting of Stress Concentration Factor (SCF) can be efficiently conducted. The accuracy of the FE models
was validated by comparing with the existing experimental data.

1 INTRODUCTION factors (SCFs), is fairly complicated due to the com-

A bird-beak square hollow section (SHS) joint is
formed by rotating the members of a conventional
SHS joint at 45° about their longitudinal axes, and
therefore two types of bird-beak tubular joints,
that is, square bird-beak joint with chord rotated
only and diamond bird-beak joint with chord and
brace both rotated, are commonly considered for
the application.
The ultimate strengths of bird-beak joints under
static loads have been proved to be higher than
those of conventional joints with the same non-
dimensional parameters. Regarding the fatigue
resistance, Ishida (1992) first carried out the
fatigue tests of bird-beak T-joints considering the
load case of brace axial force. Keizer et al. (2003)
investigated the stress concentration factors of dia-
mond bird-beak joints under brace axial force. In
recent years, more investigations were extensively
conducted in order to push forward the applica-
tions of such joints in engineering structures. Tong
et al. (2014, 2015, 2016) presented an experimental
study on stress concentration factors for diamond
bird-beak T-joints under axial force and in-plane
bending on the brace. Cheng et  al. (2014, 2015a,
2015b, 2015c) carried out the tests to determine the
strain concentration factors of square bird-beak
SHS T-joints under chord and brace axial forces.
The numerical modeling of bird-beak joints,
which aims to predict the stress concentrations
plex configurations around the welding junctions
between the chord and the brace, especially when
the parametric analysis is expected. Therefore, this
study presents advanced finite element modeling
techniques for hot spot stress analysis of bird-beak
SHS joints, where fillet weld geometries, specified
hot spot locations, meshes in extrapolation regions,
load cases, boundary conditions, and automatic
parametric calculations will be all considered.
2 DIAMOND BIRD-BEAK SHS JOINTS
Diamond bird-beak T-shape joints were employed
in this research to illustrate the modeling proc-
ess of such tubular connections with complicated
welding conjunctions, as shown in Fig.  1. Three
non-dimensional parameters, i.e., brace/chord
width ratio β = b1/b0, chord wall slenderness ratio
2γ  =  b0/t0, and brace/chord wall thickness ratio
τ = t1/t0, were considered, where L0 and L1 respec-
tively represents the lengths of the chord and the
brace, b0 and t0 respectively represents the sectional
width and wall thickness of the chord, and b1 and
t1 respectively represents the sectional width and
wall thickness of the brace.
Six saddle hot spots/lines (i.e., Sa-B, Sa-C and
Sa-D on the chord and Sa-E, Sa-F and Sa-A on
the brace) and six crown hot spots/lines (i.e., Cr-B,
Cr-C and Cr-D on the chord and Cr-E, Cr-F and

481
 represents the parts around the weld junctions
with fine meshes and the non-core zone includes
the remaining parts with coarse meshes. In the core
zone, the parts away from the welds are defined as
the extrapolation region and the transition region,
respectively for the chord and the brace, as shown
in Fig.  2. Only a quarter joint is representatively
modeled due to the symmetry.

4.1 Geometry of joint core zone

Step 1: Building the brace parts
The top surface of the chord, including the curved
surfaces at the sectional corners, were first estab-
lished by taking the center of the chord section as
Figure 1. Diamond bird-beak SHS T-joint. the origin of the coordinate. The area of the brace
section at the end of the core zone was then built
and extruded along the downward direction of
Cr-A on the brace) were selected, as shown in
brace axis so that a brace volume was formed. This
Fig. 1.
brace volume will be further divided by the previous
The steel material was assumed to be linearly
chord’s top surface, and the brace parts below the
elastic with modulus of elasticity E = 210 GPa.
surface as well as the surface itself will be deleted at
the end of this step. No more divisions are required
for the brace volume since the hot lines on the brace
3 REQUIREMENTS OF MODELING
are parallel to the brace’s longitudinal axis.
Step 2: Building the flat parts of the chord’s top
The FE modeling is supposed to satisfy the require-
flange
ments as the following:
Some keypoints (e.g., A’, B’, C’, A’’, B’’, C’’) were
i. Diamond bird-beak configurations, including first generated by translating the keypoints (e.g.,
the saddle and crown dimensions, the sectional A, B, C) in prescribed distances from their original
corners, as well as the weld geometries around locations, and the boundaries of weld regions
the conjunction, can be exactly simulated in the
model by using solid elements.
ii. Stress components perpendicular to the weld
toes within the extrapolation regions of the
critical locations (i.e., hot spots), which have
been specified in IIW (2008) and CIDECT
(2000) fatigue recommendations, can be
obtained from the model, so that the structural
hot spot stresses at the weld toes can be auto-
matically calculated.
iii. Typical load cases including axial force, in-
plane bending, and out-of-plane bending can
be considered properly.
iv. Parametric calculation considering common
value ranges of three non-dimensional param-
eters (i.e., β, 2γ, τ) can be efficiently conducted
by employing ANSYS parametric design lan-
guage (APDL) (2016), and the stress outputs
at the specified locations can be automatically
read from the FE software according to the
prescribed rules.

4 PROCEDURE OF MODELING

The whole joint is first divided into two zones, i.e., Figure  2. Region partitions of quarter diamond bird-
core zone and non-core zone, where the core zone beak joint.

482
and extrapolation regions were then constructed,
as shown in Fig.  3. Lines A’A’’ and B’B’’ respec-
tively corresponds to the hot lines Sa-C and Sa-D.
The volumes were formed by extruding these flat
surfaces along the thickness direction. In this sub-
step, the work plane was moved to the inclined
plane of the brace section that has been cut by the
top surface of the chord in Step 1.
Step 3: Building the curved parts of the chord’s top
corner
The chord’s corner section consisting of two
straight lines and two curved lines was first
extruded along the longitudinal direction of the
chord so that the crown part was generated. The
weld region and the extrapolation region were fur-
ther identified from the whole part according to
the prescribed dimensions, and as a result, the key-
points A, A’, A’’, B, B’, B’’, and C were generated,
as shown in Fig. 3. By introducing the plane run-
ning through the keypoint D’ and perpendicular to
the flat surface of the brace, the hot line Cr-B was
represented by the curved line D’D’’, where the
keypoint D’’ was the intersection point between
the plane and line B’’C’’. Afterwhile, deleting
and merging of the overlapped volumes around
the crown zone were performed, from which all
essential crown parts shown in Fig. 3 were finally
generated. The curved line B’’C’’, which exactly
represents the hot line Cr-B, was unchanged since
its first appearance.
Step 4: Building the remaining parts of the chord
The remaining chord parts, which include the bot-
tom flange, bottom corner, as well as the lateral
corner, were easy to be generated by simply extrud-
ing the corresponding sectional areas of the chord
along its longitudinal direction. The sectional
areas should be reasonably divided in prior to the
extruding so that the meshing next can be con-
ducted, as shown in Fig. 3.
Figure 3. Geometric parts of joint core zone.
483
The yellow, purple, pink, and green parts in
Fig. 3 respectively represents the geometries built
in Step 1, 2, 3, and 4.
4.2 Meshing of joint core zone
Map meshing was implemented after the lines of
each quadrilateral having been divided into pre-
scribed segments. The element sizes within the weld
regions and the extrapolation regions were as small
as 2 mm. The meshes within the transition regions
were twice coarser (i.e., element size of 4 mm) than
those of the extrapolation regions. All sectional
walls were divided into four element/mesh layers in
their thickness directions. If necessary, the meshes
can be refined or coarsened by merely modifying
the controlling parameters.
4.3 Modeling of joint non-core zones
The meshes of joint non-core zones were con-
structed by extruding the chord’s and brace’s sec-
tional meshes at the boundaries of the core zone.
The element sizes in the longitudinal directions of
the members were set to be four times the length of
elements within transition regions.
4.4 Modeling of welds
In order to simulate the fillet welds which served
as the strengthening of partial penetration groove
welds, an area of the fillet weld section was first con-
structed by introducing an arc line at the symmetry
plane of the whole joint, and was then extruded
along the conjunctions between the brace and the
chord until the geometries of the fillet welds were
finally constructed. The mapped meshes within
the welds were highly consistent with the existing
nodes in the weld regions.
The final meshes of the joint core zone are
shown in Fig. 4.
Figure 4. Meshes of joint core zone.
4.5 Load cases and boundary conditions
All nodal DOFs in the section of each member end
were coupled to a referenced node which has been
previously placed at the center of the section, and
various load cases such as axial force, in-plane bend-
ing and out-of-plane bending, etc., can be applied
to the member end by adding a concentrated force/
moment corresponding to unit nominal stress on
the referenced node. The boundary conditions were
applied to the joint in the same way.
4.6 Data processing
The APDL files used for batch processing were
first generated by introducing Practical Extrac-
tion and Report Language (Perl), and all the
ANSYS output files were combined into one
again by Perl so that the functions provided in
Excel software can be called to automatically run
the extrapolation.
Figure 5. SCF distributions near the weld toes.
484
5 RESULTS OF MODELING
5.1 Stress concentrations
By employing a T-joint with non-dimensional
parameters of β  =  0.7, 2γ  =  20, and τ  =  0.7, the
stress concentrations at the specified hot spots of
diamond bird-beak joints were plotted in Fig.  5,
where SCF is calculated as the nodal stress com-
ponent perpendicular to the weld toe divided by
the nominal stress on the brace section. Both lin-
ear and quadratic variations towards the weld toe
were observed from Fig. 5, which suggests that the
quadratic extrapolation should be adopted for the
hot spot stress predictions.
5.2 Model validation
Seven diamond bird-beak SHS T-joints, whose SCFs
under brace axial force have been experimentally
Figure  6. Comparison of experimental and numerical
SCFs.
measured by Tong (2014), were also numerically
investigated in order to validate the accuracy of
the modeling. Comparisons of SCF data at vari-
ous hot spots have been shown in Fig. 6. It can be
seen that that the numerical SCFs from the present
research could be either larger or smaller than
those obtained from the test. The average value
of SCFFEM/SCFtest ratios goes to 0.97 and 1.07,
respectively for chord spots and brace spots. The
coincidence between the simulation and the test
could be regarded as fairly good.
By using the compiled programs, numerous
parametric study, which aims to establish the SCF
formulae of diamond bird-beak joints, can be effi-
ciently carried out by considering the common
cases of non-dimensional parameters, load cases
as well as boundary conditions.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Finite element modeling techniques based on
ANSYS parametric design language were pre-
sented for the hot spot stress analysis of diamond
bird-beak SHS joints. The refined meshes around
the saddle and crown areas were exactly consist-
ent with the requirements of hot spot locations
and their extrapolation regions, so that the nodal
stress components derived from the analysis can be
directly used for the extrapolation calculation. All
procedures were automatically implemented by the
pre-coded programs. The proposed approaches are
efficient in parametrically modeling the diamond
bird-beak joints of different shapes and dimensions
under various load cases and boundary conditions.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research work was sponsored by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China
(no. 51678359). The supports are gratefully
acknowledged.
REFERENCES
ANSYS User’s manual (version 17.2). 2016. Swanson
Analysis System Inc., Houston.
485
Cheng, B., Qian, Q. & Zhao, X.L. 2014. Tests to Deter-
mine stress concentration factors for square Bird-
Beak SHS joints under chord and brace axial forces.
ASCE’s Journal of Structural Engineering 140(11):
04014088.
Cheng, B., Qian, Q. & Zhao, X.L. 2015. Numerical inves-
tigation on stress concentration factors of square
bird-beak SHS T-joints subject to axial forces. Thin-
walled Structures 94: 435–445.
Cheng, B., Qian, Q. & Zhao, X.L. 2015. Stress concentra-
tion factors and fatigue behavior of square bird-beak
SHS T-joints under out-of-plane bending. Engineer-
ing Structures 99: 677–684.
Cheng, B., Qian, Q., Zhao, J.C., Lu, Z.A. & Zhao, X.L.
2015. Stress concentration factors of square bird-beak
SHS T-joints under brace axial loading. 15th Interna-
tional Symposium on Tubular Structures (ISTS15),
Rio de Janeiro, 343–348.
International Institute of Welding (IIW). 2008. Recom-
mended fatigue design procedure for welded hollow
section joints-part 1: Recommendations, part 2: Com-
mentary, XV-1035-99, Cedex, France.
Ishida, K. 1992. Experimental research on fatigue behav-
ior of diamond bird-beak joint. Proc., Symp. on Struc-
tural Engineering, Architectural Institute of Japan,
Tokyo (in Japanese).
Keizer, R., Romeijn, A., Wardenier, J. & Glijnis, P.C.
2003. The fatigue behaviour of diamond bird beak
T-joints. 10th International Symposium on Tubular
Structures (ISTS10), Spain, 303–310.
Tong, L.W., Fu, Y.G., Liu, Y.Q. & Zhao, X.L. 2014.
Stress concentration factors of diamond bird-beak
SHS T-joints under brace loading. Thin-Walled Struc-
tures 74: 201–212.
Tong, L.W., Xu, G.W., Liu Y.Q., Yan, D.Q. & Zhao, X.L.
2015. Finite element analysis and formulae for stress
concentration factors of diamond bird-beak SHS
T-joints. Thin-Walled Structures 86: 108–120.
Tong, L.W., Xu, G.W., Yan, D.Q. & Zhao, X.L. 2016.
Fatigue tests and design of diamond bird-beak SHS
T-joints under axial loading in brace. Journal of Con-
structional Steel Research 118: 49–59.
Zhao, X.L., et  al. 2000. Design guide for circular and
rectangular hollow section joints under fatigue load-
ing. Comité International pour le Développement et
l’Etude de la Construction Tubulaire, TÜV-Verlag,
Köln, Germany.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Numerical investigation into the behaviour of HSS beam-columns

strengthened using CFRP plates

W. Attiah
Department of Structural Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

A. Shaat
Civil Engineering Program, German University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

E. Sayed-Ahmed
Construction Engineering Department, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates the behaviour of Hollow Square Section (HSS) beam-columns
strengthened using Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) plates. Finite element model was devel-
oped and verified using experimental results. A parametric study was carried out to examine the effect
of column slenderness ratio, HSS size, load eccentricity value and the CFRP reinforcement ratios on the
strength gain of HSS beam-columns strengthened using CFRP plates. Cohesive zone feature was adopted
to simulate the debonding of the CFRP plates from the steel tubes. The study showed significant increases
in beam-column capacity up to 60% depending on the member slenderness ratio and load eccentricity val-
ues. It was also found that application of this strengthening system is very effective for slender specimens
with small eccentricity while opposite is true for short specimens.

1 INTRODUCTION

A Large number of research studies has shown

the efficiency of using carbon fiber reinforced
polymer (CFRP) plates to increase the capacity
and enhance the behavior of both steel columns
and beams (Tavakkolizadeh & Saadatmanesh
2003, Sayed-Ahmed 2004, Sayed-Ahmed 2006,
Shaat & Fam 2009, Peiris 2011). Based on previ-
ous literature, a limited number of researches has
focused on the behavior of beam-columns (i.e.
members subjected to flexure and normal forces)
(Movaghati & Rahai 2010, S. Movaghati & Rahai
2012, Abdallah 2017). The current study inves-
tigates the behaviour of hollow square section
(HSS) beam-columns strengthened using CFRP
plates. A finite element model was developed and
verified using experimental test results presented
by (Abdallah 2017). A parametric study was imple-
mented to examine the effects of cross-section size,
column slenderness ratios, beam-load eccentricity
values and the area of CFRP plates.

2 THE NUMERICAL MODEL

The finite element package (ANSYS 16.2) was

used in this study to model the HSS beam-
columns strengthened with bonded CFRP plates Figure 1. Experimental test setup and numerical model.

487
Table 1. Mechanical properties of steel plates, CFRP &
Epoxy.
Material E (GPa) σy (MPa) σu(MPa)
Steel Plates 200 345 350
CFRP 200 N/A 2400
Epoxy Resin 10 N/A 32
oriented in the longitudinal direction Fig. 1. The
model considers two material models. Bilinear
stress-strain relationship for steel with a yield
strength determined from experimental tests,
as shown in (Table  1), and a plastic tangential
modulus equals 1/100 of the elastic modulus
value (Et  =  Eelastic /100). An orthotropic elastic
relationship for CFRP laminates is considered, as
listed in (Table  1). The interaction between the
steel surface and CFRP plate was modeled using
cohesion model. Both HSS and CFRP laminates
were modelled using 4-node thick shell element
(Shell-181) with reduced integration with mesh
size of 2.5  mm × 2.5  mm. Columns and CFRP
plates were modeled with 2.0  mm and 1.4  mm
thick shell elements, respectively.. The interface
of delamination was introduced using contact
elements CONTA 173 associated with TARGET
170 elements using a shared real constant. The
boundary conditions of FE model are as follow:
The hinged ends of the column were modeled
using two vertical end plates connected to the
specimen with rigid links simulating the bolted
connections. At the bottom end, the transla-
tion degrees of freedom (UX, UY, and UZ) are
restrained and adjusted according to the required
eccentricity, while the degrees of freedom in two
directions only (UX and UZ) were restrained at
the top end (Fig. 1).
3 MODELING OF STEEL-CFRP
INTERFACE
Steel-CFRP adhesive layer was modeled using
cohesive zone feature provided by the program
(ANSYS, 16.2). The interface of delamination was
introduced using contact elements. This approach
introduces failure mechanisms by using a bi-linear
hardening-softening relationship between the sep-
arations (Slippage/Separation) and incorporating
the corresponding forces across the interface, as
shown in (Fig. 2). Debonding is governed by both
the interfacial normal stresses (mode I) and inter-
facial shear stresses (mode II). (Fernando 2010)
predicted a relation between the peak bond stresses
and the slippage of CFRP to steel interface at vari-
ous levels of loading. This relationship helps in the
488
Figure  2. Bi-Linear relationship for Separation/Slip-
page and contact gap.
prediction of the interfacial fracture energy from
the mechanical properties of the joint. Equations
(1 to 4) are adopted for linear elastic adhesives that
describe the progress of slippage at different stress
levels.
Gf = 628 ta0.5 R2 (N/mm2.mm) (1)
τmax = 0.9 σmax (MPa) (2)
0.6
⎛t ⎞
δ1 σ max ( ) (3)
⎝ Ga ⎠
⎛ 2G ⎞
δf =⎜ f ⎟( ) (4)
⎝ Tmax ⎠
where:
ta is the adhesive thickness (mm)
R is the tensile strain energy of the adhesive
which is equal to the area under the uni-axial ten-
sile stress (in MPa) – Strain curve. R = σ2 max/Ea
σmax is the tensile strength of the adhesive (MPa).
Ga is the shear modulus of the adhesive layer
(MPa).
Ea is the tensile modulus of the adhesive layer
(MPa).
The bond-slip relation of CFRP-to-steel inter-
faces with a linear adhesive has bi-linear shape. The
curve has an ascending part till slippage peak bond
stress τmax and slippage δ1 then the curve descends
to reach zero shear. For bond-separation model,
the common method to get the bond-separation
model and to determine fracture energy is using
double cantilever beam tests (Pardoen et al. 2005
and De Moura & Chousal 2006). In the case of
unavailability of these test data and for elastic lin-
ear adhesives, an approximation of the bond-sepa-
ration model using the tensile stress-strain data of
the adhesive can be used (Campilho et  al. 2008).
The peak stress of the bond-separation curve to be
assumed similar to the tensile strength of the adhe-
sive and the separation at complete failure δf can
be taken as the product of the tensile strain at com-
plete failure and the adhesive thickness. (Abdallah
2017) reported that, the tensile strength of epoxy
resin is equal to 32 MPa with an elastic modulus The contribution of both normal and tangen-
of 10 GPa. The traction—separation energywas tial contact stresses on the total fracture energy
calculated by following the bi-linear stress-strain is considered using the mixed-mode debonding,
curve introduced in (Fig.  2). The calculation of where both normal and tangential contact stresses
bi-linear stress-strain curve starts with ascending contribute to the total fracture energy. In this
slope equals 10 GPa till an ultimate tensile stress combined mode, debonding is completed before
and strain of 32 MPa and 0.0032, respectively. To the critical fracture energy values are reached for
determine the bi-linear bond-separation relation- the components. Therefore, a power law-based
ship considering that the used epoxy resin is an energy criterion is used to define the completion
elastic linear adhesive, the descending part of the of debonding:
relation ends with zero stress and ultimate strain
of 0.0064, which is double the strain value at peak ⎧ Gn ⎫ ⎧ Gt ⎫
stress. A side study was conducted to calibrate ⎨ ⎬+⎨ ⎬ =1 (9)
⎩Gcn ⎭ ⎩Gct ⎭
model presented by (Fernando 2010) against the
test results carried out by (Abdallah 2017). The
where:
study is based on finding the best values for both
Gn: the normal fracture energy, Gn = ∫Pdun
the bond interfacial energy and peak bond stress
Gt: the tangential fracture energy, Gt = ∫τdut
that verify the experimental results (i.e. ultimate
τ: Tangential contact stress
loads and the observed failure modes). The results
P: Normal contact stress
of the calibration study are represented by Equa-
tions (5 to 8).
Gf = 11 ta0.5 R2 (N/mm2.mm) (5) 4 CFRP DAMAGE INITIATION
AND PROPAGATION
τmax = 0.375 σmax (MPa) (6)
δ1 = 0.5 δf (mm) (7) Hashin failure criteria for unidirectional fiber
composites was considered to define the CFRP
⎛ 2G ⎞ material damage. The Hashin failure criterion
δf =⎜ f ⎟( ) (8) proposes four separate modes of failure, namely,
⎝ Tmax ⎠ fiber tension, fiber compression, matrix tension,
matrix compression. The influence of shear on
Table 2. Comparison between FE Results and (Abdal- failure modes is considered using weight factor α
lah 2017). in failure criteria. These failure modes are based
on limiting material strengths in the longitudinal
Ultimate
Load (KN) Ratio directions (XTEN for tension and XCMP for com-
Set Specimen Failure pression), the transverse directions (YTEN for
number ID PExp PFEA PExp /PFEA mode tension and YCMP for compression) and shear
strength (XY/YZ), as listed in (Table 3).
1 C-68–25 42.40 42.95 0.99 FB It is also necessary to specify a compatible
C-68–50 22.90 29.08 0.79 FB material damage evolution law. This law is used
C-68–100 16.10 17.52 0.92 FB
2 S-62–25 56.00 53.72 1.04 DB
Table 3. Damage initiation strength limits.
S-62–50 36.20 35.72 1.01 DB
S-62–100 22.40 19.26 1.16 DB Direction
3 C-100–25 34.50 32.80 1.05 FB
C-100–50 20.40 23.12 0.88 FB Loading Longitudinal Transversal Transversal
C-100–100 14.60 14.85 0.98 FB type X Y Z
4 S-90–25 42.20 49.32 0.86 DB
S-90–50 40.50 32.50 1.25 DB E (GPa) 200 10 10
S-90–100 22.10 19.41 1.14 DB ν (Poisson 0.2 0.02 0.02
5 C-131–25 25.80 25.33 1.02 FB ratio)
C-131–50 20.40 18.76 1.09 FB Tensile 2400 50 50
C-131–100 13.70 12.75 1.07 FB Stress
6 S-119–25 40.20 39.08 1.02 DB (MPa)
S-119–50 28.90 29.33 0.99 DB Compressive 1440 250 250
S-119–100 21.10 18.70 1.13 DB Stress
(MPa)
Average1.02 Shear Stress 77 77 77
S.Dev. 0.11 (MPa)

489
to describe the degradation of CFRP laminates. Table 4. Orthotropic and damage initiation properties
Two methods are available to define the evolution of CFRP strip.
of damage in CFRP, the material property deg-
radation method (MPDG), which models instant E1 E2 G XT XC YT YC S
(GPa) (GPa) υ (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa) (MPa)
stiffness reduction and the continuum damage
mechanics method (CDM), which models gradu- 313 10 0.3 5 1475 855 50 250 70
ally increasing damage. For the material property
degradation method (MPDG), Inputs to this law
are the instant reduction factors for tensile and Table 5. Fracture energies and viscosity coefficients for
compressive stiffness, in both tension and compres- post damage.
sion. The values can range between 0 (no damage)
and 1 (complete damage). For the continuum dam- Gft c Gfc c Gmt c Gmc c
age mechanics method (CDM), Inputs to this law (N/mm) (N/mm) (N/mm) (N/mm) μft μfc μmt μmc
is the energy dissipated per unit area and the vis-
120 32 1 1 1e-08 1e-081e-08 1e-08
cous damping coefficient for each damage mode.
For the verification study, the evolution of dam-
age following its initiation was based on Material
Table  6. Key parameters for traction-separation
Property Degradation Method (MPDG), which is models.
an instant stiffness reduction, setting a reduction
factor of one as a complete damage for either ten- Peak Separation/ Interfacial
sion or compression loadings in all directions. bond Slippage at fracture
Epoxy Fracture stress peak bond energy, Gf
type mode (MPa) stress (mm) (N/mm2.mm)
5 PARAMETRIC STUDY
Abdallah I 32 0.0064 0.1024
(2017) II 12 0.0048 0.0288
(Table  2) shows a good agreement between the
results III 12 0.0048 0.0288
developed finite element model and test results
in predicting both the beam-column capacity Shaat I 22.34 0.002 0.041
and failure mode. All control specimens were (2009) II 20.11 0.0013 1.031
failed by flexural buckling (FB) while debond- results III 20.11 0.0013 1.031
ing of CFRP plates at the compression side
(DB) was observed for all the strengthened spec-
imens. A parametric study was carried out on modes (fiber tension, fiber compression, matrix
control HSS beam-columns and their counter- tension, and matrix compression) (Table 5). Six
part strengthened to evaluate the efficiency of slenderness ratios are adopted for this study 34,
using this strengthening technique. A high grade 46, 58, 70, 93 and 104.5. Three levels of load-
S355 HSS cold-formed section with compact ing eccentricity are used equal to 50%, 100%
sections 64 × 64 × 3.2 mm and 89 × 89 × 3.2 mm and 200% of the width of the cross section were
were used in the parametric study. The stress- examined. The values in (Table 4) and (Table 5)
strain relationship of steel material according to were calculated based on a verification study
Veritas (2013) using the classical metal plastic- carried out by (Movaghati & Rahai 2010) using
ity was considered. The mean yield value and finite element modeling for (Shaat & Fam 2009)
ultimate strength are multiplied by 1.22 and experimental program. HSS-CFRP adhesive
1.04, respectively for modeling unbiased mem- layer was modeled using the cohesive zone fea-
ber [Hess et  al. (2002)]. High modulus CFRP ture as previously used in section 4. The bi-linear
plate with Young’s modulus of 313 GPa, Pois- separation/slippage relationships adopted in the
son’s ratio of 0.3 and ultimate strength of study were calculated based on (Fernando 2010)
1475  MPa were used and modeled as elastic models and verified against (Shaat & Fam 2009)
orthotropic material. Hashin failure criteria for as shown in (Table 6). Two reinforcement ratios
unidirectional fiber composites were considered ρ, which is defined as the ratio of total CFRP to
for predicting the initiation of CFRP dam- steel areas Af /As via using different thicknesses
age for different loading directions as shown of CFRP plates were considered 0.232 & 0.464.
in (Table  4). Post-damage initiation behavior
of fiber reinforced composites was introduced
according to the energy dissipation approach 6 RESULTS
via continuum damage method (CDM) adopted
by ANSYS package. Energies dissipated per unit (Table 7) lists the results of the parametric study.
area Gc are specified individually for all damage The following designation system was used to

490
 Table 7. Parametric study results.

Axial load Axial load Axial load

Serial Specimen I.D. capacity (KN) Serial Specimen I.D. capacity (KN) Serial Specimen I.D. capacity (KN)

1 HSS_64_34_0_32 131.51 37 HSS_64_58_0_32 106.06 73 HSS_64_93_0_32 76.90

2 HSS_64_34_0_64 85.64 38 HSS_64_58_0_64 72.21 74 HSS_64_93_0_64 54.93
3 HSS_64_34_0_128 48.98 39 HSS_64_58_0_128 43.22 75 HSS_64_93_0_128 35.49
4 HSS_64_34_0.232_32 134.99 40 HSS_64_58_0.232_32 131.84 76 HSS_64_93_0.232_32 118.51
5 HSS_64_34_0.464_32 137.08 41 HSS_64_58_0.464_32 113.27 77 HSS_64_93_0.464_32 99.67
6 HSS_64_34_0.232_64 90.45 42 HSS_64_58_0.232_64 80.53 78 HSS_64_93_0.232_64 74.65
7 HSS_64_34_0.464_64 89.69 43 HSS_64_58_0.464_64 79.40 79 HSS_64_93_0.464_64 62.82
8 HSS_64_34_0.232_128 49.66 44 HSS_64_58_0.232_128 48.69 80 HSS_64_93_0.232_128 43.37
9 HSS_64_34_0.464_128 49.19 45 HSS_64_58_0.464_128 43.48 81 HSS_64_93_0.464_128 38.70
10 HSS_89_34_0_45 188.34 46 HSS_89_58_0_45 153.07 82 HSS_89_93_0_45 109.51
11 HSS_89_34_0_90 123.10 47 HSS_89_58_0_90 103.78 83 HSS_89_93_0_90 78.72
12 HSS_89_34_0_180 70.58 48 HSS_89_58_0_180 62.25 84 HSS_89_93_0_180 50.96
13 HSS_89_34_0.232_45 192.43 49 HSS_89_58_0.232_45 179.71 85 HSS_89_93_0.232_45 172.22
14 HSS_89_34_0.464_45 195.64 50 HSS_89_58_0.464_45 170.14 86 HSS_89_93_0.464_45 147.19
15 HSS_89_34_0.232_90 128.25 51 HSS_89_58_0.232_90 113.31 87 HSS_89_93_0.232_90 110.20
16 HSS_89_34_0.464_90 131.54 52 HSS_89_58_0.464_90 113.17 88 HSS_89_93_0.464_90 93.52

491
17 HSS_89_34_0.232_180 73.65 53 HSS_89_58_0.232_180 68.50 89 HSS_89_93_0.232_180 64.40
18 HSS_89_34_0.464_180 70.77 54 HSS_89_58_0.464_180 66.16 90 HSS_89_93_0.464_180 55.36
19 HSS_64_46_0_32 119.01 55 HSS_64_70_0_32 95.49 91 HSS_64_104.5_0_32 69.01
20 HSS_64_46_0_64 78.91 56 HSS_64_70_0_64 65.82 92 HSS_64_104.5_0_64 50.35
21 HSS_64_46_0_128 46.07 57 HSS_64_70_0_128 40.48 93 HSS_64_104.5_0_128 33.20
22 HSS_64_46_0.232_32 123.55 58 HSS_64_70_0.232_32 120.87 94 HSS_64_104.5_0.232_32 110.71
23 HSS_64_46_0.464_32 125.93 59 HSS_64_70_0.464_32 114.39 95 HSS_64_104.5_0.464_32 103.59
24 HSS_64_46_0.232_64 83.57 60 HSS_64_70_0.232_64 79.16 96 HSS_64_104.5_0.232_64 72.94
25 HSS_64_46_0.464_64 84.87 61 HSS_64_70_0.464_64 73.49 97 HSS_64_104.5_0.464_64 62.59
26 HSS_64_46_0.232_128 49.42 62 HSS_64_70_0.232_128 45.65 98 HSS_64_104.5_0.232_128 43.16
27 HSS_64_46_0.464_128 46.28 63 HSS_64_70_0.464_128 44.03 99 HSS_64_104.5_0.464_128 36.33
28 HSS_89_46_0_45 170.38 64 HSS_89_70_0_45 136.56 100 HSS_89_104.5_0_45 98.26
29 HSS_89_46_0_90 113.40 65 HSS_89_70_0_90 94.54 101 HSS_89_104.5_0_90 71.92
30 HSS_89_46_0_180 66.32 66 HSS_89_70_0_180 58.24 102 HSS_89_104.5_0_180 47.62
31 HSS_89_46_0.232_45 175.80 67 HSS_89_70_0.232_45 177.84 103 HSS_89_104.5_0.232_45 157.21
32 HSS_89_46_0.464_45 188.24 68 HSS_89_70_0.464_45 164.92 104 HSS_89_104.5_0.464_45 152.23
33 HSS_89_46_0.232_90 114.09 69 HSS_89_70_0.232_90 112.27 105 HSS_89_104.5_0.232_90 109.24
34 HSS_89_46_0.464_90 122.55 70 HSS_89_70_0.464_90 103.62 106 HSS_89_104.5_0.464_90 90.94
35 HSS_89_46_0.232_180 67.34 71 HSS_89_70_0.232_180 64.98 107 HSS_89_104.5_0.232_180 61.77
36 HSS_89_46_0.464_180 70.55 72 HSS_89_70_0.464_180 62.02 108 HSS_89_104.5_0.464_180 53.84
define the different specimens in the table. The first columns, short columns failed by yielding of cross
digit represents the size of HSS cross-section, the section that makes high reinforcement ratio will be
second digit represents the slenderness ratio of the more efficient as a result of increasing the cross
column (kL/r), the third digit specifies the CFRP section area.
reinforcement ratio and the fourth digit defines
the distance that loading points are axially eccen-
tric in normal direction of columns. Finally, these
numbers end with steel grade according to EN
10025-2 (2004) specifications. (Fig.  3) to (Fig.  8)
present the variation in the percentage gain of ulti-
mate load corresponding to different slenderness
ratios. The Study revealed that applying CFRP
strengthening system can provide an increase in
axial load capacity ranged from 0.27% to 60.43%.
The figures show that the percentage gain in capac-
ity was clearly realized for more slender columns
with large deformations than shorter ones. Gen-
erally, lower reinforcement ratio outperforms the
higher ratio in gain of capacity for long columns.
The low reinforcement ratio introduces more flex-
Figure  5. Effect of slenderness ratio on strength of
ible strengthening method for columns that failed
HSS 64 & e = 2B.
essentially by high lateral deformation like buck-
ling or high eccentricity in loading. Unlike long

Figure  6. Effect of slenderness ratio on strength of

Figure  3. Effect of slenderness ratio on strength of HSS 89 & e = 0.5B.
HSS 64 & e = 0.5B.

Figure  4. Effect of slenderness ratio on strength of Figure  7. Effect of slenderness ratio on strength of
HSS 64 & e = B. HSS 89 & e = B.

492

Figure  8. Effect of slenderness ratio on strength of
HSS 89 & e = 2B.
7 CONCLUSIONS
In this study, a finite element model was devel-
oped for HSS slender beam-columns strengthened
with CFRP plates and verified against experimen-
tal test results carried out by (Abdallah 2017). A
parametric study was performed to investigate
the effect of slenderness ratio and load eccen-
tricity for two different steel cross sections and
two reinforcement ratios on the gain in strength
achieved. The study revealed that bonding CFRP
plates to HSS showed a considerable increase in
strength up to 60%. The achieved gain in strength
was found strongly related to the type of failure
modes, which change from CFRP end de-bond-
ing to plate crushing. The efficient utilization of
this strengthening method depends mainly on the
slenderness ratio of the column where the highest
gain of 60% was recorded at KL/r equal to104.5
and almost no increase in strength was recorded
at KL/r equal to 34. It was also found that apply-
ing CFRP strengthening system to slender speci-
mens with small eccentricity is efficient while the
opposite is true for short specimens. Increasing
the reinforcement ratio by using multiple lay-
ers of CFRP plates or thick CFRP plates has
minor effect on beam-column capacity due to the
change in failure mode from CFRP crushing to
debonding.
493
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CFRP plates. MSc. Thesis, Ain Shams Univerisity: pp.
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Using a cohesive damage model to predict the tensile
behaviour of CFRP single-strap repairs. International
Journal of Solids and Structures, 45(5): 1497–1512.
De Moura, M. & Chousal, J. 2006. Cohesive and con-
tinuum damage models applied to fracture charac-
terization of bonded joints. International Journal of
Mechanical Sciences, 48(5): 493–503.
Fernando, N.D. 2010. Bond behaviour and debonding fail-
ures in CFRP-strengthened steel members, The Hong
Kong Polytechnic University: pp. 343.
Movaghati, S. & Rahai, A. 2010. Numerical analysis
of steel HSS Beam-Column Retrofitted with CFRP.
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sion loading test on steel HSS columns externally
strengthened with CFRP composite materials. The 6th
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2005. Constraint effects in adhesive joint fracture.
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1951–1983.
Peiris, N.A. 2011. Steel beams strengthened with ultra high
modulus CFRP laminates, University of Kentucky:
pp. 284.
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Strengthening Steel I-Section Beams Using CFRP
Strips. Proceedings of the 2006 Structures Congress,
ASCE, St. Louis, USA, 18–21 May 2006. pp. 1–8.
Sayed-Ahmed, E.Y. Strengthening of Thin-Walled Steel
I-Section Beams Using CFRP Strips. Proceedings of
the 4th International Conference on Advanced Com-
posite Materials in Bridges and Structures (ACMBS
IV), Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 20–23 July 2004 – CD
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Elliptical hollow steel cantilever members under ELCF load along

major axis using finite element analysis

P.V.R. Narendra & K.D. Singh

Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, India

ABSTRACT: A non-linear finite element study carried out on elliptical hollow steel cantilever members
having equal cross-sectional area and span length under extremely low cycle fatigue bending load along
major axis is presented using the general finite element package, Abaqus. The aspect ratio (major to minor
axis diameter ratio), a/b and shell thickness, t of finite element models are varied from 1-2.33 and 4–6 mm
respectively. The effects of a/b ratio and section bending slenderness on cyclic rotation capacity and cyclic
flexural over-strength of elliptical hollow section models are investigated in this study. It is observed that
a/b ratio has a significant effect on cyclic rotation capacity. Unlike cyclic rotation capacity, a/b ratio has a
negligible effect on cyclic flexural overstrength. Empirical expressions for predicting cyclic rotation capacity
and flexural over-strength of elliptical hollow section beams are derived based on the finite element study.

1 INTRODUCTION

Many steel tubular members have evolved in the con-

struction sector with various types of cross sectional
shapes. Familiar range of tubular sections, namely
circular, square, rectangular, oval hollow sections
have been recently extended to include EHSs. Since
its inception in 1994 in France by Brunel (Binding
1997), elliptical hollow section (EHS) offers an inter-
esting choice for engineers and architects to meet
their design vision from an architectural perspec-
tive due to its aesthetic appeal, complemented by
the sound structural efficiency (Packer 2008, Chan
& Gardner 2008). EHSs are preferred over circular
(CHSs) and rectangular hollow sections (RHSs)
as they have the blended merits of both CHSs and
RHSs of same cross-sectional area, A or weight and
wall thickness, t (Chan & Gardner 2009). Usage of
EHSs can result in an enhanced structural perform-
ance as they offer higher flexural resistance under
eccentric loading due to their differing flexural rigid-
ities about the two principal axes (allowing the sec-
Figure 1. Applications of EHS steel tubes.
tions to be oriented in a direction to efficiently resist
the applied load) (Chan & Gardner 2009, Ruiz-Teran
& Gardner 2008). EHSs are being used for a variety is most likely a result of insufficient ductility and
of structural applications such as beams and col- improper energy absorption capacity to sustain
umns (Fig. 1a), bracing members (Fig. 1b), arches in extremely fewer number of large inelastic displace-
pedestrian bridges (Fig. 1c), handrails, wind turbine ment cyclic loadings, typically less than 100 cycles
masts, electricity transmission pylons etc. and hence conservation of overall structural integ-
rity without collapse is one of the primary objec-
tives of seismic resistant design (see e.g. DAniello
1.1 Background and motivation
et al. 2012, Fadden & McCormick 2014).
Post-earthquake reconnaissance and follow up In the early days, models were proposed to pre-
research have indicated that the damage in struc- dict the area under hysteresis loops, which repre-
tural members like beams, columns and braces sents the amount of energy dissipated by structural

495
members. The nature of carbon steel (CS) hollow
structural sections (HSSs) under cyclic flexural
loading was investigated in the past two decades
(see e.g. Fadden & McCormick 2014, DAniello
et al. 2012, Elchalakani et al. 2006). Besides reiterat-
ing the importance of cross-section slenderness (λf)
limits, these independent diligent studies have also
shown that flexural-overstrength (s) and rotation
capacity (R) of steel HSS beams play a vital role
in their performance as flexural members. ‘s’ repre-
sents the non-dimensional estimate of the ultimate
bending capacity of beams due to the amount of
strain hardening which can be exhibited before the
complete development of local buckling (Brescia
2008, DAniello et al. 2012). In general, s is defined
in terms of bending moments and expressed as
Mu
s= (1)
Mp
where Mu is the peak bending moment of resistance
experienced by the flexural member corresponding
to the complete development of local buckling,
and Mp ( = Wpl × fy.mea) is the nominal plastic section
capacity of the flexural member (Fig. 2). Modulus
of elasticity and measured yield stress of the mate-
rial are denoted by E and fy.mea respectively. Wpl
is the plastic section modulus of the beam cross
section.
R represents the potential of a flexural mem-
ber to fulfil the rotational prerequisite in terms of
rotation ductility. R can be determined based on
the moment–rotation (M-θ) relationship shown
in Equation 2 and is considered as the most effec-
tive and useful for experimental purposes (see e.g.
DAniello et al. 2012, Fadden & McCormick 2014).
Where θp is the elastic component of rotation upon
reaching Mp and θu is the limiting rotation at which
the moment of resistance falls back below Mp
(Fig. 2).
θu
R= −1 (2)
θp
Figure 2. Generalized flexural response of a steel HSS.
496
In general, it was deduced that estimating R of a
beam is essential to ensure that a determined portion
of the input seismic energy is dissipated by inelastic
behaviour. Therefore, steel beams need to undergo a
ductile flexural pattern with high R value. However,
the evaluation of the minimum R is intricate for a
seismic design application, because it is also strictly
related to the design value of the behavior factor, the
intensity measure of the seismic event and its fre-
quency content (Brescia 2008, DAniello et al. 2012).
FEMA 356 (2000) and EN 1998-3 (2005) provided
the minimum required R for compact beams as 5 for
Life Safety and equal to 7 for Collapse prevention
limit state (DAniello et al. 2012). Plastic design rules
have blossomed for establishing limiting width-to-
thickness ratio of beams to satisfy a predefined R
value. Nowadays, the North American standard has
assumed R value of 3 to be sufficient for most civil
engineering structures as mentioned in Yura et  al.
(1978) and AISC 360 (2010). Also, the correspond-
ing limiting width-to-thickness ratios of Class 1 sec-
tion beams for exhibiting the full plastic behavior
shall be calibrated for an R value of 3 as per the
stipulations of the Italian code, NTC-DM14 (2008).
Various empirical relationships for the evaluation of
R and s of the steel beams were proposed by Naka-
mura (1988) and D’Aniello et al. (2012) based on the
analysis of the experimental results.
The first test on EHS tube is a bending test and
is believed to have been performed in the mid-nine-
teenth century during the initial design of a railway
tubular bridge of wrought-iron (Britannia Bridge)
over Menai Straits in the UK by Robert Stephenson
(Chan 2007). Later, Lundquist and Burke (1935) and
Lundquist and Stowell (1942) conducted a series of
tests on duralumin EHSs under pure bending, tor-
sion/pure shear and combined transverse shear and
bending (Chan 2007). Heck (1937) and Gerard and
Becker (1957) also conducted experiments on EHS
under major axis bending. Since the resurgence of
EHS in the construction steel market recently, many
research projects (e.g. Gardner & Chan 2007, Zhao
et al. 2010) have focused on the structural response
of EHSs at the cross-sectional level under various
loading conditions and a state-of-art review of the
behaviour and design of EHSs has been made by
Chan et al. (2010). Currently all the EHSs are being
manufactured with an aspect ratio (major to minor
axis diameter ratio), a/b of 2.0. Elchalakani et  al.
(2006) conducted an extensive experimental explora-
tion on cold-formed (CF) CS-CHSs under extremely
low cycle fatigue (ELCF) bending loads and deter-
mined fully ductile λf limits that are suitable for
the seismic resistant design. Also, D’Aniello et  al.
(2012) and Fadden (2013) independently carried
out large-scale experimental studies on steel hollow
structural sections (HSS) beams and have detected
that cyclic rotation capacity, Rcy. and cyclic flexural
over-strength, scy. of beams play crucial part in their
performance under ELCF bending loads. Till date,
all such ELCF bending tests were conducted only
on circular and rectangular hollow section (RHS)
steel beams. Yet, to the best of authors’ knowledge,
no such reported study on EHS members under
cyclic bending load has been carried out. Therefore,
the primary objective of this study is to evaluate Rcy.
and scy. of EHS members under ELCF flexural load
using finite element (FE) modelling procedure.
2 FINITE ELEMENT MODELLING
through RP created at the free end with a strain
rate of 3  ×  10−4 s−1 to cause drift (or) rotation at
the fixed end as shown in Figure  4a. Both glo-
bal and local initial geometric imperfections are
embodied into the FE models. Their respective
lowest eigen buckling modes obtained through
Lanczos method in Abaqus (2009) shown in
Figure  5 (for a typical FE model) are subsumed
into the FE models by defining the nodes directly
in their imperfect configuration. Global imper-
fection amplitude of L/1500 as suggested in Nip
et al. (2010b) and local imperfection amplitude of

The shell FE modelling approach considered here

is similar to those adopted for modelling RHS
beams in Fadden and McCormick (2014) using the
general purpose FE software, Abaqus (2009).
The mechanical and non-linear hardening mate-
rial model parameters are extracted from the experi-
mental program of Nip et al. (2010a) for S235 JRH
grade cold-formed steel, which is adopted as refer-
ence material in the current study. λf of all EHSs
is calibrated using equivalent RHS approach sug-
gested in Zhao et al. (2010). Four-node general pur-
pose structured shell element (S4R) with six degrees
of freedom is employed throughout this study for
meshing the models. The FE meshing pattern for a
typical 5 mm thick cantilever model with a/b ratio
2.0 at a segment near the fixed end is shown in
Figure  3. Boundary conditions are applied rep-
licating a fixed-end cantilever (Fig.  4a). All the
circumferential nodes of the model in the loading
plane are tied to a reference point (RP) by kine-
Figure  4. Schematic of applied boundary conditions
matic coupling at the free end of the models. The and cross-section in bending respectively.
cyclic loading protocol outlined in AISC 341-10
(2010) is chosen to apply in terms of displacement

Figure  3. FE mesh pattern of 150  ×  75  ×  5  mm EHS Figure 5. Initial global and local eigen buckling shapes
model. of 150 × 75 × 5 × 1500 mm EHS model.

497
Figure  6. Comparison between hysteresis loops obtained in the current FE study with those of specimens in the
experimental study of Chung et al. (2007).
∼ t/4.7 are espoused in this finite element analysis
(FEA) section.
2.1 Validation of FE modelling procedure
Efficiency of the FE modelling technique is also
satisfactorily validated using the experimental
outcomes available in Chung et  al. (2007). Due
to very close mechanical properties, material
model parameters of S235  JRH CF-CS in Nip
et  al. (2010a) are used in modelling two square
hollow section (SHS) columns of Chung et  al.
(2007) to validate the FE modelling procedure.
Figures  6a and 6b show a comparison of cyclic
behaviour of FE models of those test specimens
in terms of hysteresis loops and also depict that
the cyclic hardening material model parameters
of S235 JRH grade CF-CS utilized during mate-
rial modelling in the current FE study is able to
encapsulate the key features of experimental hys-
teresis behaviour of the HSSs accurately. There-
fore, both the Figures  6a and 6b indicate that
the FE modelling approach adopted in the cur-
rent study is capable of simulating the hysteretic
behaviour well for the steel EHS models under
ELCF flexural load in further study.
3 PARAMETRIC STUDY
Twenty EHS steel cantilever members with four
sets of ‘t’ ranging between 4  mm to 6  mm, a/b
ratios ranging between 1 and 2.33 are modeled
with A, ∼ 1740  mm2 which is equal to that of a
150 × 75 × 5 mm (2a × 2b × t) EHS beam model and
1500 mm (L) long. Moment-rotation (i.e. fixed end
moment-drift angle) hysteresis curves of EHS canti-
lever models are shown in Figure 7 by employing the
FE mechanism discussed in the foregoing section.
498
It is observed from Figure 7 (left to right) that with
increase in t, Mu decreases and θu increases for sec-
tions with same a/b ratio. Also, from Figure 7 (top to
bottom) it is observed that with increase in a/b ratio,
both Mu and θu increases for sections with same t.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A backbone curve which is the locus of the tips
of moment-rotation hysteresis curves during the
first cycle at each level of rotation applied for all
the models in their respective all-positive quad-
rant is also constructed in Figure 7. scy. and Rcy. of
all the models are calibrated for their respective
cyclic moment-rotation backbone curve following
a similar terminology explained in Figure  2 and
Equations 1 and 2. Rcy. can also be deciphered in
terms of δ and expressed as shown in Equation 3,
if δp and δu are the corresponding displacements
at free-end of the member for causing the rota-
tions θp ( = δp/L) and θu ( = δu/L) at the fixed end
respectively.
δu
Rcy. = −1 (3)
δp
Rcy. and scy. which are the crucial attributes
of non-linear moment-rotation hysteresis
curves of the EHS FE models obtained from
FE analyses are plotted in Figures  8 and 9
respectively. Further, the effects of a/b ratio
and λf on their hysteretic parameters like Rcy.
and scy. are investigated. In general, Rcy. show
a decreasing trend with increase in λf (Fig.  8).
The effect of a/b ratio is predominantly seen
only on Rcy (Fig.  8). It is assessed from Fig-
ure  8 that sections with higher a/b ratios and
Figure 7. Moment-rotation hysteresis curves of EHS cantilever models.

λf  < ∼ 9.7 exhibit higher Rcy. and vice-versa for

sections with λf   >  ∼ 9.7. Also, effect of a/b on
Rcy. of sections with λf < 9.7 is insignificant and
is equal to ∼ 3.9. But, no such significant effect
of a/b ratio is seen on scy. in Figure 9. scy. exhibits
a decreasing convex trend with increase in λf.

4.1 Empirical expressions for cyclic rotation

capacity and flexural overstrength
On the basis of FEA outcomes and from Figures 8
and 9, empirical formulations for predicting Rcy.
and scy. are derived in terms of section slenderness
limits (λf = k) and aspect ratio (a/b = r) from multi-
Figure  8. Cross-section slenderness Vs cyclic rotation
capacity.
ple non-linear regression analyses and expressed in
Equations 4 and 5 respectively.

Rcy. ( . . . r) ×
⎧( −0.013106r 2.4157 + 0.98805
0 )
k
⎫ (4)
ln ⎨ ⎬
⎩ − ( 0 05069 2
− 0 21267 − 0 76033 ) ⎭
scy. . . k 0.05759 (5)

5 CONCLUSIONS

The effects of aspect ratio and section slender-

ness on cyclic rotation capacity and flexural over-
strength of the EHSs under ELCF major axis
Figure  9. Cross-section slenderness Vs cyclic bending are investigated and the following are
flexural-over-strength. conclusions from the FE study.

499
• The aspect ratio of EHSs has a significant influ-
ence on cyclic rotation capacity.
• Cyclic rotation capacity under major axis bend-
ing decreases slightly with increase in aspect ratio
for sections with bending slenderness ≥ ∼ 9.7.
• Cyclic rotation capacity under major axis bending
increases significantly with increase in aspect ratio
for sections with bending slenderness ≤ ∼ 9.7.
• All the sections with bending slenderness ∼ 9.7
exhibit a cyclic rotation capacity of ∼ 3.9 irre-
spective to their aspect ratio.
• The cyclic flexural over-strength is not signifi-
cantly influenced by aspect ratio of the EHSs.
• Empirical expressions for determining the cyclic
rotation capacity and flexural overstrength are
proposed for EHSs.
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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Design of stainless steel CHS beam-columns

C. Buchanan & L. Gardner

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK

O. Zhao
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

E. Real
Department of Construction Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

ABSTRACT: The EN 1993-1-4 (2015) design approach for stainless steel CHS beam-column members
has been observed from prior experimental studies to provide capacity predictions that can be either overly
conservative or unconservative depending upon the ratio of axial load to bending moment. Hence, a numer-
ical parametric study has been undertaken to explore the buckling response of stainless steel CHS beam-
columns, covering austenitic, duplex and ferritic grades with a wide range of local and global slendernesses
and applied loading eccentricities. Over 2000 numerical results have been generated and used to assess new
design proposals for stainless steel beam-columns, featuring improved compression and bending end points
and new interaction factors. The new proposals are more consistent and, on average, 4% more accurate in
their resistance predictions than the current EN 1993-1-4  (2015) design approach. The reliability of the
existing and new proposals has been verified by means of statistical analyses according to EN 1990 (2005).

1 INTRODUCTION 2002). Stainless steel CHS are expected to become

Stainless steel offers an attractive combination of
mechanical and physical properties, such as high
ductility, stiffness and strength, weldability, cor-
rosion resistance, fire resistance, recyclability and
aesthetic appeal, and is anticipated to become more
prevalent in construction. The term ‘stainless steel’
is applied to iron alloys with corrosion resistance
properties and a minimum 10.5% chromium con-
tent (Gardner 2005). Austenitic, duplex and ferritic
are the more common types of stainless steel used
in construction, and are included in the European
structural design standard EN 1993-1-4  (2015).
Austenitic grades are the most common, while
duplex grades generally offer better mechanical and
corrosion resistant properties. Ferritic grades have a
lower initial cost than either the austenitic or duplex
grades due to their reduced chromium and nickel
content, albeit at the expense of corrosion resistance
(International Stainless Steel Forum 2007). Circular
hollow sections (CHS) are a common structural
element and are popular with architects and struc-
tural engineers due to their aesthetics and numerous
benefits over other open and closed cross-sections,
such as a high torsional resistance, the ability to be
filled with concrete to act as a composite member,
reduced drag loading in a fluid, good bi-axial bend-
ing resistance and reduced maintenance require-
ments with a smaller exposed external area (Dutta
more commonplace and the need for safe, efficient
and reliable design rules is of increasing importance.
Stainless steel CHS stub column tests have been
undertaken on austenitic grades by Rasmussen &
Hancock (1993a), Talja (1997), Rasmussen (2000),
Young & Hartono (2002), Kuwamura (2003),
Gardner & Nethercot (2004a), Lam & Gardner
(2008), Uy, Tao, & Han (2011), Zhao, Gardner, &
Young (2015a) and Buchanan, Real, & Gardner
(2016b), on duplex grades by Bardi & Kyriakides
(2006), Paquette & Kyriakides (2006), Lam &
Gardner (2008) and Buchanan, Real, & Gardner
(2016b) and on ferritic grades by Stangenberg
(2000) and Buchanan, Real, & Gardner (2016a).
Stainless steel CHS beam tests have been carried
out on austenitic grades by Rasmussen & Han-
cock (1993b) and a combined testing programme
was reported by Talja (1997), Burgan, Baddoo,
& Gilsenan (2000) and Kiymaz (2005). The only
duplex stainless steel CHS beam tests were jointly
reported by Burgan, Baddoo, & Gilsenan (2000)
and Kiymaz (2005). Buchanan, Gardner, & Liew
(2016) observed that the pure compression and
bending capacities from EN 1993-1-4 (2015) can be
overly conservative, particularly for stocky cross-
sections. The continuous strength method (CSM)
was extended to cover metallic CHS and produced
more accurate and consistent predictions of cross-
section resistance.

503
 Zhao, Gardner, & Young (2015a) reported com-
bined loading tests at the cross-section level for
austenitic CHS, while Buchanan, Real, & Gardner
(2016a) undertook similar tests on ferritic CHS.
Zhao, Gardner, & Young (2015b) performed an
extensive finite element study on stainless steel
CHS under combined axial loading and bending
moment at the cross-section level. The results were
compared with the EN 1993-1-4  (2015) design
guidance and it was again found to be overly con-
servative and new design rules utilising the con-
tinuous strength method (CSM) end points and a
nonlinear interaction curve were proposed.
Experiments on long austenitic CHS columns
with pin-ended conditions have been reported by
Rasmussen & Hancock (1993a) and Zhao, Gardner,
& Young (2016b), Talja (1997), and Burgan,
Baddoo, & & Gilsenan (2000), and with fixed ends
by Young & Hartono (2002). The EN 1993-1-4
(2015) flexural buckling curve was observed to
predict unconservative resistances for certain glo-
bal slenderness values (Rasmussen & Rondal 2000,
Theofanous, Chan, & Gardner 2009, Buchanan,
Real, & Gardner 2016b). Buchanan (2017) recently
produced new experimental and numerical auste-
nitic, duplex and ferritic long column CHS data
and proposed a new safe and efficient flexural
buckling curve for stainless steel CHS.
Member level CHS beam-column tests have
been carried out by Rasmussen & Hancock
(1993a), Burgan, Baddoo, & Gilsenan (2000) and
Zhao, Gardner, & Young (2016b) for austenitic
stainless steel grades, and by Buchanan, Real, &
Gardner (2016a) for ferritic grades. Zhao, Gardner,
& Young (2016b) and Buchanan, Real, & Gardner
(2016a) showed the transition from overly conserv-
ative to unconservative EN 1993-1-4 (2015) resist-
ance predictions as the applied load varies from
pure bending towards pure compression.
The aim of this study is to produce additional
numerical stainless steel CHS beam-column data
with which to evaluate comprehensively the cur-
rent design provisions in EN 1993-1-4 (2015) and
then to develop efficient and reliable design rules
for stainless steel CHS beam-columns.
2 NUMERICAL MODELLING
2.1 Overview
The finite element (FE) analysis package Abaqus/
CAE 2016 (Dassault Systemes Simulia Corp.
2015) has been used to produce additional geo-
metrically and materially nonlinear analyses with
imperfections (GMNIA) structural performance
data. Models of the eccentrically loaded, pin-
ended member tests reported in Buchanan, Real,
504
& Gardner (2016a) have been produced, with a
validation study undertaken to determine the most
appropriate material stress-strain relationship and
imperfection amplitudes. A parametric study was
then carried out, varying the cross-section and
member slenderness, applied loading eccentricity
and the type of stainless steel.
2.2 Modelling assumptions
The four-noded doubly curved S4R shell element
with reduced integration, finite membrane strains
and six degrees of freedom per node is typically used
in metallic hollow section structural engineering
research (Gardner & Nethercot 2004b, Silvestre 2007,
Rotter, Sadowski, & Chen 2014, Zhao, Gardner, &
Young 2016b) and was again utilised in this study.
A mesh size with longitudinal and circumferential
dimensions of the wall thickness t was adopted, fol-
lowing a sensitivity study by Buchanan (2017);; this
mesh size was also adopted in previous CHS mod-
elling by Zhao, Gardner, & Young (2015a), Zhao,
Gardner, & Young (2015b) and Zhao, Gardner, &
Young (2016b). Symmetry was employed to decrease
the computational time, with half of the cross-sec-
tions modelled and symmetry boundary conditions
applied. Tensile and compressive properties have
been considered due to the non-symmetrical stress-
strain response of stainless steel (Gardner 2005). Ten-
sile and compressive stress-strain relationships were
produced by determining the compound Ramberg-
Osgood material properties from the tensile coupons
and compressive stub column responses (Mirambell
& Real 2000, Rasmussen 2003, Ashraf, Gardner, &
Nethercot 2006). The stub column stress-strain rela-
tionships include the effects of local buckling and
therefore beyond the 1.0% proof stress σ1,0 (the stub
columns being sufficiently stocky to resist local buck-
ling before this point) the tensile coupon stress-strain
relationship was translated and utilised to ensure
a continuous relationship up-to-the ultimate ten-
sile material stress σu. Abaqus/CAE 2016 (Dassault
Systemes Simulia Corp. (2015) requires the material
properties to be inputted as true stress and plastic
strain, not the engineering stress and strain measured
from tensile coupon and stub column tests. The true
stress σtrue was calculated using Equation 1,
σ true = σ nom ( + ε nom ) (1)
where σnom is the nominal engineering stress and
εnom is the nominal engineering strain, and the plas-
tic strain εplastic was determined from Equation 2,
σ true
ε plastic l ( + ε nom ) − (2)
E
where E is the Young’s modulus.
 Membrane residual stresses have been observed
to be small in cold-formed tubular sections and
can therefore be neglected (Rasmussen & Han-
cock 1993a, Cruise & Gardner 2008). The through
thickness residual stresses are larger and are
implicitly incorporated in the measured material
properties. In terms of boundary conditions, the
cylinder ends were constrained to the movement
of an eccentric reference point, positioned at the
rotation point of the knife edges, with the bottom
end only allowing the knife edge rotation and the
top end allowing both rotation and longitudinal
shortening. The load was applied through the top
reference point. The eccentricity e0 of the reference
points was equal to the calculated eccentricity from
the experiments and was longitudinally offset by
50 mm, to simulate the distance between the speci-
men end and knife edge rotation point.
Local and global geometric imperfections were
incorporated into the finite element models and
took the form of the lowest local and global buck-
ling mode shapes from a prior elastic buckling
analysis. Two global, the measured value ω0 and a
fraction of the effective length L/100, and two local
imperfection amplitudes, t/10 and t/100, where t is
the section thickness were considered. The modi-
fied Riks method was used to follow the nonlinear
post-ultimate response.
2.3 Validation
Finite element models of the 26 combined load-
ing tests, at the cross-section and member level,
reported by Buchanan, Real, & Gardner (2016a)
were produced. The numerical models were vali-
dated by comparing the normalised average pre-
dicted ultimate load Nu,FE/Nu,exp and the mid-height
lateral deformation at the ultimate load Δu,FE/Δu,exp
with the measured value, as shown in Tables 1 and 2
Table 1. Nu,FE/Nu,exp summary for the beam-columns.
Model Tensile properties Stub properties
respectively. The mid-height lateral deformation at
the ultimate load is less successfully replicated by
the finite element models than the ultimate load.
The ultimate load and mid-height deformation
at the ultimate load are on average more closely
predicted using the stub column material proper-
ties than the tensile coupon properties. The most
accurate numerical predictions were on average
attained with compressive material properties, a
local imperfection amplitude of t/10 and a global
imperfection of L/1000.
The load-deformation relationships can also be
compared, as shown in Figure 1 for the 80 × 1.5-
1600-P-30E specimen, and generally the numerical
models can replicate the load-deformation history.
The developed models can therefore be con-
sidered to be able to reproduce the experimental
results from Buchanan, Real, & Gardner (2016a),
in particular the ultimate load, which can be used
to evaluate the existing EN 1993-1-4 (2015) beam-
column design guidance.
2.4 Parametric study
A Python script was used to allow a large number
of finite element models to be produced and run
efficiently. In total 25 cross-sections were modelled:
six austenitic (A) cross-sections, nine duplex (D)
cross-sections and ten ferritic (F) cross-sections,
as reported in Table  3, using compressive mate-
rial properties from Buchanan, Real, & Gardner
(2016b), a local imperfection amplitude of t/10
and a global imperfection of L/1000. The outer
diameter D, wall thickness t, EN 1993-1-4 (2015)
cross-section class, minimum λ min and maximum
λ max global slendernesses, minimum eext0,min and
maximum e0,max applied eccentricities and number
of FE models per cross-section n are listed. The
local slendernesses were varied to model cross-sec-
tion classes 1–3, the member lengths were chosen

Local t/10 t/10 t/10 t/10 t/100

Global L/1000 ω0 L/1000 ω0 ω0
Mean 1.107 1.120 1.029 1.042 1.042
COV 0.042 0.036 0.032 0.027 0.027

Table 2. Δu,FE/Δu,exp summary for the beam-columns.

Model Tensile properties Stub properties

Local t/10 t/10 t/10 t/10 t/100

Global L/1000 ω0 L/1000 ω0 ω0
Mean 0.797 0.780 0.983 0.976 0.977 Figure  1. Experimental and FE load mid-height lat-
eral deformation curves for the 80  ×  1.5-1600-P-30E
COV 0.140 0.140 0.151 0.129 0.130
specimen.

505
Table 3. Summary of the eccentricity loaded pin-ended members simulated in the parametric study.
Global slenderness Eccentricity (mm)
d t EN 1993-1-4 (2015) – –
Section Type (mm) (mm) compressive class λ min λ max e0,min e0,max n

100 × 8 A 100 8.0 1 0.39 1.83 0 450 81

100 × 6 A 100 6.0 1 0.25 2.59 7 750 96
100 × 5 A 100 5.0 1 0.42 1.51 0 190 68
100 × 4 A 100 4.0 1 0.56 2.05 0 550 94
100 × 3 A 100 3.0 1 0.26 2.59 7 750 140
100 × 2 A 100 2.0 3 0.44 1.90 0 350 115
100 × 11 D 100 11.0 1 0.43 2.59 10 780 94
100 × 9 D 100 9.0 1 0.83 1.93 0 420 53
100 × 8 D 100 8.0 1 0.65 1.69 5 400 55
100 × 7 D 100 7.0 1 0.54 1.62 0 500 56
100 × 5.5 D 100 5.5 2 0.43 1.49 0 500 94
100 × 5 D 100 5.0 2 0.63 1.06 5 140 22
100 × 4.5 D 100 4.5 2 0.89 2.37 1 320 80
100 × 4 D 100 4.0 2 0.42 0.94 0 420 35
100 × 3.5 D 100 3.5 3 0.43 2.59 0 805 132
100 × 8 F 100 8.0 1 0.58 2.04 0 260 55
100 × 6 F 100 6.0 1 0.24 2.59 9 760 116
100 × 5 F 100 5.0 1 0.52 1.78 0 500 95
100 × 4 F 100 4.0 1 0.32 1.48 0 550 97
100 × 3.5 F 100 3.5 1 1.69 1.98 380 590 16
100 × 3 F 100 3.0 2 0.40 1.58 0 550 75
100 × 2.6 F 100 2.6 2 0.71 1.18 2 320 39
100 × 2.3 F 100 2.3 3 0.30 1.41 0 320 70
100 × 2.2 F 100 2.2 3 0.28 1.41 0 230 108
100 × 2 F 100 2.0 3 0.24 2.59 9 720 130

to provide a range of global slenderness values up member level design expression is reproduced as
to a maximum of λ = 2.6 and the eccentricities Equation 4,
varied from 0 mm to 805 mm to providea range of
axial load to bending moment ratios. The global NEd ⎛M NEd eN ⎞
slenderness λ can be determined from Equation 3, + k ⎜ Ed ⎟ ≤1 (4)
N b ,Rd
Rd ⎝ β wWppllσ 0.2 ⎠
Aσ 0.2 L2
λ= for class 1 − 3 cross − sections (3)
π 2 EI where NEd is the design ultimate axial load, Nb,Rd
is the flexural buckling design resistance, k is the
where A is the cross-sectional area (replaced with interaction factor from Equation  5, MEd is the
the effective area Aeff for class 4 cross-sections), σ0.2 design bending moment (NEd multiplied by e0 + ω0),
is the 0.2% proof stress and I is the second moment eN is the shift in the neutral axis (for local buckling
of area. of slender cross-sections) when the cross-section is
subjected to uniform compression (which is taken
as zero for double symmetric cross-sections), and
3 EXISTING EN 1993-1-4 (2015) βW accounts for the various cross-section classes –
DESIGN PROVISIONS βW = 1.0 for class 1 and 2 cross-sections, βW = Wel/
Wpl for class 3 cross-sections and βW = Weff /Wpl for
The current EN 1993-1-4 (2015) design approach class 4 cross-sections with Wpl, Wel and Weff being
for stainless steel beam-columns utilises the same the plastic, elastic and effective section moduli
form of interaction formulae as provided for respectively.
structural steel in EN 1993-1-1  (2014), although
the interaction factors have been modified to
account for the influence of the nonlinear material
response on member instability. The beam-column
1.2 ≤ k = 1 + 2 ( − 0.5 ) NN Ed

b , Rd
≤ 1.2 + 2
NEd
N b ,Rd
(5)

506
 class 4 cross-sections) and γM1 is the partial safety
factor. The operational parameter φ is calculated
using Equation 8, with the imperfection parameter
η determined from Equation 9 with the imperfec-
tion factor α = 0.49 and recalibrated limiting slen-
derness λ0 = 0.20.

1
χ= (7)
φ φ2 − λ2

φ
1
2
(
1 η+λ
2
) (8)

Figure 2. Comparison between the FE and experimen- η α (λ − λ ) (9)

tal data and the current EN 1993-1-4 (2015) design rules.
The CSM bending resistance Mcsm, which has
been observed to provide more accurate predic-
The numerical and experimental results are plot- tions of the bending capacity of CHS (Bucha-
ted in Figure 2 in normalised form along with an nan, Gardner, & Liew 2016), can be utilised as the
averaged EN 1993-1-4 (2015) interaction curve. It pure bending end point. Mcsm can be calculated
is clear that the current guidance is conservative from Equations  10 and  11, depending upon the
towards the bending end point, which mirrors the local slenderness λ c of the cross-section, which is
findings of Zhao, Gardner, & Young (2015b) and defined by Equation 12,
Buchanan, Real, & Gardner (2016a) and is attrib-
uted to the neglecting of strain hardening for the ⎡ E W ⎛ε ⎞
bending end point and to conservative interaction M csm M ppll ⎢1 + shh ell ⎜ csm − 1⎟ −
⎢⎣ E W pl ⎝ ε ⎠
factors. The current rules can be unconservative y
(10)
⎛ Wel ⎞ ⎛ ε csm ⎞ ⎤
2
towards the compression end point, due to the
overpredicted resistances for certain global slen- ⎜1 − W ⎟ / ⎜ ε ⎟ ⎥ for λ c ≤ 0.3
⎝ pl ⎠ ⎝ y ⎠ ⎥
derness values with the current EN 1993-1-4 (2015) ⎦
flexural buckling curve (Rasmussen & Rondal
ε
2000, Theofanous, Chan, & Gardner 2009, Bucha- M csm = Wel fy for 0.3 < λ c ≤ 0.6 (11)
nan, Real, & Gardner 2016b). εy

Dσ 0.2 3(1 ν 2 )
4 NEW PROPOSAL λc = (12)
2 Et
4.1 Improved end points where Mpl is the plastic moment resistance, Esh is
Improvements to the current EN 1993-1-4 (2015) the strain hardening modulus from Equation  13
design approach for stainless steel beam-columns (with εu from Equation 14, σu is the ultimate tensile
can be focussed on two key areas: the interaction stress and the material coefficients C2 to C4 listed in
factor and its two end points. The flexural buckling Table 4), the strain ratio εcsm/εy is calculated using
resistance Nb,Rd, the pure compression end point, Equations 15 and 16 (with C1 defined in Table 4)
has been observed (Rasmussen & Rondal 2000, and v is the Poisson’s ratio.
Theofanous, Chan, & Gardner 2009, Buchanan,
Real, & Gardner 2016b) to provide unconservative σ u − σ 0.2
Esh = (13)
predictions for certain global slenderness values. C2 ε u − ε y
Buchanan (2017) proposed a new flexural buckling
curve that is compatible with the existing design
approach from EN 1993-1-4  (2015), with Nb,Rd
Table  4. Summary of the coefficients for the CSM
determined from Equation 6, material model.

χ Aσ 0.2 Type C1 C2 C3 C4
N b ,Rd = for class 1 − 3 cross sections (6)
γ M1
Austenitic 0.10 0.16 1.00 0
Duplex 0.10 0.16 1.00 0
where the reduction factor χ is determined from Ferritic 0.40 0.45 0.60 0
Equation  7, A is the cross-sectional area (Aeff for

507
 ⎛ σ ⎞ factor is a constant value (1+D1(D3  −  D2)n) with
–
ε u = C3 ⎜1 − 0.2 ⎟ + C4 (14) increasing global slenderness λ . The D1 and D2
⎝ σu ⎠ coefficients for the discrete compressive load levels
ε csm 4.44 × 10−3 were calculated from a regression fit between the
= 4.5 for λ c ≤ 0.3 upper bound of the assembled dataset and Equa-
εy λc tion 19 for 0.2 ≤ λ ≤ 1.2; the final D1 and D2 coeffi-
(15)
ε Cε cients are averaged values for all of the compressive
but csm ≤ mini (15, 1 u )
εy εy load levels and are listed in Table 5. The D3 coef-
ficients are determined from fitting Equation 19 to
ε csm ⎛ 0.224 ⎞ 1 the upper bound of the dataset for n ≤ 0.4, and are
= ⎜1 − 0.342 ⎟ 0.342 for 0.3 < λ c ≤ 0.6 (16)
εy ⎝ λc ⎠ λc also reported in Table 5.
The calculated (FE) and proposed (design) kcsm
interaction factors are plotted for the austenitic data-
with more accurate end points the interaction set in Figure 4, with a dashed line passing through
factors can be more reflective of the interaction the upper bound of the calculated kcsm values from
behaviour, rather than having to compensate for the austenitic dataset for the various axial load lev-
inaccuracies in the end points. Improvements to els n. It is clear from Figure  4 that there is a large
the interaction factors are the focus of the next difference between the proposed kcsm interaction fac-
section. tor and the calculated value for the assembled data-
set for high axial compressive load levels n and high
4.2 Improved interaction factor global slenderness λ values; however, for members
with high slenderness and high axial load level the
The new proposed beam-column design expression structural response is controlled by column buckling,
is provided as Equation 17, rather than the bending resistance, and therefore this
disparity is acceptable (Greiner & Lindner 2006,
NEd M Ed
+ kcsm ≤1 (17) Greiner & Kettler 2008, Zhao, Gardner, & Young
N b ,Rd
Rd M csm , Rd
csm 2016a), and the resulting errors are small.
An averaged proposed interaction curve is plot-
where kcsm is the new interaction factor, which is ted with the numerical and experimental data in
determined using the same procedure as Greiner Figure 5. The benefit from utilising the increased
& Lindner (2006), Boissonnade, Greiner, Jaspart,
& Lindner (2006) and Zhao, Gardner, & Young
(2016a). Individual kcsm factors are calculated for
the dataset using Equation 18 (a rearrangement of
Equation 17), with simplified formulae then fitted
to the data for a specific axial compressiveload level
n = NEd/Nb,Rd.

⎛ N ⎞M
kcsm = ⎜1 − Ed ⎟ csm ,Rd (18)
⎝ N b ,Rd ⎠ M Ed

Data for seven compressive load levels with

n = 0.2 to n = 0.8, in steps of 0.1, were isolated from
the full dataset and the kcsm interaction factor val-
ues plotted with varying global slenderness λ , as Figure  3. kcsm factors determined from the numerical
shown in Figure  3 for the austenitic dataset with dataset for the austenitic specimens with a load level of
n  =  0.2. The simplified design expression for kcsm n = 0.2.
is taken as the typical bilinear form, reproduced as
Equation 19,
Table 5. Proposed stainless steel CHS interaction curve
coefficients.
D λ − D2 ⎠ n ≤ 1 + D1 ( D3 − D2 ) n
⎛ ⎞
kcsm 1 ⎜⎝ (19)
Type D1 D2 D3
where D1 and D2 are coefficients defining the lin-
Austenitic 2.5 0.30 1.3
ear relationship between the kcsm interaction factor
Duplex 2.0 0.38 1.3
and global slenderness λ in the λ ≤ D3 low slen-
Ferritic 1.9 0.35 1.3
derness range, beyond which the ktcsm interaction

508
CSM bending resistance Mcsm and the more appro-
priate pure compression end point is apparent; the
experimental results are now closer to and typically
above the proposed interaction curve, particularly
towards the pure compression end. The new pro-
posal for stainless steel CHS beam-columns can
be seen to be more accurate, 4% on average, and
consistent, with the mean coefficient of variation
(COV) reducing from 0.11 to 0.05, in its resistance
predictions than the current EN 1993-1-4 (2015)
approach from Table  6 (assuming proportional
loading, as defined in Figure 6).

Figure  6. Definition of Nu,pred on the moment-axial

interaction curve.

5 RELIABILITY ANALYSES

In the European design standards, the member

Figure 4. Proposed and calculated kcsm interaction fac-
tors for austenitic stainless steel CHS beam-columns.
Figure 5. Comparison between the FE and experimen-
tal data and the new proposed design rules.
Table  6. Comparison of the ultimate and predicted
beam-column strengths.
Mean COV
Type Nu/Nu,EC3 Nu/Nu, proposed Nu/Nu,EC3 Nu/Nu,proposed
level resistance prediction is divided by a partial
factor γM1, as seen in Equation  6, to ensure that
structures are designed with an appropriate level
of reliability. The partial factors are determined
using a procedure outlined in Annex D of EN
1990 (2005). The experimental and numerical data-
set has been used to reassess the γM1 partial factor
for the current EN 1993-1-4 (2015) CHS beam-
column design approach and the new proposed
design approach, as reported in Tables  7 and  8
respectively, where n is the size of the dataset, kd,n
is the fractile factor and is related to the size of the
dataset, b is average ratio of the experimental to
model resistance using a least squares fit and Vδ is
the coefficient of variation of the tests relative to
the resistance model. The over-strength factor and
the coefficients of variation of the yield strength
and geometry Vfy and Vgeometry used in the statistical
analysis were taken from Afshan, Francis, Baddoo,
& Gardner (2015). The new proposal is more con-
sistent across all three types of stainless steel, for
the combined test and numerical dataset, with gen-
erally lower Vδ values than the EN 1993-1-4 (2015)
approach. Overall it can be seen that for both
the existing and proposed design approaches the
required level of reliability is achieved with safety
factors lower than the required value of γM1 = 1.1.

Austenitic 1.12 1.09 0.10 0.06

Duplex 1.18 1.12 0.09 0.05
6 CONCLUSIONS
Ferritic 1.17 1.10 0.12 0.05
Average 1.15 1.11 0.11 0.05 Prior experimental studies on austenitic and fer-
ritic stainless steel CHS beam-columns have shown

509
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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Design of ferritic stainless steel tubular sections subjected

to concentrated bearing load

H.T. Li & B. Young

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT: The structural performance and design of ferritic stainless steel tubular sections subjected
to concentrated bearing load are presented. A total of 18 web crippling tests was conducted on cold-
formed square and rectangular hollow sections of grade EN 1.4003 ferritic stainless steel. The tests were
conducted under end loading condition, which simulated the support condition of floor joist members
seated on solid foundation subjected to concentrated end bearing load. A Finite Element (FE) model was
developed. On validation of the model, a parametric study was performed. The web crippling strengths
obtained from experimental and numerical investigations were compared with the nominal strengths cal-
culated using the current American, Australian/New Zealand and European specifications for stainless
steel structures. Furthermore, the Australian Standard for carbon steel structures was also compared.
Improved design rules are proposed for ferritic stainless steel tubular sections subjected to concentrated
bearing load by means of Direct Strength Method.

1 INTRODUCTION

Cold-formed stainless steel tubular sections are

becoming an attractive choice in structural applica-
tions due to their attractive physical and mechani-
cal characteristics. Tubular structural members
are not easy and uneconomical to be stiffened
by transverse stiffeners. The unstiffened webs of
tubular sections may cripple due to high localised
transverse forces subjected to concentrated bear-
ing load. Therefore, web crippling check is impor-
tant in the design of such members. The current
American Society of Civil Engineers Specification
(ASCE 2002), Australian/New Zealand Standard
(AS/NZS 2001) and European Code (EC3 2015) Figure 1. End loading (EL) condition.
for stainless steel structures provide web crippling
design provisions for flexural members. However, strengths calculated using the ASCE Specification
the web crippling design provisions in the afore- (2002), AS/NZS (2001) and EC3 (2015) for stainless
mentioned specifications for stainless steel struc- steel structures. Moreover, the Australian Standard
tures are all adopted from the web crippling design (AS4100 1998) for carbon steel structures were also
provisions for carbon steel structures. compared. Improved design rules are proposed for
In the present study, a total of 18 web crippling cold-formed ferritic stainless steel tubular struc-
tests was conducted on cold-formed square and tural members subjected to concentrated bearing
rectangular hollow sections of grade EN 1.4003 load under the EL condition by Direct Strength
ferritic stainless steel under end loading (EL) con- Method (DSM). The proposed design rules have
dition, where the test specimens were seated on a been evaluated by reliability analysis.
fixed solid base plate subjected to concentrated
end bearing load, as shown in Figure  1. A finite
element (FE) model was developed and validated
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
against the experimental results. On validation of
the FE model, a parametric study comprised 80
2.1 Test specimens and bearing plates
FE analyses was performed. The web crippling
strengths obtained from experimental and numeri- The test specimens were cold-formed from flat
cal investigations were compared with the nominal strips into eight different square and rectangular

513
hollow sections, having the measured web heights
H ranged from 39.9 to 120.0  mm, flange widths
B ranged from 39.9 to 80.2  mm, and thicknesses
t ranged from 1.921 to 3.822 mm. The inner and
outer corner radii r and R ranged from 2.6 to 4.8
and 5.4 to 8.6 mm, respectively. The web slender-
ness ratio h/t ranged from 9.0 to 46.0, in which h
is the depth of the web flat portion. The specimen
lengths L were designed such that the clear dis-
tance from the end of the specimen to the edge of
the bearing plate was 1.5 times the nominal overall
web height, as shown in Figure  1. Table  1  shows
the measured dimensions of the test specimens.
The concentrated bearing load was applied to the
test specimens through bearing plates. Two different
bearing lengths (N) were used for each section. The
bearing plates were designed to act across the full
flange widths of the sections, excluding the rounded
corners. All the flanges of the test specimens were
not fastened to the bearing plates during testing.
2.2 Material properties
2.2.1 Tensile flat coupon tests
Tensile flat coupon specimens were prepared in
accordance with the ASTM (2016) using 12.5 mm
wide coupon of 50 mm gauge length. The flat cou-
pons were taken from the centrelines of the faces at
90° angle from the welded faces of the sections in
the longitudinal direction. An MTS material test-
ing machine was used to conduct the longitudinal
tensile flat coupon tests. Two strain gauges and
a calibrated MTS extensometer of 50  mm gauge
length were employed to measure the longitudinal
strains of the coupons. Displacement control was
used during testing. Tensile force was applied to
the specimens with a loading rate of 0.05 mm/min
in the elastic range. In the plastic range, a loading
rate of 0.8  mm/min was firstly used to drive the
testing machine until the ultimate strength of the
specimens. In the post-ultimate range of the stress-
strain curves, a loading rate of 2.0  mm/min was
used until the specimens fractured. The static load
was obtained by pausing the applied straining for
100  seconds near the 0.2% proof stress and ulti-
mate strength, as suggested by Huang and Young
(2014), allowing the plastic straining associated
with stress relaxation to take place. The material
properties obtained from the tensile flat coupon
tests are summarised in Table 2.
2.2.2 Tensile corner coupon tests
Tensile corner coupon tests were conducted to
obtain the material properties of the highly cold-
worked corners. The corner coupons were taken
from the location opposite to the welded faces
of the sections in the longitudinal direction. The
tensile corner coupons were tested using the same
MTS testing machine as for the tensile flat cou-
pons. Two strain gauges and a calibrated MTS
extensometer of 25  mm gauge length were used
to measure the strains of the longitudinal tensile
corner coupons. The coupon test procedures are
in accordance with the longitudinal tensile flat

Table 1. Measured dimensions and experimental web crippling strengths for EL condition.

Specimen H B t r R L PExp
(H × B × t) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (kN)

EL-50 × 50 × 4 N50 50.1 50.2 3.818 4.0 8.2 125 50.8

EL-50 × 50 × 4 N50-R 50.1 50.2 3.818 4.0 8.2 125 50.5
EL-50 × 50 × 4 N30 50.1 50.1 3.822 4.0 8.2 106 40.1
EL-40 × 60 × 3 N60 40.0 60.0 2.748 3.1 5.9 121 31.9
EL-40 × 60 × 3 N30 39.9 60.0 2.742 3.1 5.9 91 23.4
EL-60 × 40 × 3 N50 60.0 40.0 2.710 3.1 5.9 141 25.9
EL-60 × 40 × 3 N30 59.9 39.9 2.738 3.1 5.9 120 21.7
EL-60 × 40 × 3 N30-R 59.9 39.9 2.726 3.1 5.9 121 21.7
EL-60 × 80 × 4 N90 60.0 80.2 3.727 4.8 8.6 179 55.1
EL-60 × 80 × 4 N50 60.0 80.2 3.727 4.8 8.6 140 41.8
EL-80 × 60 × 4 N60 80.2 60.0 3.718 4.8 8.6 179 42.3
EL-80 × 60 × 4 N30 80.2 60.0 3.726 4.8 8.6 150 33.8
EL-100 × 40 × 2 N50 99.7 40.2 1.921 3.8 5.7 199 11.4
EL-100 × 40 × 2 N30 99.8 40.3 1.921 3.8 5.7 180 9.7
EL-100 × 50 × 3 N50 100.1 50.0 2.798 2.6 5.4 199 26.7
EL-100 × 50 × 3 N30 100.2 50.0 2.796 2.6 5.4 180 23.3
EL-120 × 80 × 3 N90 120.0 79.9 2.798 4.0 6.5 270 27.4
EL-120 × 80 × 3 N50 120.0 79.8 2.796 4.0 6.5 230 23.0

514
Table 2. Material properties obtained from tensile coupon tests.

Flat coupon Corner coupon

σ 0T.2 σ uT ε fT
Section ET Ecorner σ0,2corner σu, corner εf,corner
(H × B × t) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%)

50 × 50 × 4 196.4 459 500 11.0 190.7 557 592 13.6

60 × 40 × 3 204.4 401 435 21.7 200.5 531 579 10.7
80 × 60 × 4 204.8 446 463 22.9 205.3 562 604 14.0
100 × 40 × 2 200.5 426 452 27.4 209.8 544 592 10.4
100 × 50 × 3 198.1 428 449 25.4 189.2 519 630 9.6
120 × 80 × 3 201.6 385 445 27.7 212.8 564 606 12.4

coupon tests that described in Section  2.2.1 of Table  3. Material properties obtained from compres-
this paper. The material properties obtained from sion coupon tests.
the tensile corner coupon tests are summarised in
Table 2. Section Ec σ 0c.2
(H × B × t) (GPa) (MPa)
2.2.3 Compression flat coupon tests 50 × 50 × 4 217.8 527
Compression flat coupon tests were performed on 40 × 60 × 3 231.6 530
coupons extracted from the centre of the faces at 90° 60 × 40 × 3 228.6 507
angle from the welded faces of the sections in the trans- 60 × 80 × 4 222.2 530
verse direction. The nominal dimensions of the trans- 80 × 60 × 4 223.2 458
verse compression flat coupons were 48 mm long and 100 × 40 × 2 202.9 423
24 mm wide for 80 × 60 × 4, 100 × 40 × 2, 100 × 50 × 3 206.3 463
100 × 50 × 3
and 120 × 80 × 3 sections, and were 28 mm long and 212.3 416
120 × 80 × 3
14 mm wide for 50 × 50 × 4, 40 × 60 × 3, 60 × 40 × 3 and
60 × 80 × 4 sections. The ends of the compression cou-
pons were cut flat by wire cutting machine to ensure
uniform compressive stresses to be applied. Two strain shown in Table  1. For example, the label “EL-
gauges were affixed to the mid-height on both edges 60 × 40 × 3 N30-R” defines the following specimen.
of the coupons. Bracing jigs were designed to prevent The first two letters indicate the loading condition
minor axis buckling of the coupon specimens. The of the end loading (EL) was used in the test. The
heights of the bracing jigs were designed to allow the following symbols are the nominal cross-section
specimens protrude 1 mm to either side of the brac- dimensions H × B × t of the specimens in millime-
ing jigs. Thin layers of lubricating paste were used to tres. The notation N30 indicates the bearing length
reduce friction on the contact surfaces between the was 30 mm. If a test was repeated, the “R” indi-
specimens and the bracing jigs. An MTS material cates it was a repeated test.
testing machine was used to conduct the transverse
compression flat coupon tests. Displacement con-
2.4 Test setup
trol was used during the tests. The loading rates were
chosen to be 0.05 and 0.03 mm/min for large section The web crippling tests were conducted under the end
(80 × 60 × 4, 100 × 40 × 2, 100 × 50 × 3 and 120 × 80 × 3) loading (EL) condition where the specimens were
and small section (50 × 50 × 4, 40 × 60 × 3, 60 × 40 × 3 seated on a fixed flat solid base plate. The web crip-
and 60  ×  80  ×  4) specimens, respectively. The static pling test setup is shown in Figure 2. A bearing plate
load was obtained by pausing the applied straining for was positioned on the top flange of the specimens
100 seconds near the 0.2% proof stress. Table 3 sum- to transfer the applied load through a half round.
marises the material properties determined from the Vertical web deformations were measured through
compression flat coupon tests. the average readings of four calibrated linear vari-
able displacement transducers (LVDTs). Lateral web
deformations were measured by the average read-
2.3 Specimen labelling
ings of two calibrated LVDTs with flat plastic plates
The test specimens are labelled in a way that the that rigidly connected to the end of the LVDTs.
loading condition, nominal cross-section dimen- Hence, the maximum lateral web deformations of
sions and bearing length can be identified, as the specimens can be obtained (Li and Young 2017).

515

Figure 2. Test setup.
Concentrated compressive force was applied to the
specimens by a servo-controlled hydraulic actuator.
Displacement control was used to drive the actuator
at a constant speed of 0.3 mm/min. A data acquisi-
tion system was used to record the load and readings
of the LVDTs at regular intervals.
2.5 Test results
The experimental web crippling strengths per
web, PExp, are reported in Table  1. Two repeated
tests were conducted on EL-50 × 50 × 4 N50 and
EL-60  ×  40 ×  3  N30  specimens, and the repeated
test results are close to the first test values with
a difference of 0.6% and 0.2%, respectively. The
small difference between the repeated tests demon-
strated the reliability of the test results.
3 NUMERICAL MODELLING
3.1 Finite element model
In parallel with the experimental investigation, a
numerical modelling program was performed using
the finite element (FE) analysis package Abaqus. The
FE model was built based on measured geometries
of the test specimens. The reduced integration four-
node doubly curved shell element S4R was employed
to simulate the cold-formed ferritic stainless steel
specimens. The steel bearing plates were modelled
using discrete rigid 3D solid elements. Different
mesh sizes were investigated in order to provide
accurate results within reasonable computational
time. Generally, a finer mesh size of 12 elements at
516
the round corners was assigned in order to represent
the influence of corner radius accurately.
The material nonlinearity of the cold-formed
ferritic stainless steel tubular sections was incorpo-
rated into the FE models based on the measured
engineering stress-strain curves obtained from the
coupon tests. It should be noted that compression
material properties in the transverse direction were
used in the webs of tubular sections, whereas ten-
sile material properties in the longitudinal direction
were used in the flanges. This modelling technique
is able to provide a better agreement with the test
results compared with the model using tensile
material properties in both webs and flanges. The
longitudinal tensile material properties of corner
coupons with the extension of two times the cross-
section thickness to adjacent flat regions were used.
The boundary conditions were modelled in
accordance with the tests. The geometries, bound-
ary conditions and experimental failure modes of
the test specimens were symmetric. Therefore, only
one-half of the cross-sections were modelled. The
concentrated load was transferred from the bear-
ing plates to the specimens. The surface interactions
between the bearing plates and the specimens were
defined using contact pairs. The master surfaces
were set in the bearing plates, while the slave surfaces
were set in the deformable specimens. All bearing
plates were modelled across the full flange widths
of the sections, excluding the rounded corners. For
contact properties, the friction penalty contact with
a friction coefficient of 0.4 in the tangential direc-
tion was applied. The loads were applied by speci-
fying axial displacements to the reference points of
solid rigid plates that modelled the bearing plates,
which was identical to the experimental tests.
3.2 Validation of finite element model
The web crippling strengths per web obtained
experimentally (PExp) and numerically (PFEA) were
compared. The mean value of the PExp/PFEA is
1.01 with the corresponding coefficient of varia-
tion (COV) of 0.042, as shown in Table 4. Typical
numerical failure mode and load-web deformation
curves derived from FE analyses are also compared
with the corresponding experimental failure mode
and load-web deformation curves, as shown in
Figures  3 and 4. It is shown that the FE model,
that make use of both transverse compression and
longitudinal tensile material properties, are capa-
ble to replicate the experimental web crippling
strengths, failure modes and load-web deforma-
tion histories.
3.3 Parametric study
On validation of the FE model, a parametric study
was performed using the validated model to generate
Table  4. Comparison of test strengths with finite ele- numerical data over a wider range of web slender-
ment analysis results. ness ratio (h/t), bearing length to thickness ratio
(N/t) and bearing length to web flat portion ratio
PExp (N/h). An extensive range of cross-sections includ-
PExp PFEA
Specimen (kN) (kN) PFEA ing 16  square and 24 rectangular hollow sections
were employed in the parametric study. The web
EL-50 × 50 × 4 N50 50.8 45.9 1.11 heights of the square and rectangular sections var-
EL-50 × 50 × 4 N50-R 50.5 45.9 1.10 ied between 70 and 300 mm, and the h/t ratio ranged
EL-50 × 50 × 4 N30 40.1 37.2 1.08 from 10.0 and 121.0. The N/t ratio ranged from 7.0
EL-40 × 60 × 3 N60 31.9 33.1 0.96 to 125.0 and the N/h ratio varied between 0.3 and
EL-40 × 60 × 3 N30 23.4 23.0 1.02 2.1. The measured material properties obtained from
EL-60 × 40 × 3 N50 25.9 26.4 0.98 coupon tests of the section 120 × 80 × 3 were used in
EL-60 × 40 × 3 N30 21.7 21.5 1.01 the parametric study. In total, 80 parametric results
EL-60 × 40 × 3 N30-R 21.7 21.3 1.02 were generated.
EL-60 × 80 × 4 N90 55.1 56.4 0.98
EL-60 × 80 × 4 N50 41.8 42.4 0.98
EL-80 × 60 × 4 N60 42.3 42.8 0.99 4 RELIABILITY ANALYSIS
EL-80 × 60 × 4 N30 33.8 33.8 1.00
EL-100 × 40 × 2 N50 11.4 11.9 0.96 Reliability analysis was performed to evaluate
EL-100 × 40 × 2 N30 9.7 9.8 0.99 the reliability of the existing web crippling design
EL-100 × 50 × 3 N50 26.7 26.7 1.00 provisions and the proposed web crippling design
EL-100 × 50 × 3 N30 23.3 22.8 1.02 rules described in Sections  5 and 6 of this paper,
EL-120 × 80 × 3 N90 27.4 26.7 1.03 respectively. Reliability analysis as detailed in the
EL-120 × 80 × 3 N50 23.0 22.5 1.02 Commentary of the ASCE Specification (2002) was
used. The design rules are considered to be reliable
Mean 1.01 if the calculated reliability index β is greater than or
COV 0.042 equal to 2.5. The recommended resistance factors φ

Figure 3. Experimental and numerical failure modes for specimen EL-100 × 50 × 3 N50.

Figure 4. Experimental and numerical load-web deformation curves for specimen EL-100 × 50 × 3 N50.

517
Table 5. Comparison of test and FE results with predicted nominal strengths.

ASCE EC3 AS4100 Proposed

EL
No. of tests: 18 Pu PASCE Pu PEC3 Pu PEC3# Pu PAS4100 Pu PDSM
No. of FE
simulations: 80 EOF ETF EL EL EL EL

Mean (Pm) 0.93 1.30 2.87 1.70 1.25 1.06

COV (VP) 0.125 0.118 0.210 0.155 0.443 0.119
Resistance factor (φ) 0.70 0.70 0.91 0.91 0.90 0.85
Reliability index (β) 2.96 4.25 5.07 3.86 1.54 2.75

for web crippling strength by existing design rules

are shown in Table  5. The load combinations of
1.2DL+1.6 LL, 1.35DL +1.5 LL and 1.2DL+1.5 LL
were used in the calculation for the ASCE Specifica-
tion (2002), EC3 (2015) and AS4100 (1998), respec-
tively, where DL is the dead load and LL is the live
load. The live load to dead load ratio of 1/5 was
used. Other statistical parameters were obtained
from the ASCE Specification (2002), in which
Mm = 1.10, Fm = 1.00, VM = 0.10 and VF = 0.05. The
mean value Pm and coefficient of variation VP of
the test and FE result to design prediction ratios are
shown in Table 5. A correction factor CP calculated
in accordance with the Commentary of the North
American Specification (NAS 2016a) was used to
account for the influence of limited number of data.
The calculated β values are shown in Table 5.
Figure  5. Comparison of test and FE results with
design predictions.

5 COMPARISON OF EXPERIMENTAL
AND NUMERICAL RESULTS WITH
EXISTING DESIGN STRENGTHS
The suitability of the existing web crippling design
rules in the ASCE Specification (2002), AS/NZ
(2001), EC3 (2015) and AS4100 (1998) for cold-
formed ferritic stainless steel tubular sections is
assessed by comparing the test and FE strengths
(Pu) with the nominal strengths calculated from
these design rules. The nominal strengths were cal-
culated using the measured cross-section dimen-
sions and the measured material properties as shown
in Tables 1 and 2. The Young’s modulus and 0.2%
proof stress obtained from the longitudinal tensile
flat coupon tests shown in Table 2 were used to cal-
culate the nominal strengths per web Ppred (PASCE,
PEC3, PEC3# and PAS4100). The comparison of the Pu
with the Ppred are shown in Figure 5 and Table 5.
5.1 American specification and Australian/New
Zealand standard
The AS/NZS (2001) has adopted the web crippling
design provisions from the ASCE Specification.
Hence, the nominal web crippling strengths pre-
dicted by the ASCE Specification (2002) and AS/
NZS (2001) are identical. Four loading conditions
are specified in the ASCE Specification (2002)
and AS/NZS (2001), namely, the End-One-Flange
(EOF), End-Two-Flange (ETF), Interior-One-
Flange (IOF) and Interior-Two-Flange (ITF). The
nominal web crippling strengths calculated accord-
ing to Section  3.3.4 of the ASCE Specification
(2002) and Section 3.3.6 of the AS/NZS (2001) for
shapes having single webs are used in this study.
It should be noted that the current ASCE
Specification (2002) and AS/NZS (2001) do not
have specified design rules for the EL condition.
Hence, the EL condition used the EOF and ETF
design rules herein. Overall, the nominal strengths
predicted by the EOF design rules are generally
unconservative, while the nominal strengths pre-
dicted by the ETF design rules are conservative,
as shown in Figure 5. The mean values of the test
and FE strengths to the predicted strengths ratio
Pu/PASCE are 0.93 and 1.30, with the corresponding
COVs of 0.125 and 0.118 for EOF and ETF load-
ing conditions, respectively. The design provision is

518
considered to be reliable and probabilistically safe
if the reliability index β is equal to or greater than
2.5 in this study. The β values are greater than 2.5
for both EOF and ETF loading conditions.
5.2 European code
The design provisions for web crippling strengths,
also known as the local transverse resistance of the
web, in the EC3 Part 1–4 (2015) for stainless steel
structures refer to the EC3 Part 1–3 (2006) for cold-
formed carbon steel structures. The codified design
provisions for cross-sections with two or more webs
are shown in Clause 6.1.7.3 of the EC3 (2006). It
should be noted that the EC3 (2006) do not have
explicit web crippling coefficient α for tubular sec-
tions. The α is available for liner trays and hat sec-
tions as well as sheeting profiles. In this study, the α
value of 0.057 was used for the EL condition.
The nominal strengths predicted by the EC3
(2015) have great conservatism for the EL condi-
tion. The mean value of the Pu/PEC3 is 2.87 with the
corresponding COV of 0.210, and the β value of
5.07. The comparison shows a relatively high level
of scatter. This may be due to the fact that the web
crippling design provisions in the EC3 (2006) uses
the bearing length of 10 mm for the EL condition,
despite the sections were loaded through different
bearing lengths. In this study, it is found that the
web crippling strength could be enhanced by 57%
through increasing the bearing length for the EL
condition. The Pu are also compared with the nomi-
nal strengths PEC3# that calculated using the actual
bearing lengths instead of 10  mm, as shown in
Figure 5. The mean value of the Pu/PEC3# is 1.70 with
the corresponding COV of 0.155, and the β value
of 3.86, as shown in Table  5. It is shown that the
EC3 (2015) is able to provide conservative predic-
tions with a relatively low level of scatter for the EL
condition when the actual bearing lengths are used.
5.3 Australian standard
Design provisions are available in the Australian
Standard (AS4100 1998) to predict the web crip-
pling strength for square and rectangular hollow
sections under the EL condition. The nominal web
crippling strength per web, taken as the lesser of
the nominal bearing buckling strength per web Pcr
and nominal bearing yield strength per web Py, is
illustrated in Equation 1.
PAS410 0 {
in Pcr Py } (1)
The Pcr is calculated as follows,
Pcr α ctN
N m fy (2)
519
In which t is the web thickness, αc is the slenderness
reduction factor that detailed in the Clause 6.3.3
of the AS4100 (1998), and Nm is the mechanism
length which can be expressed as,
Nm N + 2.5R . h (3)
In which N is the bearing length, R is the outer cor-
ner radius and h is the flat portion of the web.
The codified nominal bearing yield strength
per web Py for square and rectangular hollow sec-
tions under the EL condition is based on yield line
mechanism analysis performed by Zhao and Han-
cock (1995). The Py can be calculated from the fol-
lowing equations,
Py tN
pN m fy (4)
α p = 2 + ks2 − ks (5)
ks R /t −1 (6)
Comparisons of the Pu with the predicted nomi-
nal strengths PAS4100 calculated from the material
properties obtained from the longitudinal tensile
flat coupon tests are shown in Figure 5. The AS4100
(1998) provides generally unconservative predictions
for h/t ratio ranged from 16.0 to 46.0, and generally
conservative predictions for the h/t ratio outside
this range. In Figure 5, the Pu/PAS4100 generally keep
increasing as the web slenderness ratio increases for
the h/t ratio greater than 36.0. The FE strength is
as high as 290% of the PAS4100. This conservatism
may be due to the nominal web crippling strengths
were controlled by the nominal bearing buckling
strengths Pcr in the range of h/t ratio from 31.0 to
121.0 in this study, where the web crippling issue is
simplified as a “column” in compression.
6 PROPOSED DIRECT STRENGTH
METHOD
The Direct Strength Method (DSM), providing an
alternative way to determine the strength of cold-
formed steel members, has been incorporated in
the North American Specification for cold-formed
steel structures since 2004 in the Supplement to the
2001 edition of the specification. However, the cur-
rent North American Specification (NAS 2016b)
and other standards do not provide design provi-
sion for members undergoing web crippling using
DSM. Several attempts were made by researchers
(Sundararajah et al. 2016; Natário et al. 2016, 2017)
using DSM to predict web crippling strengths.
It should be noted that the aforementioned
attempts were focused on open sections undergo-
ing web crippling. Up-to-date no investigation
Table 6. Coefficients for proposed web crippling design rules based on DSM for cold-formed ferritic stainless steel
tubular sections.

Support and flange conditions Load case a b n λk γ LRFD φ

Unfastened Stiffened or partially stiffened flanges EL 0.69 0.09 0.49 0.543 1.05 0.85

has ever used DSM to predict web crippling

strengths for tubular sections. In this study, design
rules based on DSM are proposed for cold-formed
ferritic stainless steel tubular structural members
subjected to concentrated end bearing load. In
order to develop the proposed design rules, nomi-
nal bearing buckling strength Pcr and nominal
bearing yield strength Py are required in the deter-
mination of the nominal web crippling strength.
The calculations of the Pcr and Py for square and
rectangular hollow sections in the AS4100 (1998),
as illustrated in Equations (2) and (4), respectively,
are adopted in this study. The proposed nominal
web crippling strength per web based on DSM is
shown in Equation (7). The corresponding coeffi-
cients a, b, n, λk and γ are shown in Table 6. The
coefficients in Table 6 apply when 9 ≤ h/t ≤ 121, r/t Figure 6. Comparison of test and FE results with pro-
≤ 2.0, N/t ≤ 125 and N/h ≤ 2.1. posed DSM curve.

⎧γ ⋅ Py λ ≤ λk
⎪ seen that the proposed DSM curve generally aligns
= ⎨ ⎡⎢ ⎛ Pcr ⎞ ⎤ ⎛ Pcr ⎞
n n
PDSM
⎥ λ > λk
⎪a ⎢ b ⎜⎝ P ⎟⎠ ⎥ ⎜⎝ P ⎟⎠ Py
⎩ ⎣ y
⎦ y
where λ = (Py / Pcr)0.5 is the web crippling slender-
ness ratio.
The web crippling design rules based on DSM
proposed by Natário et al. (2016, 2017) require aid
from computer software to compute the Pcr. The
web crippling design rules proposed herein enable
designers to determine the nominal strengths man-
ually without any aid from computer software.
7 COMPARISON OF EXPERIMENTAL
AND NUMERICAL RESULTS WITH
PROPOSED DIRECT STRENGTH
METHOD
The test and FE strengths per web Pu were com-
pared with the nominal strengths per web calcu-
lated from the proposed Direct Strength Method
PDSM, as shown in Table 5. The proposed PDSM are
able to provide generally conservative predictions
for the cold-formed stainless steel tubular struc-
tural members subjected to concentrated bearing
load. The mean value of the Pu/PDSM is 1.06 with
the corresponding COV of 0.119. Figure 6 shows
the comparison of test and FE results with pro-
posed DSM curve for the EL condition. It can be
(7) well with the test and FE results. The reliability
index for the proposed design rules that based on
the DSM is 2.75, which is greater than the target
value of 2.5 indicating that the nominal strengths
calculated from the proposed design rules based on
DSM are reliable.
8 CONCLUSIONS
Experimental and numerical investigations of
cold-formed ferritic stainless steel tubular struc-
tural members subjected to concentrated bearing
load were performed in this study. A total of 18
web crippling tests was conducted on cold-formed
square and rectangular hollow sections of grade
EN 1.4003 ferritic stainless steel. The tests were
conducted under end loading condition, which
closely simulated the support condition of floor
joist members seated on solid foundation subjected
to concentrated end bearing load. A finite element
(FE) model was developed and validated against
the experimental results. The FE model is capable
to predict the experimental web crippling strengths,
failure modes and load-web deformation histories.
On validation of the FE model, a parametric study
comprised 80 FE analyses was performed using the
validated model.
The web crippling strengths obtained from
experimental and numerical investigations were

520
compared with the nominal strengths calculated
using the current American Society of Civil Engi-
neers Specification (ASCE 2002), Australian/New
Zealand Standard (AS/NZS 2001) and European
Code (EC3 2015) for stainless steel structures. Fur-
thermore, the Australian Standard (AS4100 1998)
for carbon steel structures was also compared.
Improved design rules are proposed for cold-
formed ferritic stainless steel tubular structural
members subjected to concentrated end bearing
load by Direct Strength Method (DSM). In addi-
tion, reliability of the proposed design rules has
been assessed by means of reliability analysis. It
is shown that the proposed web crippling design
rules based on DSM are reliable.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to STALA Tube Finland
for providing the test specimens. The research
work described in this paper was supported by a
grant from the Research Grants Council of the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China
(Project No. HKU718612E).
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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Structural behaviour of stainless steel tubular columns

H.P.C.S.G. Duarte
PGECIV—Civil Engineering Post-Graduate Program, UERJ—State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

L.R.O. de Lima, P.C.G. da S. Vellasco & A.T. da Silva

Structural Engineering Department, UERJ—State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

ABSTRACT: Over the past few years, a large increase in the use of stainless steel in civil construction
has been observed worldwide. Despite its high initial cost, the use of stainless steel in engineering con-
structions presents a series of factors that contribute to its adoption. At the same time, there is also an
increase of hollow structural sections in civil engineering constructions, due to its excellent compression,
torsion and bending capabilities. This paper describes an investigation centred on the structural response
of pinned stainless steel square tubular columns. An austenitic stainless steel grade 304 was selected due
to its popularity in structural designs. Experimental, numerical and theoretical models contemplating
the EN1993-1-4 and the Continuous Strength Method (CSM) are presented. The results allowed some
conclusions regarding the conservatism of EN1993-1-4. In contrast, both theoretical methods presented
considerable differences in comparison to the performed experiments.

1 INTRODUCTION while the typical carbon steel exhibits linear elastic

Historically, stainless steel has been used only in
specific applications, mainly due to its high cost.
However, this scenario have been changing with
the proper diffusion of its structural response
advantages, as well as the development of specific
stainless structures international codes.
Stainless steel is formally defined as a cor-
rosion resistant steel containing a minimum of
10.5% chromium. Different mechanical and physi-
cal properties can be attributed to stainless steel
according to addition of chemical elements such
as chromium, nickel, molybdenum, titanium and
copper. Normally, the addition of chromium is
responsible for the anticorrosive properties of
stainless steel, since when exposed to air or other
aggressive environment, a thin-layer is developed,
and then, it is possible to avoid corrosion effects
(Afshan 2013).
Despite its high initial cost, the use of stainless
steel in construction presents a series of factors that
contribute to its adoption as a structural element,
since such factors can lead to a cost reduction in
the long term. Some factors that can contribute to
this cost reductions are relate to its durability, high
temperature response, ductility, impact strength,
reuse and recycling potential (Gardner 2005, Silva
et al. 2016).
Stainless steel elements are associated to non-
linear stress-strain curves without a well-defined
yield plateau and large strain hardening zones
behaviour followed by plastic deformation before
strain hardening. In addition, stainless steel exhib-
its a non-symmetrical behaviour in both tension
and compression with an anisotropic behaviour
(Afshan 2013). These structural characteristics
can substantially modify the global or local mem-
ber response. However, despite the fundamental
differences between the mechanical behaviour of
stainless and carbon steel elements the majority
of stainless steel structural design codes are still
largely based on carbon steel analogies adapted
to stainless steel response (EN1993-1-4 2006, SCI/
Euro Inox 2006, Duarte 2015).
In addition, tubular profiles emerged around the
1960s, when structural designers, architects, and
builders increasingly sought to develop construc-
tive technologies that had both aesthetic appeal and
resistance in various types of applications. Thus,
they are considered one of the most recent struc-
tural groups of metal profiles (Duarte 2015). The
structural efficiency of this type of profile is mainly
due to the cross-section geometry, since it presents
a material concentration at points farther from the
centroid. When this aspect is added to closed sec-
tion properties, it results in a load carrying capacity
able to tackle with high demands of axial stresses,
torsion and combined effects (Lima 2012). Figure 1
depicts some examples of constructions where
stainless steel tubular profiles were used.
This paper describes an investigation centred
on the structural response of pinned stainless steel

523
 N Ed (1)
≤ 1.0
Nc ,Rd

where, NEd corresponds to the design value of

the compression force while Nc,Rd is the capacity
of cross-section that depends on the cross-section
class (see Equation  2 and 3). This is due to local
buckling effects in cross-section classified as Class
4 where it is necessary to consider the effective
widths to reduce the cross-section capacity.

A fy
Nc ,Rd = for classes 1, 2 and 3 (2)
γ M0
Aefff fy
Nc ,Rd = for class 4 (3)
γ M0

On the other hand, for high slenderness col-

umn a reduction of the cross-section resistance
due to instability effect occurs. In this case,
EN1993-1-4 (2006) uses a reduction factor
depending on the column proprieties such as
slenderness, shape cross-section, fabrication type
and steel grade i.e:
1 (4)
χ= ≤ 1.0
0 .5
φ ⎡ φ2 − λ ⎤
2

⎣ ⎦
Figure  1. Constructions with stainless steel tubular
profiles. where,

square tubular columns. An austenitic stainless

steel grade 304 was selected due to its popularity
φ 05 ( (
α λ λ +λ ) ) (5)

in structural designs. Experimental, numerical and

theoretical models contemplating the EN1993-1-4 Therefore, the global buckling resistance of an
(2006) and the Continuous Strength Method— element subjected to axial compression, Nb,Rd, is
CSM were developed. A calibration of the numeri- obtained from:
cal model was also performed.
A fy
Nb,Rd = χ × for classes 1, 2 and 3 (6)
γ M0
2 STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF STAINLESS
STEEL COLUMNS Aefff fy
Nb,Rd = χ × for class 4 (7)
γ M0
2.1 Eurocode 3 part 1–4
EN1993-1-4 (2006) contains the provisions for the
structural design of stainless steel structures which 2.2 Continuous strength method—CSM
are generally similar to those proposed in EN1993-
1-1 (2003) for carbon steel structural elements. In The current stainless steel design codes includ-
fact, EN1993-1-4 (2006) is based on the perfect ing EN1993-1-4 (2006), have been developed with
elastic-plastic behaviour of the material, which facil- recommendations very similar to those used in
itates the use of this standard by structural engineers carbon steel design codes. These codes are based
familiared with the carbon steel design rules. on a perfect elastic-plastic material behaviour, and
According to EN1993-1-4 (2006), the cross- consequently disregards the material hardening
section resistance of a structural element subjected benefits (Afshan 2013).
to axial compression is checked by the following The CSM was proposed by Afshan and Gard-
condition: ner (2013) which it is a novel approach to stainless

524
steel structural design structures strongly based
on the actual response of the stainless steel physi-
cal behaviour like the hardening effects. The CSM
abandons the cross-section classification con-
cept, which is the basis for the treatment of local
buckling in the main design codes in carbon steel,
stainless steel and aluminum alloys, by using a
dimensionless measure of cross section deforma-
tion capacity. According to Afshan (2013), CSM is
defined as a structural design which aims to guar-
antee the attainment of plastic deformation of the
structural members through two basic concepts:
(i) a base curve that defines the level of deformation
that cross-section can reach, and (ii) a model con-
templating the material strain-hardening, together
with the deformation value that can be used to esti-
mate the cross-section resistance.
A well-established version of this method uses a
bilinear model to characterize the material behav-
iour. The first segment corresponds to the material
elastic range defined by a straight line parallel to the
elastic portion of the curve drawn from at a 0.2%
strain. The yield stress (fy) and strain (εy) are deter-
mined when this parallel line intercepts the material
curve. Equation 8 is used to define the yield strain:
fy
εy = (8)
E
where, E corresponds to the stainless steel Young
modulus and fy is the yield stress.
The second segment of the curve is determined
by the slope of the line passing through the point
(fy,εy) and the point corresponding to maximum
value for both yield and strain (fcsm,εcsm). The εcsm is
determined according to following relation:
ε csm 0 25 ε ⎛ ε ⎞ (9)
= 3.6 but csm ≤ min ⎜15; 0.1 u ⎟
εy λp ε y ⎝ ε y⎠
where, εu is the ultimate strain corresponding to the
coupon test tensile rupture and λp correspond to
cross-section slenderness. From these parameters, the
plastic material model slope can be determined as:
fu fy
(10)
Esh =
0.16 u− ( y + 0.002 )
The cross-section compression resistance is
obtained as a function of the normalized deforma-
tion capacity with the data obtained through the
CSM material behaviour model. Therefore, there is
a modification of the strength to be considered for
structural member under compression where the
yield strength, fy, is replaced by strength obtained
in the CSM bilinear curve, fcsm:
525
A fcsm (11)
Nc ,Rd =
γ M0
where, fcsm, obtained with Equation 12:
f y + E sh ( )
(12)
fcsm csm − y
3 EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS
3.1 Description of experimental tests
The performed axial compression experiments were
carried out in the Civil Engineering Laboratory
(LEC) of the State University of Rio de Janeiro
(UERJ). An SHS 50  ×  50  ×  2 cross section was
adopted in all the tests made of austenitic stainless
steel grade AISI 304. In total, seven compression
tests were performed with different tube lengths to
assess the profile behaviour for different slenderness
values. Table 1 contains the nomenclature used in all
investigated studied cases depicting a variation of
the column length from 300 mm to 1800 mm.
The experiments were performed to resemble
pinned support conditions, i.e. an effective buckling
length coefficient equal to 1.0 aiming to investigate
both local and global buckling responses. Therefore,
it was necessary to guarantee the pinned condition
of the columns ends. Thus, two plates with chamfers
and a cylindrical roller were used allowing rotation
around the cylinder and to ensure that the global
buckling occurs around the parallel axis in the lon-
gitudinal direction of the cylinder—see Figure 2. In
addition, two small square plates with two steel bars
welded to each plate were also used to avoid sliding
of the column ends at the onset of global buckling.
Strain gauges were positioned in the centre of
the four faces of the square tubular section, always
at the column midspan. One strain gauge was used
per side, positioned parallel to the column longi-
tudinal axis. Displacement transducers (LVDTs)
were adopted to monitor the column lateral and
vertical displacements. Six LVDTs were positioned
horizontally at ¼, ½ and ¾ of the column length,
and two were positioned vertically at the column
base, Figure 3.
3.2 Results
Table  2 depicts the experimental ultimate load val-
ues, Nexp, as well as the failure mode of each tested
columns. As expected, there is a slight difference for
smaller columns due to the failure modes character-
ized by the cross-section yielding. In contrast, when
the failure mode corresponded to global buckling,
the ultimate load decrease as the column length
increase.
Table 1. Experiments nomenclature and geometry. Table 2. Experiments ultimate loads and failure modes.

Nomenclature b (mm) h (mm) t (mm) L (mm) λ L Nexp

Test (mm) (kN) Failure mode
EXP300 50 50 2.0 300 0.21
EXP300 300 195.98 Cross-section yield
EXP700 50 50 2.0 700 0.50
EXP700 700 198.67 Cross-section yield
EXP700R 50 50 2.0 700 0.50
EXP700R 700 195.81 Cross-section yield
EXP1000 50 50 2.0 1000 0.72
EXP1000 1000 163.79 Global Buckling
EXP1400 50 50 2.0 1400 1.00
EXP1400 1400 148.62 Global Buckling
EXP1800 50 50 2.0 1800 1.29
EXP1800 1800 126.70 Global Buckling
EXP1800R 50 50 2.0 1800 1.29
EXP1800R 1800 127.46 Global Buckling

Figure 2. Details of the pinned conditions.

Figure 3. LVDTs and strain gage layout.

Figure 4 depicts the deformed configurations of all

investigated columns where it is possible to observe
the occurrence of cross-section yield for the shorter
columns and slender columns lateral displacement
characterizing a typical global buckling response.
Figure 5 shows the experiments load versus lon-
gitudinal displacement curves. It is interesting to
observe that the curves present similar behaviours
during the earlier loading stages, where a region
of constant inclination is observed, characterizing Figure 4. Typical experimental failures.
the material elastic response. However, when the
ultimate loads are reached, the curves presented EXP300 and EXP700 indicated a gradual load
different responses according to their associated drop in after the ultimate load was reached, char-
failure modes. acterized by a loss of stiffness that succeeds the

526
Figure  5. Load versus longitudinal displacement Figure 6. Load versus strain curves—EXP700.
curves.

curve’s peak. The experimental tests EXP1000,

EXP1400 and EXP1800 have an abrupt load drop
as soon as they reach the ultimate load. These dif-
ferences in behaviour between the columns are jus-
tified by the fact that the shorter columns fail by
yielding while the other columns are characterized
by an elastic-plastic global buckling associated to
an abrupt instability phenomena.
The deformations resulting from the axial com-
pression loading of the columns were measured
on the four faces of the profiles. This is important
to provide consistent information concerning to
Figure 7. Load versus strain curves—EXP1400.
column behaviour where the possible differences
should indicate the presence of initial imperfec-
tions and loading eccentricities. Figures  6 and 7
direction of the curve does not change while the
illustrate the load versus deformation of two inves-
negative deformation continues to increase. The
tigated experiments.
curves of the strain gauges, S2 & S4, also present
The test EXP700 shows an evident cross-section
a negative initial deformation, referring to the
yield at midspan (Fig.  4b). As the strain gauges
axial compression and after of the maximum load
were positioned exactly at this location, the load
is reached, it is observed that the direction of the
versus strain curves (see Fig.  6) were able to evi-
curve does not change maintaining the negative
dence the different behaviour of each face. The
values.
curves of extensometers S1, S2, S3 and S4 initially
The LVDTs positioned at ¼, ½ and ¾ of
present an increasing negative deformation and
the column length enable the production of its
once the maximum load is reached, a direction
deformed shape during the tests. These curves can
change is observed in S3 curves.
be a good aid for verifying the used boundary con-
The EXP1400 test shows a remarkable global
ditions. The results confirmed the pinned condi-
buckling in the axis parallel to longitudinal direc-
tions at both ends. In fact, the lateral displacement
tion of the cylindrical roll present in both ends.
observed in the column are similar to an effective
As in previous tests, the load versus strain curves
buckling length coefficient equal to 1.0. As an
(Fig. 7) were able to evidence the distinct behaviour
example of this trend Figure 8 depict theses curves
of each face of the profile. The columns bound-
for the EXP1000 test.
ary condition induced the strain gauges S1 and
S3 to be compressed or tensioned depending on
the direction in which buckling occurred. Strain
4 NUMERICAL MODEL
gauges S1 & S3 initially present an increasing nega-
tive strain, referring to the axial compression. After
4.1 Assumptions
the maximum load is reached, a direction change
is observed in one of the curves, which presents The numerical model developed in this work (see
a decrease in the compression strain, while in the Fig.  9) was developed in the finite element pro-
curve of the strain gages of the opposite face, the gram, Ansys 12 (2010). The numerical models were

527
modelled using shell elements, SHELL181 that has
4 nodes and 6 degrees of freedom per node (x, y
and z translations and x, y, and z rotations).
The properties of austenitic stainless steel AISI
304 were incorporated to the numerical model
through a true stress versus true strain curve to con-
sidering large deformation effects. In order to guar-
antee that the numerical model presented a physical
behaviour close to that observed in the experiments,
the stress versus strain curves were obtained
through the average of the results of the EXP300
and EXP700 tests (see Fig. 6) from which an elastic
modulus E = 170 GPa was extracted. A 0.3 Poisson
coefficient was adopted in the model. Compression
coupons tests were performed according to test
setup used by Gardner and Nethercot (2004).
The Ansys 12 (2010) is able to perform an elas-
tic eigenvalues analysis on elements subjected to
compression. From the result of this buckling
analysis, an initial imperfection corresponding to
the first column buckling mode was introduced to
the numerical model. For local buckling, an ini-
tial imperfection of t/10 was used and for global
buckling, L/1000 was used. In addition, it was not
Figure  8. Load versus lateral displacement curves for
different load levels.
Figure 9. Numerical model developed using Ansys 12 0.
528
taking into account the residual stress due to slight
influence in results as observed in Huang and
Young (2012).
The numerical model calibration was performed
through comparisons between results obtained
through the developed experiments and the non-
linear analysis results in terms of maximum
applied load.
The numerical model deformed configurations
presented a very similar layout to those observed in
the experiments. Figure 10 and Figure 11 show the
deformed shapes of the numerical models NUM700
and NUM1400 and the experiments counterparts.
4.2 Comparisons to Eurocode 1-4 and CSM
A comparison of the experimental results, EN1993-
1-4 (2006) and CSM methods and numerical
Figure 10. NUM700 × EXP700.
Figure 11. NUM1400 × EXP1400.
analysis developed in the Ansys 12 (2010) is pre-
sented in this section. In order to define the col-
umn resistance based on EN1993-1-4 (2006) and
CSM, a yield stress equal to 395 MPa, determined
from the usual 0.2% strain of the EXP300 stress-
strain was adopted.
Table 3 and Table 4 contains the resistance val-
ues of investigated as well as the ratios between
the predicted ultimate loads for both design
methods.
Analysing the results presented in Table  4, it
is observed that the ratio between the values of
the ultimate experimental load, NEXP, and the ulti-
mate load calculated by EN1993-1-4 (2006), NEC, Figure 12. SHS 50 × 50 × 2 load versus normalized slen-
is higher than 1.0 while presenting a considerable derness curves.
difference for the slender columns. The experi-
mental resistance values were on average 76%
higher than the resistance values of EN1993-1-4 Finally, it was observed that the ratio between the
(2006). values of ultimate load calculated by the CSM and
The ratio between the ultimate experimental the load calculated by the EN1993-1-4 (2006) was
load and ultimate load calculated by the CSM, equal to 1.12. These results were expected due to
NCSM, also presented values higher than 1.0, but the stainless steel strain-hardening effects.
with an average difference smaller compared to Figure 12 illustrates the buckling curves accord-
the Eurocode. When the numerical results are con- ing to EN1993-1-4 (2006), CSM and numerical
sidered, the ratio between the experimental and results. As observed, the experimental and numeri-
numerical model, NNUM, presented values very cal results presented a similar behaviour for both
close to 1.0, evidencing the behavioural similarity shorter and larger column while CSM presented
between the experimental and numerical models. higher values when compared to the Eurocode.
However, this difference cannot be considered
small when compared to the experimental and
Table  3. Experimental, theoretical and numerical numeric results.
results.

Tests NEXP (kN) NEC (kN) NCSM (kN) NNUM (kN) 5 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
EXP300 195.98 137.89 154.23 197.23
EXP700 198.67 129.17 144.48 198.12 The experimental tests developed in this paper
EXP700R 195.81 129.17 144.48 198.12 were carried out in seven different column lengths
EXP1000 163.79 108.83 121.72 165.24 making possible to observe the behaviour of
EXP1400 148.62 79.77 89.23 148.93 square tubular columns in terms of the normalized
EXP1800 126.70 56.68 63.40 126.70 slenderness variation. Two different failure modes
EXP1800R 127.46 56.68 63.40 126.70 occurred in the experiments according to test slen-
derness. The shorter columns presented a cross-
section yield while the slender column presented a
global buckling collapse.
Table  4. Comparison of the experimental, theoretical A numerical model was also developed to better
and numerical results. understand the investigated study cases. The numer-
Tests NEXP/Nb,Rd NEXP/NCSM NEXP/Nef Ncsm/NEC
ical models were elaborated using the Ansys 12
where nonlinear analyses were performed. In gen-
EXP300 1.42 1.27 0.99 1.12 eral, the results obtained by numerical models were
EXP700 1.54 1.38 1.00 1.12 close to experimental in terms of maximum load.
EXP700R 1.52 1.36 0.99 1.12 Comparing the experimental and numeri-
EXP1000 1.51 1.35 0.99 1.12 cal results with design code provisions, namely
EXP1400 1.86 1.67 1.00 1.12 EN1993-1-4 (2006) and CSM, it was possible to
EXP1800 2.24 2.00 1.00 1.12 note that the codes led to smaller load predic-
EXP1800R 2.25 2.01 1.01 1.12 tions than the experimental and numerical results.
Mean 1.76 1.57 1.00 1.12
In fact, the theoretical methods presented smaller
S. Deviation 0.36 0.32 0.0064 0
resistance values of around 72% and 57% for
EN1993-1-4 (2006) and CSM, respectively.

529
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank CAPES, CNPq
and FAPERJ for the financial support to this
research program.
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EN 1993-1-4, 2006. Eurocode 3: Design of steel
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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Experimental study for the effect of fabrication process on strength

of high strength steel box column

J. Jiang
School of Civil Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China

C.K. Lee
School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia

S.P. Chiew
Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore

ABSTRACT: High Strength Steel (HSS) box columns are usually fabricated from steel plates by weld-
ing. The welding process can introduce residual stresses and geometric imperfections into the sections and
affect their strengths. In this study, an experimental investigation on the behavior of high strength steel
box column under compression was carried out. In order to find out the effects of different welding proc-
ess and heating treatments on the column strength, two different welding methods namely, Flux-Cored
Arc Welding (FCAW) and Submerged Arc Welding (SAW) were employed. For each welding method,
three different heat treatment conditions including As-Welded condition (AW), Preheating (PH) before
welding and Post-Weld Heat Treatment (PWHT) were studied. The column strength under pure compres-
sion was studied by considering both initial geometrical imperfections and welding residual stress. The
effects of different welding processes and heating treatment methods on built-up box column strength
were investigated and discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION associated with flame-cutting, the material prop-

High strength steel (HSS) with yield strength
larger than 460 MPa has increasingly been used in
building and large span bridging structure for its
merits in economy, aesthetics and safety. Compar-
ing with conventional mild steel, the use of HSS
can lead to significant economic benefits by reduc-
ing the size of structural components and costs of
transportation and welding. However, most exist-
ing design codes and standards are still larger
limited to medium strength steels in which many
design formulae inside cannot be directly used for
HSS and this cause a serious disadvantage for the
use of HSS. Such situation is mainly due to the
stress-strain behavior of HSS which is different
from mild steel. In particular, HSS exhibits low
ductility due to reduced deformation capacity.
Furthermore, residual stress due to welding and
uneven cooling of HSS plates and shapes could
be more serious than in mild steel and might have
a negative impact on their structural performance
(Jiang et al. 2017). Welded built-up members may
even exhibit tensile residual stresses in excess of
the yield stress (in the region of the welded area)
of the parent material. Due to the intense heat
erties are significantly altered in heat-affected
zone (HAZ). Therefore, it is significant to under-
stand the impact of intense heat input of welding
process on the mechanical performance for HSS
structures.
2 SPECIMEN SPECIFICATION
In this study, six identical columns (section:
110 × 110 × 16; column length: 500 mm) made of
RQT701 HSS plate with minimum yielding stress
of 690 MPa and up to the standard of European
steel specification EN 10025–6 S690QL (EN10025-
6:2004, 2004) were fabricated from different weld-
ing processes and heat treatments. The RQT701
HSS plates used in this study is quenched and
tempered steel with improved forming and weld-
ing performance by substituting alloying elements
with carbon. In order to assess the influences of
different welding process and heating treatment
procedures on strength of built-up HSS box col-
umns, two different welding methods, namely
Flux-Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) and Submerged
Arc Welding (SAW) and three different pre-heat

531
Table  1. Welding conditions and geometry of tested
specimens.

Geometry
Specimen Welding Preheat
Group name method condition L (mm) λ y

A A-F-1 FCAW AW 500 0.26

A-F-2 PH 500 0.26
A-F-3 PWHT 500 0.26
A-S-1 SAW AW 500 0.26
A-S-2 PH 500 0.26
A-S-3 PWHT 500 0.26 Figure  1. Measurement for initial deformation of the
columns after the welding.
Note: AW: As-welded, PH: Pre-heated, PWHT: Post weld
heat treated. L: Column Length, λ y : Non-dimensional
slenderness of the section. Outside section width is
110 mm. All steel plate thickness is 16 mm.

and post-heat treatment conditions, namely,

As-Welded (AW) condition without any heat treat-
ment, Preheating (PH) treatment before welding
and Post-Weld Heat Treatment (PWHT) were
employed during the fabrication of the specimens.
Table 1 lists the naming and fabrication scenarios
of the six specimens tested (Group A) in this study.

3 MEASUREMENT OF INITIAL
IMPERFECTION OF THE COLUMNS

The initial geometrical imperfection was measured

in this study with a sliding frame equipped with X-Y
Digital Read-Out for the positioning. The meas-
uring points, whose coordinates can be precisely
determined by X-Y Digital Read-Out, were firstly
marked on the surfaces of the columns. After that,
the column was placed horizontally on the movable
platform with the measured surface facing upwards.
A linear voltage displacement transducer (LVDT)
with measuring range of 10 mm was employed to
measure out-of-plane deformation of the columns.
During the measurement, the LVDT sensor was
fixed by magnetic connection while the specimen
was slowly moved together with the platform.
The out-of-plane deformation of the columns
was recorded at 20 mm interval along the specimen
length direction (z’ direction in Figure  1). Along
the y’ direction, there were five measuring points
with coordinates of 20 mm, 40 mm, 50 mm, 60 mm
and 80 mm (Note: the coordinates of zero point is
(50, 20), as shown in the Figure 1).
The cross section at mid-length of the columns
is selected to show the initial deformation after the
fabrication for the reason that higher out-of-plane
displacement at mid-length area is observed than
the column ends (Figure 2). It should be noted that
the amplitude of the imperfection for each location
Figure 2. Initial deformation of the columns after the
welding.
was obtained from the difference in LVDT sensor
reading between the measurement point and the
zero point (50, 20). From the measurement results,
it can be observed that the imperfections in x’ direc-
tion (along the vertical direction to the measurement
surface) of all columns measured are very small such
that the maximum amplitudes are less than 1 mm for
surfaces A and C. Negative displacements (deformed
outwards) were found on surfaces B and D for most
columns whilst positive displacements (deformed
inwards) happened on surfaces A and C. By compar-
ing the columns with FCAW process with the ones
with SAW process, slightly higher displacements
were found in columns with SAW process. This phe-
nomenon could be caused by the higher linear heat
input used in the SAW process. Another finding is
that the maximum imperfection mostly happened in
the area near width middle of each surface.

532
4 MEASUREMENT OF THE WELDING
RESIDUAL STRESS
The hole-drilling method is again employed in this
study for welding residual stress measurement.
ASTM E837-13a (ASTM 2013) specifies the hole-
drilling procedure for determining residual stress
profiles near the surface of an isotropic linearly
elastic material. The RS-200 milling guide, a high-
precision instrument for analyzing residual stress
by the hole-drilling method through positive zon-
ing and drilling of a hole in the center of a special
strain rosette, was used for measuring the residual
stress in the specimens. The journal hole at the
center of the milling guide assembly is machined
to a high degree of accuracy to assure precise
centering during the testing process. In order to
ensure that the hole is exactly drilled in the center
of the target area, a microscope assembly is used to
adjust realignment for drilling cutter.
The longitudinal stress (parallel to column
length direction) distributions at the middle cross
section of the six columns corresponding to AW,
PH and PWHT conditions fabricated using FACW
and SAW welding processes are shown in Figure 3.
Figure  3. Distributions of longitudinal residual stress
around the box section.
533
It can be observed from Figure 3 that for all six col-
umns studied, the longitudinal stress distributions
are similar around the box perimeter. In general,
for Surface A and Surface C, high tensile stress
generated near the weld while compressive stress
is found near the middle of the surfaces. Higher
longitudinal stresses can be observed on Surfaces
A and C than on Surfaces B and D. It is reasonable
as most welding was added on Surfaces A and C to
form the column. It appears that while the average
line heat input of SAW (1.65  KJ/mm) is slightly
higher than FCAW (1.38 KJ/mm), FCAW eventu-
ally caused higher peak longitudinal residual stress
than SAW. This phenomenon could be caused by
the uneven arc torch travelling speed in FCAW:
As FCAW was conducted manually by a welder,
this might have caused high concentration of heat
input at some locations. For SAW, as the weld filler
was automatically and continuously added by a
welding machine, heat input fluctuation and une-
ven local concentration was smaller.
5 COLUMN TEST RESULTS
AND ANALYSIS
The 10000  KN serve hydraulic compression testing
setup HTC-10000 in Structural Engineering Labora-
tory of National University of Singapore (NUS), was
employed to determine the strength of the six built-up
HSS box columns. All specimens were fix-supported.
To measure the axial and lateral deformation of
the columns under the compressive load, 6  LVDTs
and 8 strain gauges were used for each column. The
LVDTs 1–4 were put at mid-length of the columns
to measure the lateral deformations for four surfaces.
LVDT 5 and 6 diagonally pointed on the top actua-
tor so that they can record the axial deformation of
the columns and ensure that only pure compression is
applied. All the strain gauges were arranged around
the cross section at the mid-length. To avoid eccen-
tric loading during the testing process, a preload of
500 KN was firstly applied to adjust the setup. When
similar strain readings for Strain 1–8 were observed,
it was unloaded slowly. After that, the axial load was
applied at 2 mm/min until the peak load was achieved.
Table 2 gives the ultimate strength of the 6 columns.
Figure  4  shows the load-lateral deformation
curves for the column A-F-1. It can be seen that
the column shows a stable load-lateral deforma-
tion relationship during the loading process. Simi-
lar trend can be found for LVDT-1 and LVDT-2,
which show a negative displacement in the load-
ing process. The peak load of the columns A-F-1
is 5309 KN.
Figure  5  shows the relationship between the
load and deflection for the column A-F-2. It can be
found that the maximum displacement of LVDT-2
Table 2. Comparison between computed results and tested results for Group A columns.

Computed and tested results

Testing Modelling Testing Modelling Testing Modelling

Specimen Pmax Pmax fmax fmax

labelling (kN) (kN) (MPa) (MPa) fmax/fave fmax/fave

A-F-1 5309 5475.1 663.5 684.4 0.897 0.925

A-F-2 5533 5475.1 691.6 684.4 0.930 0.925
A-F-3 5554 5516.6 694.2 689.6 0.940 0.932
A-S-1 5663 5481.0 707.8 685.1 0.960 0.926
A-S-2 5855 5475.1 725.0 684.4 0.990 0.925
A-S-3 5878 5534.4 734.8 691.8 0.990 0.935

Note: Area of column cross-section including backing plate is 8000 mm2.

Pmax: Compressive strength of column.
fmax: Failure stress of column.
fave = average yield stress of steel from coupon test = 740 MPa.

Figure 5. Load-deflection for the column A-F-2.

Figure 4. Load-deflection for the column A-F-1.

and LVDT-3 is much larger than that at LVDT-1

and LVDT-4. The load fluctuated near 5500  KN
when the horizontal displacements of LVDT-2 and
LVDT-3 are larger than 5  mm. However, only a
very small displacement can be founded at LVDT-1
and LVDT-4 when the maximum load is achieved.
This phenomenon could be caused by the initial
imperfection of the column and the welding resid-
ual stress. Figure 6 shows the relationship between
the load and deflection for the column A-F-3. The
peak load of the column A-F-3 is around 5554 KN.
Comparing with the columns A-F-1 and A-F-2,
it can be found that heat treatments (Preheating Figure 6. Load-deflection for the column A-F-3.
and PWHT) could produce more than 5% column
strength improvement. No big difference for the col- slightly larger than the ultimate strength of the col-
umn strength between A-F-2 and A-F-3 is found. umn A-F-1. It could be due to the fact that more
Similar failure mode can be found for the columns uniform arch torch travelling speed exists in SAW
A-F-2 and A-F-3, as shown in Figure  6, which is process through a slight larger linear heat input.
reasonable when similar initial imperfection and Note that the larger displacement can be found at
residual stress profile exists for these two columns. LVDT-1 and LVDT-3 than that at LVDT-2 and
The loading-horizontal displacement curves for LVDT-4 at peak load. This phenomenon was due
the column A-S-1 is shown in Figure 7. The peak to the local deformation as well as observable over-
load of the column A-S-1 is 5663  KN, which is all bending deformation in the mid-length of the

534
Figure 7. Load-deflection for the column A-S-1.
Figure 8. Load-deflection for the column A-S-2.
Figure 9. Load-deflection for the column A-S-3.
column. By examining the failure mode of the col-
umn and data listed in Table 2, it could be found
that yielding and local deformation are the main
results under the applied load.
The load-deflection curves for the column A-S-2
are shown in Figure 8. The peak load for column
A-S-2 is 5855 KN, which produce a 3.3% strength
improvement when comparing with as-welded col-
umn A-S-1. Again, similar load-deflection curves
can be found for column A-S-2 with column A-S-1.
Figure 9 shows relationship between applied load
and the horizontal deformation for column A-S-3.
A peak load of 5878 KN is observed for this case.
535
Figure 10. Failure mode of 6 studied columns.
Figure 10 shows the failure mode for all 6 columns
under compression.
6 MODELLING FOR WELDING
PROCESSES, HEAT TREATMENTS AND
COLUMN STRENGTH STUDY
In this section, a numerical investigation was con-
ducted to study the impact of fabrication process
including welding method and heat treatment on
high strength steel built-up box columns under
compression. The welding processes were firstly
simulated by a 3D fully coupled thermal-mechani-
cal modelling procedure using the general propose
finite element package ABAQUS. After that, the
welding residual stress and geometrical imperfec-
tion due to welding were inputted into the model
for column strength study. Finally, the modelling
results were validated with testing data from Sec-
tion 5 and another two groups columns with higher
slenderness were further analysed and studied.
6.1 Modelling of the welding processes Py
d . t ⋅( )0.5 (1)
In this study, a 3D fully coupled thermal-mechan- Pcr
ical analysis process is adopted to simulate the
FCAW and SAW processes at the four corners of In equation (1), d the coefficient defining the
the build-up box column and to predict the mag- initial imperfections, Py is the yield load, Pcr is the
nitude and distribution of the resulting residual critical buckling load and t is the plate thickness.
stress. Large displacement and nonlinear materials Since large deformation effects are considered, the
responses at room and elevated temperatures have true stress-strain curve obtained from actual mate-
been considered in the modelling by including the rial coupon tests was used to describe the rela-
non-linear geometry and materials property model tionship between the stress and strain of the HSS
options in the ABAQUS modelling process. The materials.
double ellipsoidal model was used to apply the heat
source of the welding process (Jiang et al. 2016).
6.4 Modelling validation and results
6.2 Modelling of the heat treatments Table  2 compares the modelling column strength
(Pmax) with testing results for all Group A speci-
For each welding process, three different mod-
mens. All the six modelling results are validated
els corresponding to columns fabricated under
with testing data. It is observed that compressive
(1) AW condition without any heat treatment, (2)
strength of column is close for computed and test-
PH before welding and (3) PWHT are created. For
ing results for both FCAW and SAW processes. For
models corresponding to both AW and PWHT,
the PH and PWHT column, it seems that almost
a pre-defined room temperature field of 30°C is
no obvious improvement on the column strength
applied to the whole model before the welding pro-
for Group A specimens is achieved.
cedure is started. For models corresponding to PH,
Another two groups of HSS columns (named
an optimized preheating temperature field of 100°C
as Group B and Group C) with higher slender-
is given for the whole model before the welding pro-
ness are then numerically studied and the com-
cedure is started. For PWHT models, a visco-plas-
puted results are shown in Table 3. It is targeted to
tic analysis step was added after the sequentially
find out the impact of fabrication process on HSS
thermal-mechanical analysis was completed.
columns with higher slenderness. Note that the
dimensionless slenderness ratio of Group B and
6.3 Modelling of column strength study Group C is equal to 0.52 and 0.84, respectively. It
is observed that both FCAW and SAW processes
During the column strength modelling process, gives similar column strengths. For the effects of
the same mesh was applied so that it was con- heat treatments, preheating again does not give
venient to input the computed residual stress obvious improvement on the column strength for
into strength analysis model. In order to prevent
stress concentration effect under axial at the
ends of the column, two reference points were
Table  3. Computed results for column strength study
created so that the load can be applied in these for Group B and C columns.
reference points. In addition, the end constraints
(one is roller and the other one is pinned) are Computed results
also added in these two reference points to avoid
over constraining. After that, an end plate (made Pmax fmax fmax/
of the same steel grade as the HSS built-up box Group Specimen Welding Preheating (kN) (MPa) fave
column) is added between these reference load-
ing points and the HSS built-up box column so B B-F-1 FCAW AW 5409.8 676.2 0.914
that the applied load and constraint can be uni- B-F-2 PH 5427.6 678.5 0.917
formly distributed into the end surfaces of the B-F-3 PWHT 5676.8 709.6 0.959
B-S-1 SAW AW 5398.0 674.8 0.912
column ends. A geometrically non-linear static
B-S-2 PH 5403.9 675.5 0.913
load-displacement analysis is performed for the
B-S-3 PWHT 5647.1 705.9 0.954
column by incorporating the residual stress and
C C-F-1 FCAW AW 4733.6 591.7 0.800
initial imperfections into the model to perform
C-F-2 PH 4721.7 590.2 0.798
plastic buckling and post-buckling analyses of
C-F-3 PWHT 5053.9 631.7 0.854
the column. For the input for column geometri- C-S-1 SAW AW 4816.7 602.1 0.814
cal imperfection, the Group A is inputted as C-S-2 PH 4804.8 600.6 0.812
Figure  2  shown. For Group B and C, it is esti- C-S-3 PWHT 5024.3 628.0 0.849
mated by equation (1) (Walker 1975).

536
Group B specimens. However, a small but notice-
able effect of PWHT on the column strength can
be observed for both FCAW and SAW processes
for the Group B columns. For FCAW specimen,
PWHT can increase the strength by 5% compared
with the AW column. For SAW welded columns,
predicted compressive strength for the PWHT
column is about 4.6% more than the AW column.
Hence, for Group B columns with higher slender-
ness than Group A, the welding methods again did
not produce significant difference on the column
compressive strength. However, PWHT can lead
to a small (5%) but notable improvement when
PWHT is applied. For Group C columns, PWHT
again slightly improves the column strength for
both the FCAW and SAW processes. The strength
of PWHT column is 6.8% higher than AW column
for FCAW columns and about 4.3% stronger than
the AW column for SAW columns.
7 DESIGN APPROACH AND DISCUSSION
The local buckling stress was incorporated into the
analysis by introducing the effective width concept
and the average stress at the ultimate state fmax was
commonly expressed by:
f max C
= ≤1 (2)
fy R 2
In equation (2), C is a constant, R is the equiva-
lent width-thickness ratio and can be expressed
b f y 12(1− 2 )
as R = , b is width, t is plate thick-
t E π 2k
ness, fy is yield stress, E is Young’s modulus, ν
is the Poisson’s ratio and k is the buckling
coefficient.
It was recommended by Usami and Fukumoto
(Usami and Fukumoto 1982, 1984) that the most
suitable value of the coefficient C is equal to 0.737
based on stub-column tests data with the least
squares method. The AISC Q-factor method
(AISC 360–10 2010) also used a similar approach
to compute fmax by relating the strength reduction
factor and the material yield stress by an expres-
sion fmax  =  Qfy. However, all these formulae do
not differentiate the effect of fabrication process
and heating treatment on the column strength.
Based on the finding in current study, another fac-
tor Ch accounting the effect of heat treatment is
proposed and the ultimate state fmax is therefore
expressed by:
f C Ch
max
= ≤1 (3)
f y R χf = Cf × χ
537
Table 4. Welding method and heating treatment factor
Cf for EC3 buckling curves.
Range of λ y Buckling curve AW PW PWHT
b 1.01 1.01 1.02
λ y < 0.3
c 1.02 1.02 1.03
For as-welded condition, Ch is equal to 1.0  so
that there is no heat treatment effect. For pre-
heated and PWHT HSS columns, the effect of heat
treatment seems related to the slenderness. When
(
the column slenderness is very small λ <0.3), Ch )
is small and is equal to 1.03. However, for the inter-
mediate slenderness HSS column (0.3<λ < <0.6), Ch
is increased to 1.05, which means that a higher heat
treatment effect can be found for the columns with
intermediate slenderness.
For the design approach in Eurocode 3 (Euroc-
ode 3, 1993), it is based on the Euler buckling
curve, which is reduced by an imperfection factor
to various buckling curves. For axial compression
in members the value of χ is determined accord-
ing to:
1
χ= (4)
2
Φ + Φ2 − λ
In equation (4), Φ = 0.5[1 + α ( λ − 0.2 ) + λ ] and
α is an imperfection factor takes account residual
stress and imperfection. It is recommended to select
curve b or curve c for all steel grades up to S460 steel
depending on weld size for welded box section.
When it comes to the different weld methods and
heating treatments, the influence of such fabrication
process on the column strength is rarely considered.
Hence, an addition factor χf can be determined for
a given particular case (depending on different weld
sizes to select curve b or curve c). According to the
testing results shown in Table 2, a modified reduc-
tion factor χf for column strength design is pro-
posed to differentiate the impact of welding method
and heat treatment on the column strength for the
HSS column. To obtain χf, the value of χ is firstly
determined with the column’s λ y and the value of α
as specified by EC3. Secondly, a modification factor
Cf is obtained by considering the computed values
of fmax/fy shown in Tables  2 and the cross-section
area of the column. The values of Cf for different
buckling curves and heat treatment conditions for
short column with λ y <0.3 are listed in Table. 4.
Finally, the value of the modified reduction factor
χf for column strength can be determined by using
equation (5) as
(5)
8 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, an experimental investigation on the
behavior of high strength steel thin-walled box col-
umn under the compression force was carried out.
To find out the welding process and heating treat-
ment on the strength of high strength box column,
two different welding methods namely, Flux-Cored
Arc Welding (FCAW) and Submerged Arc Welding
(SAW) were included. For each welding method,
three different heat treatment conditions includ-
ing As-Welded condition (AW) without any heat
treatment, Preheating (PH) before welding and
Post-Weld Heat Treatment (PWHT) were studied.
The columns strengths under the compression were
studied by considering both the initial geometrical
imperfections computed and welding residual stress
of the column. It was observed that although the
average heat input was slight higher for the SAW
than the FCAW, higher peak residual stress was
found in specimens fabricated by the FCAW proc-
ess. This result is likely to be caused by the influence
of welder’s performance during the FCAW process
and the more consistent welding quality offered by
the welding machine during SAW. For both FCAW
and SAW fabricated columns, heating treatments
(Preheating and PWHT) could produce a 3%-7%
strength improvement depended on the slenderness
of the HSS column. A modified formula is pro-
vided to indicate the effect of heat treatment on the
ultimate state fmax. In addition, based on the experi-
mental results, a new factor is proposed to differ-
entiate the impact of welding method and heating
treatment on the HSS column strength for Euroc-
ode 3 buckling curves for column with dimension-
less slenderness ratio up to 0.3.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is supported by the Singapore Min-
istry of National Development (MND) Research
538
Fund on Sustainable Urban Living Grant No.
SUL2013-4. Any opinions, findings, and conclu-
sions expressed in this paper are those solely of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of
MND Singapore. Special thanks for the help on the
column testing from Structural Engineering Labo-
ratory of National University of Singapore (NUS).
REFERENCES
AISC 360-10. 2010. Specification for Structural Steel
Buildings, An American National Standard, Ameri-
can Institute of Steel Construction, Chicago, Illinois
60601–1802.
ASTM. 2013. Standard test method for determining resid-
ual stress by Hole-Drilling Strain-Gage Method (E837–
13), ASTM International: West Conshohocken, US.
EC3. 1993. Design of steel structure-Part 1.1: general
rules and rules for building, European Committee for
Standardisation (CEN).
EN1002–6:2004. 2004. Technical delivery conditions for
flat products of high yield strength structural steels in
the quenched and tempered condition, European Com-
mittee for Standardisation (CEN).
Jiang J., Chiew S.P., Lee, C.K. & Tiong, P.L.Y. 2016.
Numerical investigation of high-strength built-up
box columns. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil
Engineers—Structures and Buildings, http://dx.doi.
org/10.1680/jstbu.16.00111.
Jiang J., Chiew S.P., Lee C.K. & Tiong, P.L.Y. 2017.
A numerical study on residual stress of high strength
steel box column, Journal of Constructional Steel
Research, 128, 440–450.
Tsutomu, U. & Yushsi, F. 1982. Local and Overall Buck-
ling of Welded Box Columns, Journal of the Structural
Division, 108, 525–542.
Tsutomu, U. & Yushsi, F. 1984. Welded box compres-
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Walker A.C. 1975. Design and analysis of cold-formed
sections, International Textbook Company Limited.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Strength and ductility predictions of stiffened box sectional columns

made of high strength steel

L. Kang
School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China

R. Long
Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute of Changjiang Water Resources Commission, Wuhan, China

M. Suzuki & H.B. Ge

Department of Civil Engineering, Meijo University, Nagoya, Japan

ABSTRACT: This paper is to investigate the effect of various parameters, including flange plate width-
to-thickness ratio, column slenderness ratio and axial force ratio, on strength and ductility of steel bridge
box piers made of high strength steel SM570 subjected to cyclic loading. To this end, the elasto-plastic
behavior, strength and ductility of the steel bridge piers under cyclic loadings are simulated through inelas-
tic large deformation analysis, in which a modified two-surface model is incorporated to trace the material
nonlinearity. An extensive parametric study is carried out to investigate the effects of structural param-
eters on the strength and ductility capacity. From these analytical investigations, new formulae for pre-
dicting strength and ductility of steel bridge piers made of SM570 steel are proposed. This study extends
the strength and ductility evaluation of steel bridge piers from SS400, SM490 steels to SM570 steel, and
provides some useful suggestions.

1 INTRODUCTION behavior of steel piers is studied firstly. Then, an

With the development of the steel production and
manufacture process, high strength steel (HSS)
structures have been increasingly applied to build-
ing and bridge constructions in recent years, due to
their advantages in structural safety, architectural
function, economical benefit, resource saving, etc.
Compared with conventional mild carbon steel
members, the application of HSS members could
not only reduce member size and save building
space, but also show considerable economic bene-
fits through reducing the workloads of transporta-
tion as well as welding and shortening the time of
construction (Wang et  al. 2015). Previous studies
focused on the load-bearing capacity, local buck-
ling and global buckling behavior of HSS columns
(Li et al. 2016; Shi et al. 2015; Cao et al. 2015; Shi
et al. 2014; Ban et al. 2013). Thus, it is important to
have a good understanding of the hysteretic behav-
ior of HSS members.
This paper aims to evaluate the ultimate load
and ductility capacity of steel bridge piers with
stiffened box section under cyclic loadings. In the
present analysis, the modified two-surface model is
employed to model material nonlinearity. In what
follows, the effect of steel type on the cyclic inelastic
extensive parametric study is carried out to inves-
tigate the effects of the width-to-thickness ratio,
slenderness ratio, and axial compression force
ratio on the ultimate load and ductility of the steel
piers. Furthermore, a set of formulae is proposed
to evaluate the ultimate load and ductility capacity
of stiffened steel bridge box piers.
2 ANALYTICAL MODEL
2.1 Finite element model of steel bridge piers
To investigate the effects of main parameters on
the seismic behavior of stiffened steel bridge piers,
24 columns (as listed in Table 1) are analyzed using
the general finite-element software ABAQUS 6.11.
Analytical model of steel bridge piers is shown in
Fig.  1. Stiffened cross section for the lower part
where local buckling may occur and equivalent
unstiffened cross section for the upper part of
analytical steel bridge piers are shown in Fig.  2,
respectively. The stiffened sections are transformed
into equivalent unstiffened sections by defining
the equivalent flange and web thickness, t–f and
t–w for the beam element. Detailed description of
this transformation can be found in the reference

539
Table 1. Geometric dimensions and structural parameters of analytical columns.

h b t bs ts B tf tw Hy δy Steel
No. Rf λ λs γ/γ* α (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) P/Py (MN) (mm) type

1 0.25 0.149 2090 2.17 8.00

2 0.25 0.35 2926 625 92 645 22.30 29.99 1.55 15.67
3 0.45 3762 1.21 25.91
4 0.25 0.207 2968 2.95 11.62
5 0.35 0.35 4156 875 101 895 22.08 27.38 0.15 2.11 22.78
6 0.45 5343 1.64 37.66
7 0.25 0.272 3846 3.72 15.25
8 0.45 0.35 5384 1125 108 1145 21.86 25.95 2.66 29.89
9 0.45 6922 2.07 49.42
SM570
10 0.25 0.149 2090 1.79 6.59
11 0.25 0.35 2926 625 92 645 22.30 29.99 1.28 12.91
12 0.45 3762 0.99 21.34
13 0.25 0.207 3.0 0.50 2968 20 20 2.43 9.57
14 0.35 0.35 4156 875 101 895 22.08 27.38 0.30 1.74 18.76
15 0.45 5343 1.35 31.02
16 0.25 0.272 3846 3.06 12.56
17 0.45 0.35 5384 1125 108 1145 21.86 25.95 2.19 24.62
18 0.45 6922 1.70 40.70
19 0.25 0.35 0.147 4027 731 97 751 22.21 28.72 1.07 18.67
20 0.35 0.204 5707 1023 106 1043 21.95 26.49 0.15 1.45 26.98
21 0.45 0.269 7385 1315 113 1335 21.74 25.26 1.84 35.29
22 0.25 0.147 4027 731 97 751 22.21 28.72 0.88 15.37 SM490
23 0.35 0.204 5707 1023 106 1043 21.95 26.49 0.30 1.20 22.22
24 0.45 0.269 7385 1315 113 1335 21.74 25.26 1.51 29.06

Notes: Rf   =  width-to-thickness ratio, λ = column slenderness ratio, λ s   = stiffener’s equivalent slenderness ratio,
γ/γ* = stiffner’s rigidity ratio (in which γ  = rigidity of longitudinal stiffeners, γ* = optimum rigidity of longitudinal
stiffeners calculated by linear buckling theory), α   =  aspect ratio of the flange plate between two diaphragms (ld/b,
ld  = spacing between two transverse stiffeners), h  = column height, b  = flange width measured from web plate thick-
ness centerlines, equal to web height measured from flange plate thickness centerlines, t  = flange thickness, bs  = width
of stiffener, ts  = thickness of stiffener, B  = b+t, tf  = equivalent flange thickness, tw  = equivalent web thickness, P/
Py  = axial compression force ratio (where the axial yield force Py is computed when the full cross section is in plasticity).

Figure 2. Cross sections.

Figure 1. Analytical model of steel bridge piers. Figure 3. Cyclic loading pattern.

540
(Zheng et al. 2000). Subsequently, a large deforma-
tion finite element analysis procedure is carried out
to examine the behavior of columns subjected to
lateral cyclic loads (as shown in Fig. 1).
4-node reduced integrated shell element of S4R is
employed for simulating the 2B or 3ld lower part of
the column specimens, in which B and ld is the flange
width and distance between diaphragms, respectively.
For the lower part using shell elements, aspect ratio of
the flange plate between two diaphragms (i.e., ratios
of distance between diaphragms to flange width)
is 0.5. The upper part of column is modeled using
linear beam element B31 which is based on Timosh-
enko beam theory. For beam element, the mesh size is
100 mm. For shell element, to investigate and simulate
local buckling in detail, the meshing is refined locally
in the column lower part, and the minimum size of
refined meshing shell elements is 4 mm × 4 mm.
2.2 Structural parameters and cyclic
material model
Table 1 lists the geometric dimensions and struc-
tural parameters of 24 analytical columns. In this
paper, such parameters as width-thickness ratio
(Rf), column slenderness ratio (λ), stiffener’s equiva-
lent slenderness ratio ( λs ), axial compression force
ratio (P/Py), and material type of steel columns are
taken into account. These parameters are also the
main parameters considered in the practical design
(Usami et al. 2000; Ge et al. 2000). The structural
parameters of width-to-thickness ratio and slender-
ness ratio are determined as follows (Usami et  al.
2000; Ge et al. 2000; Ge & Kang 2012):

b σ y 12 ( − v )
Rf = (1)
t E π 2k

Figure 4. Modified two-surface model. Kh 1 σ y

λ= (2)
r π E
Table 2. Material parameters of SM490 and SM570.
where b = flange width measured from plate thickness
Steel type SM490 SM570 centerlines, t  = flange thickness, h  = column height,
E  = Young’s modulus, ν  = Poisson’s ratio and σy  = yield
Young’s modulus E (MPa) 206000 216000 stress, r = radius of gyration of cross section, k  = local
Initial strain hardening 7004 4363.2 buckling coefficient of a plate = 4n2; n  = number of
modulus E stp (MPa) subpanels in each plate panel ( = 3 for a section shown
Yield stress σy (MPa) 315 450 in Fig. 2(a)), K = effective length factor. The rigidity of
(True stress) longitudinal stiffeners (γ ) and the optimum rigidity of
Poisson ratio ν 0.30 0.30 longitudinal stiffeners (γ*) can be calculated by linear
Thickness t (mm) 20 20 buckling theory.
Strain at the onset of strain hard- 0.00918 0.004167
ening εst (True strain)
Initial value of boundary’s 2080.6 1695.6 ts bs3 / 3
γ = (3)
slope E 0,p in (MPa) bt 3 / 11
Size of initial elastic range 355.95 477
k0 (MPa) ⎛ b t ⎞ (α + )2
γ* 4α 2 n 1+ n s s ⎟ − (4)
Parameter e 306 700 ⎝ bt ⎠ n
Parameter f 99704 77976
Parameter a −0.528 -0.553 where bs  = width of stiffener, ts  = thickness of stiff-
Parameter b 1.88 6.47 ener, α  = aspect ratio of the flange plate between
Parameter c 18.7 34.8 two diaphragms (ld/b, ld   =  spacing between two
Parameter α 0.217 0.175
transverse stiffeners). The slenderness ratio of
Parameter M −0.522 0
stiffeners is defined as follows:
Extreme value of elastic range 507.15 549
k∞(tensile strength σu) (MPa)
Parameter ζ 650.07 1852.416 1 ld 1 σ y
λs = (5)
Parameter ω (mm2/N) 0.0127 0.005933 Q rs π E

541
where rs  =  radius of gyration of T-shaped cross
section and ld = spacing between two diaphragms
or transverse stiffeners, respectively. And Q stands
for the local buckling strength of sub-panels sur-
rounded by longitudinal stiffeners, which can be
expressed as follows:

1 ⎡
Q= β − β 2− 4R f ⎤⎦ ≤ 1.0 (6)
2R f ⎣

β = 1.33 f + 0.868 (7)

The constitutive law of modified two-surface

model (Shen et  al. 1995; Mamaghani et  al. 1995)
developed by the Nagoya University is employed
(as shown in Fig. 4), which is a satisfactory model
for predicting the cyclic hysteretic behavior of both
thin- and thick-walled steel box columns. And the
corresponding parameters are obtained from the
recommended values of steel materials (including
SM490 and SM570) in the reference (Mamaghani
et al. 1995), as given in Table 2.

3 ANALYTICAL RESULTS OF Figure 5. Effect of steel type on seismic performance of

PARAMETRIC STUDY steel bridge piers.

To investigate the effects of steel type, width-to-

thickness ratio, slenderness ratio and axial com-
pression force ratio on the seismic behavior of steel
bridge piers, 24 steel bridge piers are analyzed.
The scope of parameters considered: SM570 and
SM490, Rf   = 0.25–0.45, λ = 0.25–0.45, P/Py   =
0.15–0.30.
where My  =  yield moment of cross section;
PE = Euler’s buckling load of a cantilever column;
Pu = ultimate strength of centrally loaded column,
which is determined from the following equation
adopted in the Japanese specification for road
bridges (JRA 2002).

3.1 Effect of steel type (SM570 and SM490) ⎧ 1.0

⎪
( λ ≤ 0.2 )
Pu ⎪
First of all, Fig. 5 demonstrates hysteresis curves = ⎨ 1.109 − 0.545λ
P ⎪
( 0.2 ≤ λ ≤ 1.0 ) (10)
of steel bridge piers made of SM570 (No. 5  in
Table 1) and SM490 (No. 20  in Table 1), which ( ) ( λ ≥ 1.0 )
⎪⎩ 1 / 0.773 + λ 2
have the same width-to-thickness ratio, slenderness
ratio and axial compression force ratio (Rf  = 0.35, The yield lateral displacement, δy, is then cal-
λ   =  0.35, P/Py  =  0.15). After obtaining the lat- culated as follows without including the effect of
eral load-lateral displacement curve (as shown transverse shear deformation:
in Fig.  5(a)), the yield lateral load, Hy, and yield
lateral displacement, δy, will be employed to non- H y h3
dimensionalize the curves (as shown in Fig. 5(b)). δy = (11)
Here, Hy is taken as the smaller one from the fol- 3EI
lowing two equations (Usami & Ge 1998):
From the dimensionless hysteretic curves in
Fig.  5(b), it is observed that the load capacity
My ⎛ P ⎞⎛ P⎞ and ductility capacity of steel bridge pier made
Hy = ⎜ 1 − ⎟ ⎜1 − ⎟ (8) of SM570 is almost equal to those of steel bridge
0.85h ⎝ PE ⎠ ⎝ Pu ⎠
pier made of SM490. However, the following
My ⎛ P⎞ important observation can be made from the
Hy = ⎜1 − ⎟ (9) dimensional hysteretic curves in Fig. 5(a) that the
h ⎝ Py ⎠ ultimate load of steel bridge pier made of SM570

542
is approximately 1.33 times that of steel bridge 3.2 Effect of width-to-thickness ratio (Rf)
pier made of SM490. Furthermore, the same
Fig.  7 illustrates the lateral load-lateral displace-
results can be obtained from the other compari-
ment envelope curves of steel bridge piers for dif-
sons between analytical cases (such as No. 2 and
ferent values of Rf corresponding to λ =  0.25,
No. 19, No. 8 and No. 21, No. 11 and No. 22, No.
0.35, 0.45, P/Py   =  0.15 and 0.30, respectively. In
14 and No. 23, No. 17 and No. 24). Besides, it is
which, Fig. 7(a) and Fig. 7(d), which have the small-
obtained from Fig.  6 that the steel bridge piers
est slenderness ratio, are selected to be studied. It
made of SM570 have better ductility capacity.
is found from Fig.  7(a) that the ratio of ultimate

Figure 6. Effect of steel type on lateral load-lateral displacement envelope curves.

Figure 7. Effect of width-to-thickness ratio on lateral load-lateral displacement envelope curves.

543
load and yield lateral load (Hmax/Hy) is 1.73, 1.57,
1.48, respectively, and the ratio of ultimate dis-
placement and yield lateral displacement (δmax/δy)
is 8.0, 6.0, 4.0, respectively. From Fig.  7(d), Hmax/
Hy is 1.92, 1.73, 1.61, respectively, and δmax/δy is 7.0,
5.0, 4.0, respectively. On one hand, it can be con-
cluded that the ultimate load and its correspond-
ing displacement increase with the decrease in Rf.
On the other hand, larger P/Py leads to larger Hmax/
Hy and smaller δmax/δy. Clearly, the steel bridge
piers with larger P/Py have better load capacity and
worse ductility capacity. Besides, the slope of post-
buckling curve becomes steeper as Rf increases in
both cases of λ = 0.35 and 0.45. In conclusion, the
parameter Rf has a great influence on the ultimate
load and ductility of the steel bridge piers.
3.3 Effect of slenderness ratio (λ)
Fig. 8 illustrates the lateral load-lateral displacement
envelope curves of steel bridge piers for different
Figure 8. Effect of slenderness ratio on lateral load-lateral displacement envelope curves.
Figure 9. Effect of axial compression force ratio on lateral load-lateral displacement envelope curves.
544
values of λ corresponding to Rf  =  0.25, 0.35,
0.45, P/Py  = 0.15 and 0.30, respectively. In which,
Fig.  8(a) and Fig.  8(d), which have the smallest
slenderness ratio, are selected to be studied. From
Fig.  8(a), it is can be seen that Hmax/Hy is 1.73,
1.69, 1.62, respectively, and δmax/δy is 8.0, 7.0, 6.0,
respectively. It is found from Fig. 8(d) that Hmax/Hy
is 1.92, 1.83, 1.71, respectively, and δmax/δy is 7.0,
7.0, 6.0, respectively. Although both the ultimate
load and ductility increases with the decrease of
λ and the slope of post-buckling curve becomes
smoother with the decrease of λ , the effect of λ
is much lower than that of Rf. Analytical results
suggest that the pier with a section of small section
compactness and small column slenderness ratio
presents a better seismic behavior.
3.4 Effect of axial compression force ratio (P/Py)
The effect of axial load on the seismic behavior of
steel box columns is illustrated in Fig. 9. It should
be noted that Hy0 and δy0 that represent, respectively, In order to accurately predict the load capac-
the yield lateral load and yield lateral displace- ity and ductility capacity of steel bridge pier
ment corresponding to the absence of axial load, made of SM570, the following new equations
are employed to non-dimensionalize the curves to and corresponding application scope of them are
highlight the influence of axial load. As axial load obtained based on analytical results in this study
increases, the ultimate load and its corresponding as following:
displacement decrease because of P-Δ effect.
H max 0.06
= + 1.20 (S = . ) (12)
( )
0.5
Hy R f λλs′
4 RECOMMENDED FORMULAE OF
ULTIMATE LOAD AND DUCTILITY
CAPACITY IN SEISMIC DESIGN δ max 0.13
= + 1.50 (S = )
( )
. (13)
δy R f λλλs′
Ultimate load and ductility capacity are important
consideration in seismic design. If a structure has a
δ 95 0.19
good ductility capacity beyond the elastic limit, its = + 2.200 (S 0 37 ) (14)
design strength can be substantially reduced. δy ( )
1+ P / Py R f λλ
λ′s

( .25 f 0.45, 00..2255 λ 0.45, / y 0.3,

γ / γ * ≥ 3.. )

In which, S is standard deviation. The above

regression equations are plotted in Fig.  10, in
which M curve is average curve, M-S curve is
standard deviation curve and M-2S curve is vari-
ance curve. The prediction results obtained from
proposed equations are in a good agreement with
analytical results.

5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

By performing parametric analysis of SM570 and

SM490 steel bridge piers with stiffened box section
under cyclic loading, a set of formulae for predict-
ing the strength and ductility of steel bridge piers
made of SM570 is proposed. The influences of
steel type, width-to-thickness ratio, slenderness
ratio and axial compression force ratio on the seis-
mic performance of steel bridge piers are inves-
tigated. Based on the analytical results, the main
conclusions are drawn as follows:
1. The effect of steel type on the seismic behavior of
steel bridge piers under cyclic loading is investi-
gated. The steel piers made of SM570 have higher
load capacity, but worse ductility capacity.
2. It is observed that for the most cases, the com-
puted results are close to the existing fitted
curves in the former study. However, when the
value of horizontal axis becomes small, the
curves will predict higher results, especially for
the steel bridge piers made of SM570.
3. The formulae for determining the strength and
ductility of stiffened steel bridge box piers made
of SM570 are proposed. The prediction results
Figure 10. Comparison between analytical results and obtained from proposed equations of this paper
presented equations in this study. agree well with analytical results.

545
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The study is supported in part by grants from the
Advanced Research Center for Natural Disaster
Risk Reduction, Meijo University, which sup-
ported by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan. Besides,
the authors also wish to thank the National Nat-
ural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
51508205) for providing support for the authors to
conduct this study.
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Tubular sections and members
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Experimental study on cold-formed steel semi-oval hollow section columns

M.T. Chen & B. Young

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

ABSTRACT: The semi-oval hollow section, which is composed of one semi-circular flange, one flat
flange and two flat web plates, is a recently emerged cross-section type. Currently, there is no structural
design guidance for this cross-section due to the lack of investigation. This paper herein presents the
experimental investigation of cold-formed steel semi-oval hollow section columns. The test program com-
prised tensile coupon tests, geometric imperfection measurements, five fixed-ended stub column tests
and nine pin-ended short column tests. The ultimate load-carrying capacities, full load-displacement
responses and failure modes of the test specimens are presented. Since the current design rules do not
cover the semi-oval hollow sections presented in this study, the experimental results were only compared
against design strengths predicted by the Direct Strength Method, in which the design equations were
originally calibrated by cold-formed steel open sections with flat elements, to assess its applicability to the
semi-oval hollow section columns.

1 INTRODUCTION

Tubular members have gained in popularity in

recent years, particularly for exposed steelwork for
aesthetic purposes. The closed nature of tubular
sections brings quantities of merits to the struc-
tures, such as high resistance to compression and
bending due to the high torsional stiffness, abil-
ity to provide permanent formwork for concrete
infilled structures, aesthetic appearance as well as
easy structural adjustment for innovative architec-
tural forms. The tubular sections available in the
steel manufacturing industry have a common char-
acteristic that they have either all flat plates (e.g.
Rectangular and square hollow sections) or con-
tinuous curved plate (e.g. Circular and elliptical
hollow sections). However, tubular sections with
flat and curved plates, such as the semi-oval hollow
section (SOHS) investigated in this study, can be
easily cold-formed by rolling.
The semi-oval hollow section is composed of
one semi-circular flange, one flat flange and two
flat web plates, as shown in Figure  1a. Such sec-
tion has emerged as a brand-new addition to the
range of tubular hollow section products available
to structural engineers and architects. As a struc-
turally efficient and aesthetically pleasing section,
there is a lack of investigation on this newly devel-
oped section type and hence a dearth of design
information on such section.
This paper is intended to study the compressive
behavior of cold-formed steel semi-oval hollow
sections through experimental investigation. Five
SOHS stub columns and nine SOHS short columns
Figure  1. Cross-sectional view of SOHS. (a) Cross-
section geometry; (b) Locations of tensile coupon
specimens.
were tested in fixed-ended and pin-ended condi-
tions, respectively. The geometric imperfections were
measured prior to the column tests. The ultimate
load-carrying capacities, full load-displacement
responses as well as failure mode of SOHS fixed-
ended and pin-ended columns are presented and
discussed. It should be noted that the current
design specifications for cold-formed steel struc-
tures (ANSI/AISC 360 2016, AISI S100 2016, AS/
NZS 4600 2005, EN 1993-1-1 2005) do not cover the
design for tubular sections with both flat and curved
plates, such as SOHS investigated in this study. How-
ever, the Direct Strength Method (DSM) detailed in
the AISI S100 (2016) can be used for determining
the column strengths of SOHS. This is because the
DSM involves finite strip buckling analysis, which

549
is applicable for arbitrary cross-sections. Despite the
fact that the DSM design equations were originally
calibrated by open sections with plate elements, the
applicability of the DSM for the newly developed
cold-formed steel semi-oval hollow section columns
is assessed in this study.
2 EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES
column and a pin-ended column, respectively. The
following letter L together with the number desig-
nate the length of the actual specimen, whereas the
symbol # denotes a repeated test. The measured
specimen dimensions are reported in Table  1 and
Table 2, where ro and ri are the external and internal
corner radii, respectively, and L is the actual speci-
men length.

2.1 Test specimens 2.2 Tensile coupon tests

The test specimens consisted of five fixed-ended
stub columns and nine pin-ended short columns.
All the SOHS investigated in this study were cold-
formed from hot-extruded seamless steel circular
hollow sections. The test specimens are categorized
into four series according to the cross-section geom-
etry of SOHS as defined using the nomenclature in
Figure 1a. The nominal dimensions (D × B × t) of
SOHS are 93 × 62 × 5.5, 107 × 68 × 6.5, 108 × 79 × 5.5
and 125  ×  85  ×  6.5, where D, B, t are the overall
depth, overall width and thickness of the sections,
respectively. The nominal aspect ratio (D/B) of the
specimens varies slightly from 1.37 to 1.57. All the
SOHS are labelled such that the nominal cross-sec-
tion geometry, the specimen type and the specimen
length can be identified. The letters SC and C in
the last part of the specimen label indicate a stub
To examine the material stress-strain response and
strength enhancement due to the cold-forming
process of the test specimens, 12 tensile coupon
tests were conducted for four series of SOHS.
Three tensile coupon specimens were extracted
from each section at the locations as shown in
Figure  1b. The dimensions of flat coupon speci-
men conformed to the American standard ASTM
E8M (2015). The curved coupon specimen
extracted from the semi-circular portion and the
corner coupon specimen were also prepared for
testing to examine the strength enhancement due
to the cold-forming process of the specimens. All
tensile coupon specimens were tested on a 50 kN
capacity MTS machine using the test rigs previ-
ously adopted by Chen & Young (2016a, b). The
testing procedures and loading rates recommended

Table 1. Measured dimensions and local geometric imperfection of fixed-ended stub column specimens.

ωl

D B t ro ri L Convex Concave
Specimen (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)

93 × 62 × 5.5-SCL235 93.4 62.0 5.58 15.5 9.9 234.4 0.153 −0.205

107 × 68 × 6.5-SCL270 107.2 67.7 6.34 16.7 10.4 269.9 0.122 −0.584
108 × 79 × 5.5-SCL270 108.2 78.8 5.52 12.4 6.9 271.5 0.110 −0.250
108 × 79 × 5.5-SCL270# 108.4 79.0 5.51 12.6 7.1 271.5 0.111 −0.287
125 × 85 × 6.5-SCL313 124.7 84.8 6.45 17.2 10.7 313.0 0.205 −0.459

Table 2. Measured dimensions and global geometric imperfection of pin-ended short column specimens.

D B t ro ri L ωg
Specimen (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)

93 × 62 × 5.5-CL200 93.6 61.9 5.43 14.5 9.0 200 0.000

107 × 68 × 6.5-CL200 107.3 68.0 6.15 16.8 10.7 200 0.000
108 × 79 × 5.5-CL200 108.3 79.0 5.57 12.7 7.1 200 0.000
125 × 85 × 6.5-CL200 124.9 85.0 6.45 16.9 10.5 200 0.000
93 × 62 × 5.5-CL440 93.3 62.1 5.12 14.4 9.3 440 0.000
107 × 68 × 6.5-CL440 107.4 67.9 6.39 16.4 10.0 440 0.254
108 × 79 × 5.5-CL440 108.4 79.0 5.59 13.0 7.4 440 0.000
108 × 79 × 5.5-CL440# 108.3 79.1 5.50 13.5 8.0 440 0.127
125 × 85 × 6.5-CL440 124.9 85.1 6.45 16.7 10.2 440 0.076

550
by Huang & Young (2014) for cold-formed carbon with two located near the corners of the section and
steel coupon specimens were adopted in this study. one at the mid-portion of the flat plate as shown in
Tests were paused for 100  seconds at three loca- Figure 2. Measurement was taken at a 5 mm inter-
tions (i.e. near 0.2% proof stress, ultimate strength val along the specimen length. For the purpose of
and post-ultimate stage) to allow for stress relaxa- eliminating the possible local imperfection induced
tion and to obtain the static stress-strain relation- by cold sawing of the specimen, measurements were
ship. The static material properties for coupon started and terminated 30 mm away from the ends
specimens from the three different locations could of the specimens. Such procedure was repeated at
be further obtained from static stress-strain curves each of the three flat faces of the five specimens. The
and are summarized in Table  3, where E is the local plate imperfections of flat faces were taken to
Young’s modulus, σ0.2 is the 0.2% tensile proof be the deviation between the measurements at the
stress, σu is the ultimate tensile strength and εf is mid-portion and a straight datum line connect-
the tensile strain at fracture. For each of the four ing the measurements at the corners of the section
series of SOHS, different types of column speci- as shown in Figure  2a. For the semi-circular face
mens were from the same batch of material. Hence, (face B) of the section, one LVDT was employed to
it is reasonable to adopt the results of the tensile inspect the concavity/convexity along the specimen
coupon tests to represent the material properties of length at the tip of semi-circular portion. Similarly,
all column specimens. the measurement was taken longitudinally at 5 mm
interval. The measurement was corrected with refer-
ence to the datum taken as a straight line connecting
2.3 Geometric imperfection measurements
the start and end measurement points.
2.3.1 Initial local geometric imperfection
Prior to testing, the initial local geometric imper-
fections were measured for each SOHS. For each
of the four series of sections, all test specimens
were cut and machined from the same batch of
tubes. Therefore, it is reasonable to measure the
initial local geometric imperfections on the five
stub columns only but not specifically on each test
specimen, and use the measured results to repre-
sent the initial local imperfections induced in the
forming process for each section.
Figure 2 shows the setup and the Linear Variable
Displacement Transducers (LVDTs) arrangement
of the measurement as well as the sign convention
of measured local imperfection. The specimens were
placed on a measurement platform and a set of three
LVDTs with an accuracy of 0.001 mm was affixed
to the head of a milling machine. For the three flat
faces of the section, i.e. Faces A, C and D as shown
in Figure 2a, the local geometric imperfections were
assumed to be zero at the corners and the maximum
local plate imperfection was anticipated to occur Figure  2. Setup of local geometric imperfection
at the mid-portion of the webs and flange. In this measurement. (a) Schematic view; (b) Experimental
case, three LVDTs were positioned on the specimen arrangement.

Table 3. Measured material properties obtained from tensile coupon tests.

Flat (TC1) Curved (TC2) Corner (TC3)

E σ0.2 σu εf E σ0.2 σu εf E σ0.2 σu εf

Section (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%) (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) (%)

93 × 62 × 5.5 204.0 453.5 548.8 22 211.1 444.4 550.9 23 211.1 511.1 599.7 16
107 × 68 × 6.5 211.0 475.3 548.3 20 209.2 449.6 539.8 26 210.1 518.1 605.3 16
108 × 79 × 5.5 205.6 459.6 555.4 27 199.0 365.7 544.8 26 185.5 506.7 625.1 17
125 × 85 × 6.5 206.7 438.8 530.4 26 204.0 419.0 531.0 28 203.1 486.0 576.9 19

551
Figure  3. Measured local geometric imperfection pro-
file for specimen 93 × 62 × 5.5-SCL235.
Figure 3 depicts the typical measured local geo-
metric imperfection profile along the four faces for
specimen 93  ×  62  ×  5.5-SCL235. The maximum
local geometric imperfections ωl inherent in each
of five stub column specimens are reported in
Table 1.
2.3.2 Initial global geometric imperfection
Initial global geometric imperfections ωg of the
pin-ended column was obtained based on the
measurements taken on flat flange near the corner
at mid-height and near both ends of the specimen
in the buckling direction using a Leica TCR405
total-station prior to testing. The sign convention
and the location of measurement are shown in Fig-
ure 4. The measured values are reported in Table 2.
2.4 Stub column tests
Stub column tests were conducted for each cold-
formed steel SOHS to assess the material prop-
erties, load-carrying capacities and load-end
shortening histories of the complete cross-sections
in the cold-worked state between fixed ends under
uniform axial compression. A total of 5 stub col-
umn tests was performed between fixed ends. The
nominal length of the stub columns was taken to
be 2.5 times the overall depth of the cross-section
such that the stub columns were sufficiently long
to provide a valid measure of the stress-strain
relationship and load-end shortening history as
averaged over the cross-section with considera-
tion of representative distribution of geometric
imperfections and residual stresses induced in the
cold-forming process, but suitably short to avoid
flexural or torsional buckling in the elastic or plas-
tic range. The ends of specimens were milled flat to
achieve the uniform loading over the cross-section
and accurate seating in the testing machine. A pair
552
Figure  4. Setup of pin-ended column test. (a) Sche-
matic view; (b) Experimental arrangement.
of special clamping devices with a height of 25 mm
was installed near the two ends of specimens with
a small gap of around 3 mm between the clamping
devices and the adjacent bearing plates in order to
avoid premature end failure.
The schematic illustration of the test setup and a
view of experimental arrangement of stub column
test are shown in Figure 5. The test setup consisted
of four LVDTs to determine the average end short-
ening, three strain gauges attached on the mid-
height of specimen near the two corners and at the
tip of semi-circular portion to measure the axial
strain and one additional strain gauge to detect the
initiation of local bucking, if any, as depicted in
Figure  5. The stub columns were compressed in
an INSTRON hydraulic testing machine, at a con-
stant speed of 0.5 mm/min. The applied displace-
ment was paused for 100 seconds near the ultimate
load. Therefore, static stress-strain responses and
load-end shortening histories can be obtained and
are depicted in Figure 6.
In order to identify the cross-sectional material
properties obtained from stub column tests, an
additional subscript SC is added to the labels. The
cross-sectional material properties, ultimate load-

Figure  5. Setup of fixed-ended stub column test. (a)
Schematic view; (b) Experimental arrangement.
Figure  6. Results from fixed-ended stub column tests.
(a) Static stress-strain responses; (b) Static load-end
shortening histories.
553
carrying capacities and the corresponding end
shortenings are summarized in Tables  4–5. The
effective length (Le) of the stub column was taken
as half of the specimen length, as shown in Table 5.
The obained cross-sectional material properties
were further compared with the material proper-
ties obtained from tensile coupon specimens with
the lowest 0.2% proof strength as shown in Table 4.
From the comparison, the 0.2% proof strength and
the ultimate strength from stub column tests are
larger than those from tensile coupon tests. This
demonstrates the full utilization of cross-section
axial capacity. In terms of failure mode, no local
buckling was observed during the tests. To fur-
ther distinguish whether the column was failed by
cross-section yielding, the squash load (Py) of the
column specimen, which is calculated as the sum
of the 0.2% proof stresses at the flat, semi-circular
and corner portions multiply by their correspond-
ing cross-section areas, is compared with its ulti-
mate load-carrying capacity. The failure mode of
column was considered to be cross-section yield-
ing when the ultimate strength is greater than the
squash load of the column specimen. It is shown
in Table  5 that the ratio of ultimate strength to
squash load for all SOHS stub column specimens
is greater than unity, which indicates that all the
SOHS stub columns failed by cross-section yield-
ing, hence the SOHS investigated herein are con-
sidered as compact sections. Photo of failed stub
column specimens is shown in Figure 7a.
2.5 Pin-ended column tests
Column tests were conducted between pinned ends
to examine the load-carrying capacities and load-
end shortening histories of the cold-formed steel
SOHS. A total of 9  short column tests was per-
formed between pinned ends. The column speci-
mens were cut to specified specimen lengths of
200 and 440 mm with both ends milled flat before
welding of 25.4 mm thick end plates.
The test setup and test rig of pin-ended column
are shown in Figure  4. A special bearing system,
which consists of a pair of pit plates with V-shaped
grooves and wedge plates with knife-edges, was
designed to replicate pinned end conditions and
to allow free rotations about major axis as well
as to restrain rotations about the orthogonal axis.
The pit plates were fixed at both top and bottom.
The specimens were adjusted on the slotted wedge
plates to a designated eccentricity (the aimed eccen-
tricity of zero for column tests in this case) before
being bolted to the wedge plates. Three LVDTs
were installed to measure both the end shortening
and end rotation of the specimens. In addition,
two LVDTs were installed at the mid-height of the
specimen on the two sides in the bending plane to
Table 4. Cross-sectional material properties obtained from stub column tests.

ESC σ0.2-SC σu-SC σ 0.2 -SC σ u SC

Specimen (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) σ 0.2 -TC σ u TC
93 × 62 × 5.5-SCL235 209.2 485.9 585.3 1.09 1.06
107 × 68 × 6.5-SCL270 220.6 491.3 604.1 1.09 1.12
108 × 79 × 5.5-SCL270 214.4 458.7 556.4 1.25 1.02
108 × 79 × 5.5-SCL270# 210.1 465.9 554.3 1.27 1.02
125 × 85 × 6.5-SCL313 215.7 452.1 550.8 1.08 1.04

Table 5. Results from column tests and comparison of test strengths with design predictions.

Pexp Pexp
Pexp δu Le e + ωg Py
Specimen (kN) (mm) (mm) (mm) (kN) Py PDSM

93 × 62 × 5.5-SCL235 828.1 6.6 117 – 650.0 1.27 1.32

93 × 62 × 5.5-CL200 715.1 3.7 374 0.34 635.2 1.13 1.20
93 × 62 × 5.5-CL440 620.6 2.3 614 0.08 599.8 1.03 1.11
107 × 68 × 6.5-SCL270 1097.9 8.8 135 – 859.6 1.28 1.34
107 × 68 × 6.5-CL200 1002.1 4.5 374 0.20 836.7 1.20 1.28
107 × 68 × 6.5-CL440 885.0 3.0 614 0.03 868.0 1.02 1.10
108 × 79 × 5.5-SCL270 959.8 6.8 136 – 741.0 1.30 1.52
108 × 79 × 5.5-SCL270# 955.7 5.5 136 – 740.8 1.29 1.52
108 × 79 × 5.5-CL200 929.0 4.2 374 0.08 747.2 1.24 1.48
108 × 79 × 5.5-CL440 828.2 3.0 614 0.08 749.8 1.10 1.33
108 × 79 × 5.5-CL440# 812.1 3.0 614 0.08 737.5 1.10 1.33
125 × 85 × 6.5-SCL313 1235.8 8.1 157 – 982.1 1.26 1.31
125 × 85 × 6.5-CL200 1174.6 5.0 374 0.56 983.4 1.19 1.28
125 × 85 × 6.5-CL440 1103.2 6.3 614 0.01 984.7 1.12 1.19
Mean 1.31
COV 0.101

capture the real-time horizontal deflection of the
columns during loading. To determine the loading
eccentricities, three strain gauges were attached on
two faces in the bending plane at the mid-height of
each specimen, to be more specific, one at the tip
of semi-circular flange and two on the flat flange
near the corners, at which the extreme compressive
and tensile fibers located, as shown in Figure  4a.
The applied load, readings of strain gauges and
lateral deflection in the bending direction at mid-
height were recorded to derive the actual loading
eccentricity of the specimen. During the initial
stage of the test, the bending moments of the speci-
mens at mid-height can be expressed as P(e+ωg+Δ)
or EIyκ within the elastic range. By equating EIyκ
with P(e+ωg+Δ), the measured loading eccentricity
including the initial global geometric imperfection
can be determined by (e+ωg) = EIyκ/P−Δ, where EIy
is the flexural rigidity of the cross-section about the
major axis, κ is the curvature of the specimen and
is expressed as the strain gradient of the section
under bending, P is the applied compressive load, e
is the eccentricity at specimen ends, ωg is the initial
global geometric imperfection and Δ is the lateral
deflection of specimen at mid-height in the bend-
ing direction. With reference to the readings of
strain gauges under a certain amount of preload-
ing within elastic range, the position of specimen
was further adjusted until an acceptable eccentric-
ity was achieved. Although the eccentricities of
column specimens were aimed at zero, there existed
an unintentional eccentricity for each specimen,
the values of which are reported in Table  5. The
largest measured eccentricity (e + ωg) of 0.56 mm
and the average measured eccentricity of 0.16 mm
indicate the excellent alignment of the column
specimens. Displacement-control with a constant
speed of 0.5 mm/min was used to apply the axial
compression load to the specimens. The applied
displacement was paused for 100 seconds near the

554

Figure  7. Failed SOHS column specimens. (a) Fixed-
ended stub columns; (b) Pin-ended short columns with
L = 440 mm.
Figure  8. Load-end shortening responses for SOHS
pin-ended short column tests. (a) L  =  200  mm; (b)
L = 440 mm.
555
ultimate load to obtain the static responses of spec-
imens. The load, readings from LVDTs and strain
gauges were recorded at 1 second interval by a data
acquisition system.
The experimental load-carrying capacities, the
end shortenings at ultimate, the effective lengths
and the measured eccentricities of column speci-
mens are reported in Table 5. The effective length
of the pin-ended column specimen was measured
between the tips of knife-edged wedges at two ends
as shown in Figure 4a, which is equal to the sum of
specimen length, the thicknesses of two end plates
(50.8 mm) and the heights of the two wedge plates
(122.8 mm). The ultimate load-carrying capacities
of pin-ended short columns are less than those
of fixed-ended stub columns as expected. All the
SOHS pin-ended short columns were failed by
cross-section yielding evidenced by the values of
the ratio of ultimate strength to squash load larger
than one. Besides the results shown in Table 5, the
static load-end shortening responses for SOHS
pin-ended short column specimens are depicted in
Figure 8. Photo of failed pin-ended columns with
specimen length of 440 mm is shown in Figure 7b.
3 DESIGN RULES
3.1 General
The semi-oval hollow section investigated in this
study consists of both curved (semi-circular) and
flat plates. The current design specifications for
structural use of cold-formed steel (ANSI/AISC
360 2016, AISI S100 2016, AS/NZS 4600 2005, EN
1993-1-1 2005) are not able to predict the buckling
behavior of semi-circular plate with ends supported
by two flat plates nor calculating the effective sec-
tion or stress for such semi-circular plate, and hence
unable to predict the behavior of SOHS in this
study. However, the finite strip method used by the
Direct Strength Method as detailed in AISI S100
(2016) is applicable to arbitrary cross-sections for
critical elastic buckling stress prediction. The load-
carrying capacities of cold-formed steel SOHS col-
umns were only compared with the nominal axial
strengths (unfactored design axial strengths) pre-
dicted by the Direct Strength Method. The material
properties from the location with the lowest 0.2%
proof stress were used in design strength calcula-
tion for conservative prediction. Before evaluating
the nominal axial strengths of pin-ended columns,
the effect of the additional bending moments
induced by the unintentional eccentricities on the
design strengths was quantified by comparing the
column design strengths calculated by consider-
ing the ideal case with zero eccentricity with the
counterpart calculated by considering measured
eccentricities (e + ωg). However, the design specifi-
cations for member under combined compression
and bending are not included in the DSM. In this
case, the interaction equation for member under
combined compression and bending as detailed in
Clause H1.2 of the AISI S100 (2016) was adopted
for design strength calculation with the nominal
axial strength and nominal flexural strength deter-
mined from the DSM. Based on this method, the
largest differences between the two calculations for
sections 93 × 62 × 5.5, 107 × 68 × 6.5, 108 × 79 × 5.5
and 125 × 85 × 6.5 are 1.7%, 0.9% 0.3% and 2.0%,
respectively. The maximum difference of 2.0%
indicates that the columns were properly aligned
and the effect of unintentional eccentricity on col-
umn strength prediction is small.
3.2 Direct strength method
The Direct Strength Method (DSM) for column
design is detailed in Chapter E of the AISI S100
(2016). The nominal axial strength was determined
by the minimum of the nominal axial strengths for
flexural, torsional or flexural-torsional buckling as
well as local buckling and distortional buckling. No
distortional buckling was observed from the tests.
The critical elastic column buckling load for local
buckling was obtained from CUFSM program
using the finite strip method (Schafer & Ádány
2006) and that for overall buckling was obtained in
accordance with AISI S100 (2016). The mean value
of test-to-design strength ratio is 1.31 with the cor-
responding COV of 0.101 as shown in Table 5. It
is found that the Direct Strength Method provides
quite conservative predictions to cold-formed steel
SOHS compressive members in this study.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Experimental investigation on compressive behav-
ior of cold-formed steel semi-oval hollow section
(SOHS) has been presented in this paper. The ini-
tial local and global geometric imperfections were
measured prior to testing. The material proper-
ties of the SOHS were obtained by both tensile
coupon tests and stub column tests. A series of
fixed-ended stub column tests and pin-ended short
column tests was carried out to assess the load-car-
rying capacity and load-end shortening response
of SOHS. It was found that all column specimens
failed in cross-section yielding. The experimen-
tal results of cold-formed steel SOHS columns
obtained from this study were compared with the
556
design strengths predicted by the Direct Strength
Method. The results show that the current design
approach specified in the DSM is quite conserva-
tive. The test strengths could reach on average of
31% higher than the DSM predictions for the cold-
formed steel SOHS compressive members.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors are grateful to Shenyang Dongyang
Special Section Tube for supplying the test speci-
mens. The authors are also thankful to Miss Hoi-
Kiu CHAN for her assistance in the experimental
program as part of her final year undergraduate
research project at The University of Hong Kong.
The research work described in this paper was
supported by a grant from the Research Grants
Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region, China (Project No. 17267416).
REFERENCES
AISI S100 2016. North American Specification for the
design of cold-formed steel structural members.
American Iron and Steel Institute, Washington, D.C.,
USA.
ANSI/AISC 360 2016. Specification for Structural Steel
Buildings. American Institute of Steel Construction,
Chicago-Illinois, USA.
ASTM E8M 2015. Standard Test Methods for Tension
Testing of Metallic Materials. West Conshohocken,
P.A., USA.
AS/NZS 4600 2005. Cold-formed steel structure. Stand-
ards Australia/Standards New Zealand, Sydney,
Australia.
Chen, M.T. & Young, B. 2016a. Tests of cold-formed steel
elliptical hollow section beams. 7th International Con-
ference on Coupled Instabilities in Metal Structures,
7–8 November 2016. Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Chen, M.T. & Young, B. 2016b. Experimental investiga-
tion on flexural behavior of cold-formed steel semi-
oval hollow sections. Eighth International Conference
on Steel and Aluminium Structures, 7–9 December
2016. Hong Kong, China.
EN 1993-1-1 2005. Design of steel structures–Part 1.1:
General rules and rules for buildings. European Com-
mittee for Standardization, Brussels, Belgium.
Huang, Y. & Young, B. 2014. The art of coupon tests.
Journal of Constructional Steel Research 96: 159–175.
Schafer, B. & Ádány, S. 2006. Buckling analysis of cold-
formed steel members using CUFSM: conventional
and constrained finite strip methods. Eighteenth
international specialty conference on cold-formed steel
structures, Orlando, FL, USA.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

On the post-buckling behaviour and imperfection sensitivity of regular

convex polygonal columns

R. Gonçalves
CERIS, ICIST and Departamento de Engenharia Civil, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia,
Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal

D. Camotim & André D. Martins

CERIS, ICIST, DECivil, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

ABSTRACT: This paper presents and discusses numerical results concerning the elastic post-buckling
behaviour and imperfection sensitivity of Regular Convex Polygonal cross-Section (RCPS) tubes under
uniform compression (columns) and affected by interaction between local and distortional buckling. As
the authors showed previously, these tubes are characterised by duplicate bifurcation modes (local or
distortional) and, for some geometries, local and distortional buckling may occur simultaneously (local-
distortional interaction). A particularly efficient Generalised Beam Theory (GBT) non-linear formula-
tion, specialised for RCPS tubes and employed earlier to characterise their bifurcation behaviour, is used
to help pinpoint the occurrence of possible coupling phenomena. The post-buckling results presented and
discussed concern columns with different ratios between the critical local and distortional buckling loads,
and containing critical-mode initial geometrical imperfections. They are obtained through Abaqus shell
finite element analyses and make it possible to draw a few conclusions on the post-buckling behaviour of
RCPS columns affected by local-distortional interaction.

1 INTRODUCTION that RCPS members (i) may indeed be susceptible

Thin-walled tubes with regular convex polygonal
cross-sections (RCPS) are widely used in the con-
struction industry, namely in towers and posts sup-
porting lighting equipment and overhead power
lines. Although it is undeniable that the local
(plate-type) buckling and post-buckling behav-
iour of hollow-section members (including RCPS
members) is nowadays very well understood (e.g.
Timoshenko & Gere 1961 or Wittrick & Curzon
1968), with the corresponding knowledge already
adequately reflected in the current design specifi-
cation worldwide, the same is not true as far as the
distortional buckling and post-buckling behaviour
of RCPS members is concerned.
In order to contribute towards bridging this
gap, the authors carried out, in the last few years,
an in-depth investigation aimed at characterising
the structural behaviour of RCPS tubular mem-
bers taking advantage of the unique modal decom-
position features provided by Generalised Beam
Theory (GBT − see, e.g., Schardt 1989, Camotim
et al. 2010a,b, Gonçalves et al. 2010 or Gonçalves
& Camotim 2012). Such investigation (Gonçalves &
Camotim 2013a,b,c and 2014) unveiled striking and
surprising peculiar behavioural features, namely
to cross-section distortion (in-plane and out-of-
plane deformation), (ii) exhibit duplicate local and
distortional buckling (as well as vibration) modes
for a wide range of geometries with practical inter-
est, and (iii) are prone to the interaction between
local and distortional buckling (nearly coincident
local and distortional critical buckling loads).
Therefore, their post-buckling behaviour is bound
to be affected by local-distortional mode interaction
effects and may also exhibit imperfection sensitivity.
This paper presents and discusses the avail-
able (preliminary) results of an ongoing numerical
investigation on the elastic post-buckling behav-
iour and imperfection sensitivity of RCPS tubes
subjected to uniform compression and affected by
local-distortional interaction effects. The work is
carried out in the context of the Research Fund
for Coal and Steel (RFCS) project RFCS-2015-
709892 “Overall-Slenderness Based Direct Design
for Strength and Stability of Innovative Hollow
Sections—Hollosstab”, which is funded by the
European Commission.
The outline of the paper is as follows. Sec-
tion 2 provides a brief review of the main features
exhibited by the bifurcation behaviour of RCPS
columns, based on results obtained by means of

557
a computationally efficient geometrically non- approach enables the acquisition of unique and in-
linear GBT formulation, specialised for such depth information concerning the problem under
members. Section  3, devoted to the local and/or scrutiny. For instance, the bifurcation stress associ-
distortional post-buckling behaviour of RCPS col- ated with a buckling mode consisting of a single
umns, presents and discusses results obtained from deformation mode k is given by
refined Abaqus (Simulia Inc. 2008) S4 shell finite
element analyses and taking into account critical- −1 ⎛ a 2π 2 L2 ⎞
mode initial geometric imperfections. Finally, (σ b )k = X ⎜⎝ 2 Ckk
L
Dkkk +
a 2π 2
Bkkk ⎟ ,
⎠
(2)
kk
k
Section  4 lists and highlights the most important
findings of the work carried out.
where Bkk, Ckk, Dkk and Xkk are the GBT stiffness
coefficients pertaining to mode k, and a is the
2 BIFURCATION BEHAVIOR buckling mode longitudinal half-wave number.
The minimum buckling load and corresponding
Following previous work by the authors (Gonçalves half-wave length are given by (Schardt 1994).
& Camotim 2013a,b,c, 2014), Figure  1  shows the
Dkk 2 Ckkk Bkkk L
notation employed for the parameters defining
the cross-section geometry (r, t, b, n) and the GBT
(σ b )k ,min X kkk
,
a
π Ckk / Bkkk . (3)
discretisation (m) for the calculation of local defor-
mation modes. Furthermore, the following non- For illustrative purposes, Figure  2(a) shows a
dimensional geometrical parameters are defined, typical “signature curve” (thick line), providing the
L r
β1 β2 = , (1)
r t

where L is the column (tube) length. In all cases,

the material parameters used are E = 210 GPa and
ν = 0.3.
Concerning the RCPS member GBT analysis,
Gonçalves & Camotim (2013a) showed that it is
possible to use a GBT-based procedure much more
efficient than that employed by the conventional
GBT. In particular, the cross-section “deformation
modes” are obtained very fast and the equilibrium
equations become almost fully uncoupled. This
stems from the rotational symmetry of the cross-
section (of order n), leading to symmetric circulant
and block-circulant GBT modal stiffness matrices.
Concerning the bifurcation of uniformly com-
pressed RCPS tubes, the focus here is on the standard
benchmark problem of simply supported columns,
for which sinusoidal modal amplitude functions
constitute exact solutions, thus enabling to obtain
semi-analytical solutions. This semi-analytical

Figure 2. Simply supported compressed tubes (ν = 0.3):

Figure  1. Regular Convex Polygonal Section (RCPS)
parameters.
(a) “signature” curve, individual mode curves and buck-
ling mode shapes, (b) first local (n = 3) and second distor-
tional (n = 20) two-dimension buckling mode spaces, and
(c) parameter ranges associated with local or distortional
critical buckling.

558
variation of the critical bifurcation load with the
normalised longitudinal half-wave length, as well
as several individual mode solutions (thin lines).
The figure also displays representative buckling
mode shapes (for simplicity, only half of the col-
umns are represented). These results show that, as
the normalised longitudinal half-wave length (β1/a)
increases, the critical buckling modes are either (i)
local, (ii) distortional with 6 half-waves around the
cross-section, (iii) distortional with 4 half-waves
around the cross-section (which becomes “flat-
tened”( or (iv) global (flexural).
Figure  2(b) shows a remarkable (and surpris-
ing) result: as in the well-known case of flexural
buckling, both local and distortional buckling
modes also appear in pairs that share the same
stiffness. It can be shown that (i) the critical
local buckling mode is always duplicate for odd
n and (ii) the critical distortional buckling mode
is always duplicate for n  >  4. Naturally, a two-
dimension (buckling mode) space is defined by
each duplicate solution and any mode lying in
such space constitutes a possible critical buckling
mode. In particular, Figure 2(b) shows the shapes
of some of these modes for the first local (n = 3)
and second distortional (n  =  20) mode spaces,
which are a function of the “rotation” occurring
inside those spaces.
Finally, the graph in Figure  2(c) makes it pos-
sible to assess the β2 and n value ranges associated
with either local or distortional critical buckling.
This graph was obtained for ν  =  0.3 and using
Eq. (2) for each mode separately—therefore, no
mode interaction is taken into consideration (this
approximation yields small errors, as explained in
Gonçalves & Camotim 2013b). Note that (i) tubes
with low β2 and high n values buckle in distortional
modes and (ii) the β2 value corresponding to the
critical buckling mode nature transition increases
exponentially with n.
The dashed lines n Figure  2(c) correspond to
the Eurocode 3 limits separating class 3 and 4
(slender) internal compressed walls and circular
tubes made of S460  steel grade (the grade yield-
ing the lowest limits). According to the internal
compressed wall criterion, a class 4 cross-section
exhibiting a critical distortional buckling mode
is only possible for n > 19 and β2 > 90, whereas a
much lower β2 limit is obtained with the circular
tube criterion. Because the behaviour of a RCPS
member should approach that of a circular tube
as n increases, a smooth transition between the
two criteria should take place − this is not the
case. Indeed, the difference between the two cri-
teria seems to indicate that RCPS columns with
moderate-to-high n values may be of class 4 for n
and β2 values below those provided by the internal
compressed wall criterion.
559
3 POST-BUCKLING BEHAVIOUR
3.1 Local
The post-buckling behaviour of RCPS columns
buckling in local (plate-type) modes is addressed
first. These buckling modes involve no column
fold-line in-plane displacements and the walls
buckle in modes similar to that exhibited by a
simply supported plate, even if the critical buck-
ling load is slightly higher for odd n, especially
if n is small (Gonçalves & Camotim 2013b). The
post-buckling behaviour associated with this type
of buckling mode has been extensively studied in
the past, for a wide variety of cross-section shapes.
Therefore, it seems fair to expect the local post-
buckling behaviour of RCPS columns to be quali-
tatively similar to that exhibited by members with
other cross-sections.
The equilibrium paths depicted in Figure 3 con-
cern (i) RCPS columns with the geometries given
in Table 1 and containing critical-mode initial geo-
metrical imperfections with various amplitudes
and (ii) simply supported plates with one imperfec-
tion. For the n = 5, 7 columns, the buckling modes
are duplicate, as also shown in Figure  3. Using
Figure  2, it is concluded that the cross-section
geometries defined by these parameters fall well
inside the local buckling domain associated with
class 4 cross-sections. The lengths L are equal to
five times the buckling mode half-wave length. In
each column, the bifurcation loads obtained from
the shell finite element and GBT analyses never
differ by more than 1.3%.
The comparison between the two sets of equi-
librium paths displayed in Figure  3, concerning
(i) RCPS columns (critical-mode initial geometri-
cal imperfections with various amplitudes − the
maximum total/in-plane displacement) and (ii)
simply supported plates (0.1  mm initial imper-
fections confirms the expected similarity, which
can be extended to any other column local post-
buckling behaviour. It is also worth noting that the
post-buckling behaviour of RCPS columns with
odd n values (n = 5, 7), which have duplicate local
buckling modes, is not affected by this peculiar
behavioural feature. Indeed, the equilibrium paths
shown in the second and third plots of Figure 3 are
virtually identical to that associated with a “single”
buckling mode (n = 4 in this case), irrespective of
the imperfection shape adopted (corresponding to
duplicate buckling modes).
Therefore, the above elastic local post-buckling
equilibrium paths make it possible to conclude
that, as expected, RCPS columns are able to sustain
applied loads much higher than the critical buck-
ling value. Moreover, it is also logical to expect that
the provisions for the design against column local
 3.2 Distortional
The RCPS column distortional post-buckling
behaviour is now addressed. Attention is focused
on a column geometry characterised by n  =  15,
t  =  2  mm, β2  =  25 and L  =  400  mm, exhibiting a
minimum critical distortional bifurcation load
associated with duplicate modes (their shapes are
displayed in Figure  4). As shown in Figure  2(c),
this column geometry falls inside the distortional
bifurcation domain and has a class 4 cross-section
according to the circular tube criterion. The dis-
tortional bifurcation loads calculated by means of
the shell finite element and GBT analyses are very
close − they differ by only 2.7%.
The equilibrium paths in Figure 4 concern col-
umns containing initial geometrical imperfections
with the shapes of each duplicate buckling mode
and amplitudes (maximum total displacements,
combining in-plane and out-of-plane components)
equal to ±0.01 mm − four columns are analysed. At
this stage, note that the equilibrium paths moni-
tor a point corresponding approximately to that

Figure 3. Comparison between the local post-buckling

equilibrium paths of RCPS columns with n = 4, 5, 7 and
simply supported plates with the same length (displace-
ments in mm) (left); and corresponding RCPS column
critical buckling mode shapes (right).

Table 1. RCPS column parameters

for local buckling.

n β2 L (mm)

4 50 354
5 60 350
7 81 350

failures currently included in design specifications,
namely the effective width and direct strength
design approaches, should also provide safe, accu-
rate and reliable local failure load estimates for
RCPS columns.
Figure 4. Distortional post-buckling equilibrium paths
and critical buckling modes of RCPS columns with
n = 15, β2 = 25 and mode 1 and 2 imperfections (±0.01 mm
amplitude); deformed configurations of the column with
“positive” mode 1 imperfections.

560
exhibiting the maximum displacement at the col- iv. Another consequence of the column deformed
lapse load. It is important to notice that the loca- configuration pattern change at moderate-to-
tion of the maximum displacement may change large displacements is the fact the particular
with the applied load level, particularly at the point monitored (where the displacement is
advanced post-buckling stages. The observation measured) corresponds to various “deformed
of the post-buckling results presented in Figure 4 configuration locations” along the equilibrium
leads to the following remarks: paths. It is possible that this location change
also causes the “unexpected” features exhibited
i. The equilibrium path pairs associated with by the equilibrium paths in Figure 4, namely the
“positive” and “negative” mode 1 and mode abrupt displacement increases/decreases.
2 initial imperfections are practically coincident v. To clarify the open questions identified/
and symmetric up to lateral displacements close addressed in the previous items, and also to
to 6  mm − Figure  4  shows deformed configu- acquire in-depth insight on the distortional
rations of the column with “positive” mode 1 post-buckling mechanics, the authors have
imperfections at the equilibrium states A and B under way a GBT-based investigation on this
(the former concerns the peak load). All equi- topic − the GBT results modal nature should
librium paths exhibit a slight negative concavity shed fresh light on this complex problem.
in the close vicinity of the bifurcation load level, vi. At this stage, it is worth mentioning that the
which is typically associated with symmetric absence of distortional post-critical strength
unstable bifurcations − therefore, it is just logi- observed in the RCPS columns contrasts signif-
cal to expect a mild (critical-mode) imperfection icantly with the well-known moderate-to-high
sensitivity of the column failure load. distortional post-buckling strength exhibited
ii. Once the 6 mm lateral displacement is reached, by the columns with lipped open cross-sections.
the picture changes drastically. Concerning the Therefore, it may be argued that the post-buck-
mode 2 equilibrium paths, the symmetry (with ling behaviours of the two column types merely
respect to the initial imperfection sign) is sud- share the designation “distortional”, as the
denly broken: while a very pronounced “snap- underlying mechanics are rather different.
back” phenomenon occurs in the “positive”
Figure  5 concerns columns with n  =  15 and
branch, only a moderate slope increase takes
β2  =  25 containing mode 1 and mode 2  initial
place in the “negative” one. The situation is
imperfections with magnitudes 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5 mm
different for the mode 1 equilibrium paths: the
(since the above “unexpected” asymmetries are
symmetry is “more or less” kept, as similar well
not mechanically-based, it no longer makes sense
pronounced “snap-back” phenomena occur in
to distinguish between “positive” and “negative”
both the “positive” and “negative” branches.
However, it is not clear whether the above fea-
tures are mechanically-based or not, as dis-
cussed in the next items.
iii. It is noted that, regardless of the initial imper-
fection, the column deformed configuration
pattern changes considerably at moderate-to-
large displacements, namely once the lateral
displacement threshold of approximately 6 mm
is reached. In the case of the columns having
“positive” imperfections, it was observed that
the equilibrium path splits into two branches at
state B (see Figure 4) − only the branch that is
similar to its “negative” counterpart is shown
in the plot. Each branch is associated with
deformed configurations displaying two central
local buckles at one column side − for the col-
umn with mode 1 imperfections, they are both
depicted at the bottom of Figure 4. The above
behavioural features “raise the suspicion” that
a secondary bifurcation takes place at equilib-
rium state B (this should also apply to the “neg- Figure  5. Distortional post-buckling equilibrium
ative” equilibrium paths) − it may happen that paths of RCPS columns with n  =  15, β2  =  25 and con-
the “snap-back” phenomena are just “switches” taining mode 1 and mode 2 imperfections with several
to (very close) bifurcated paths. magnitudes.

561
initial imperfections) − the purpose is to investigate It is still worth noting that, in the case of the
the influence of the imperfection magnitude. The equilibrium path of the column containing a mode
observation of the results presented in this figure 1 0.01  mm imperfection, the shell finite element
makes it possible to draw the following conclusions: analysis unveiled again, for a lateral displacement
approximately equal to 6  mm, a split into two
i. Despite the much higher imperfection mag- branches, each associated with the appearance of a
nitudes, the various equilibrium paths and single local buckle at a mid-span cross-section, but
deformed configurations are qualitatively with a different location—the corresponding col-
similar to those depicted in Figure  4 − due to umn deformed configurations are depicted in the
space limitations, no deformed configuration top right side of Figure 6. As for the column con-
is shown. Moreover, the questions about the taining a mode 2 0.01 mm imperfection, no branch
mechanics underlying the post-buckling behav- split was detected and the most deformed configu-
iour at moderate-to-large displacements remain rations exhibit multiple local buckles at diametri-
open. However, note that the peak load occurs cally opposite walls − see the third configuration
for small/moderate displacements. on the right of Figure 6.
ii. The peak loads associated with the two imper- The most deformed configuration of the column
fection shapes virtually coincide. In addition, containing the mode 1 e  =  0.1  mm imperfection
as expected, the peak load decreases with the also exhibits local buckles at diametrically oppo-
imperfection amplitude (and occurs for larger site walls, whereas its mode 2 counterpart has two
displacements). closely spaced local buckles appearing in a single
iii. The equilibrium paths associated with mode wall. The latter deformed configuration is also
2 imperfections exhibit the “unexpected fea- observed for the two columns containing a 0.2 mm
tures” mentioned earlier prior to their mode 1 imperfection (mode 1 and mode 2) − they are not
counterparts. shown in Figure 6. Finally, the columns containing
Consider now RCPS columns with n  =  11,
t = 2 mm and β2 = 25 − according to Figure 2(c),
this column still falls inside the distortional buck-
ling region, although much closer to the local
buckling one than the previous column. The dupli-
cate critical buckling loads calculated with the shell
model and GBT differ by only 2.2%. As in the pre-
vious column, the critical half-wave length is equal
to 400 mm (value obtained GBT).
Although this column is “located” fairly close
to the local buckling region, note that the local
buckling load, calculated by means of GBT, is
still significantly higher than the distortional one
(20.5%). Moreover, the corresponding half-wave
length equals 30  mm, which is not a divisor of
400  mm. However, the local buckling mode of a
400  mm long column exhibits multiple buckles
and, thus, the bifurcation is virtually identical to
that obtained with a multiple of 30 mm.
The results presented in Figure 6 concern n = 11
columns containing several initial imperfections
(shapes and magnitudes) and correspond to those
displayed earlier, in Figure  4. It is observed that
the n = 11 column results are very similar to their
n = 15 column counterparts, namely:

i. The 0.01  mm equilibrium path exhibits the

same small negative curvature.
ii. The same slight imperfection sensitivity of the
column peak load is evidenced.
iii. At moderate-to-large displacements, the equi- Figure  6. Distortional post-buckling equilibrium
librium path descending branches change paths of RCPS columns with n  =  11, β2  =  25 and con-
significantly and local buckles appear in the col- taining mode 1 and mode 2 imperfections with several
umn deformed configurations. magnitudes.

562
 Table 2. Normalised distortional
peak loads (P/Pcr).

e (mm) n = 11 n = 15

0.01 1.010 1.010

0.1 0.965 0.966
0.2 0.935 0.936
0.5 0.867 0.784

0.5 mm exhibit either one (mode 1) or two (mode 2)

local buckles, in both cases appearing in either a sin-
gle or diametrically opposite walls − these deformed
configurations are also not shown in Figure  6. It
should be noted that these column deformed con-
figurations resemble that caused by the so-called
Brazier effect in circular tubes subjected to bending
− of course, in this case the RCPS flattening is due
to compression and, thus, local buckles may appear
in both sides of the flattened cross-section.
Table  2  shows the normalized peak loads
obtained for n = 11 and n = 15 columns with initial
imperfections—because the peak loads are iden-
tical for mode 1 and mode 2 imperfections with
the same magnitude, only one value is given for
each case. The similarity between the P/Pcr values
of the columns pairs with 0.01, 0.1 and 0.2  mm
imperfections is striking. Only the peak loads of
the columns with 0.5 mm imperfections differ sig-
nificantly − the n = 15 column P/Pcr value is much
smaller than its n = 11 counterpart (note that the
latter column distortional and local critical buck-
ling loads are much closer).

3.3 Local-distortional boundary

The columns analysed previously exhibit critical
(distortional) and second (local) bifurcation loads Figure  7. Post-buckling equilibrium paths of RCPS
with differences ranging from 20.5% and 38.1%. columns with n = 10, β2 = 24 and containing mode 1 or
mode 2 imperfections with several magnitudes.
This section focuses on columns with much closer
distortional and local bifurcation loads, located in
the vicinity of the boundary between local and dis-
tortional buckling in Figure 2(c).
that the equilibrium path descending branches
First, n = 10 columns are analysed in detail. For
exhibit no abrupt changes along the whole dis-
β2 = 24 and L = 350 mm, the column critical bifurca-
placement range.
tion load is distortional (duplicate mode) followed
ii. For most initial imperfections, the column fail-
by a local one (single mode), which is only 8.7%
ure mode (deformed configuration along the
apart. Thus, it is logical to expect local-distortional
descending branch following the peak load) com-
interaction effects stronger than before. The results
bines a minute cross-section distortion with two
in Figure 7 concern the post-buckling behaviour of
local buckles located in diametrically opposite
columns with the above geometry and containing
walls—see the first two deformed configurations
the same type of initial imperfections considered
in Figure 7. However, there are two exceptions,
for the columns analysed earlier. The observation
which concern the columns containing 0.5 mm
of these results prompts the following comments:
mode 1 or 0.2  mm mode 2 imperfections—
i. Firstly, the equilibrium paths are much their deformed configurations exhibit a single
“smoother” than those obtained for the col- buckle in diametrically opposite walls (see the
umns analysed previously, in the sense that bottom of Figure 7).

563
iii. A slight imperfection sensitivity of the peak
load is observed also for this column geometry.
The normalised peak loads obtained for the var-
ious initial imperfections are given in Table  3.
Since the peak loads associated with the two
imperfection shapes are again virtually identi-
cal, only one value is given for each amplitude.
iv. The comparison between the normalised peak
loads given in Tables  2 and 3  shows that the
imperfection sensitivity is marginally higher for
the n = 10 column (slightly lower P/Pcr values).
However, this does not remain true for the larg-
est imperfection amplitude (0.5 mm): the n = 10
column P/Pcr value falls (in-between its n  =  11
and n = 15 column counterparts − recall that the
latter was unexpectedly low.
v. After comparing the post-buckling behaviours
of the n = 10, n = 11 and n = 15 columns, it is
concluded that they are qualitatively and quan-
titatively quite similar. Indeed, the most notice-
able difference lies in the “smoothness” of the
n  =  10 column equilibrium paths (no signifi-
cant descending branch changes at moderate-
to-large displacements). Thus, it seems fair to
argue that the post-buckling behaviour of the
n  =  10 column is not meaningfully affected by
local-distortional interaction effects − it retains
all the distinctive distortional features.
Finally, a column located “on the local side”
of the local-distortional boundary (critical local
bifurcation load) is analysed. The particular geom-
etry considered corresponds to n = 10, β2 = 27 and
L = 400 mm, and is associated with a critical local Figure  8. RCPS columns with n  =  10 and β2  =  27:
bifurcation load (single mode) that is 3.4% above its first 10 buckling modes, equilibrium paths of columns
distortional (duplicate mode) counterpart. In spite with several critical-mode imperfection magnitudes and
of this small bifurcation load difference, note that deformed configuration at P/Pcr = 1.5.
the first 8 bifurcation loads are local, which means
that the duplicate distortional modes correspond to
the 9th and 10th bifurcation loads − the shapes of this equilibrium path had already been shown in
these 10 buckling modes are in the top of Figure 8. Figure 3. Figure 8 also includes a column deformed
The equilibrium paths shown in the bottom of configuration corresponding to the highest applied
Figure  8 concern columns having (critical-mode) load level (P/Pcr  =  1.5) and is shared by the col-
local initial imperfections with the same amplitudes umns with all the imperfection magnitudes—note
considered previously: 0.01, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5  mm. that all equilibrium paths have merged together at
For comparison purposes, the equilibrium path of a P/Pcr = 1.5. It can be readily observed that:
simply supported plate with a 0.1 mm initial imper- i. Stable equilibrium paths are now obtained,
fection is also shown (dashed curve) − note that which means that this column is not imperfection
sensitive. Nevertheless, it should be noticed that
Table 3. Peak load ratios P/Pcr these equilibrium paths are clearly “less stable”
(β2 = 24, L = 350 mm). than their simply supported plate counterpart,
which seems to indicate the presence of strength
e (mm) n = 10 erosion stemming from local-distortional
interaction effects.
0.01 1.010
ii. Although no distortional deformations are can
0.1 0.964
be readily detected (even if the applied load level
0.2 0.931
0.5 0.858
exceeds by far the distortional bifurcation load),
their presence is felt through the reduced strength

564
 exhibited by the column (with respect to columns
with a “pure” local post-buckling behaviour).
The authors believe that a GBT-based analysis
will unveil the presence of minute distortional
deformations in the column deformed configu-
ration. Moreover, it will be also worth obtaining
post-buckling results of columns containing dis-
tortional initial imperfections.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented and discussed the available
(preliminary) shell finite element results concern-
ing an ongoing numerical investigation on the
elastic local, distortional and interactive (local-
distortional) post-buckling behaviour of thin-
walled columns with regular convex polygonal
cross-sections (RCPS) − the imperfection sensitiv-
ity of the column peak load was also addressed.
Out of the various findings reported in this work,
the following ones deserve to be highlighted:
i. Depending on the β2 and n values, either local
or distortional buckling may be critical—see
Figure  2(c). Columns with low β2 and high n
buckle in distortional modes—the β2 value asso-
ciated with mode nature transition increases
exponentially with n.
ii. The column pure local post-buckling behaviour
is highly stable and virtually identical to that
exhibited by simply supported plates.
iii. The column pure distortional post-buckling
behaviour is slightly unstable and, thus, a small
imperfection sensitivity is exhibited by the peak
load − this distortional is very different from that
of lipped open-section columns. Local deforma-
tions are visible after the peak load is reached.
iv. The post-buckling behaviour of columns with
close local and distortional bifurcation loads is
either (iv1) quite similar to the pure distortional
one (i.e., minute local-distortional interac-
tion occurs—however, the post peak paths are
smoother), for distortional critical buckling, or
(iv2) visibly affected by local-distortional inter-
action (sizeable post-critical strength/stiffness
erosion), for local critical buckling—even if no
distortional deformations were spotted.
Further work is currently under way to assess the
various RCPS column post-buckling behaviours by
means of geometrically non-linear GBT-based post-
buckling analyses, which will enable acquiring much
more in-depth knowledge about the underlying
mechanics, namely those associated with secondary
bifurcations and local-distortional interaction.
565
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The financial support of the European Commis-
sion, through the Research Fund for Coal and Steel
project RFCS-2015–709892, “Overall-Slenderness
Based Direct Design for Strength and Stability of
Innovative Hollow Sections—HOLLOSSTAB”, is
gratefully acknowledged.
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Silvestre N. 2010a. Latest developments in the GBT
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tional Colloquium on Stability and Ductility of Steel
Structures (SDSS’Rio 2010 – Rio de Janeiro, 8–10/9):
33–58 (Vol. 1).
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Numerical analysis of thin-walled structures using
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tional Technology Reviews: 315–354 (Vol. 1), Stirling-
shire: Saxe-Coburg.
Gonçalves R., Ritto-Corrêa M. & Camotim D. 2010.
A new approach to the calculation of cross-section
deformation modes in the framework of General-
ized Beam Theory, Computational Mechanics 46(5):
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Structural behaviour of octagonal tubular steel stub columns

under uniaxial compression

J.Y. Zhu & T.M. Chan

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hung Hom, Hong Kong

B. Young
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the experimental and numerical investigations on the compressive
behaviour of cold-formed steel tubular stub columns with octagonal cross-section. Companion stub
columns with circular and square cross-sections were also examined and compared. The material properties,
dimensions and geometric imperfections for each specimen were carefully measured. Load-deformation
relationships and failure modes of the test specimens were presented. Finite element methodology was
also developed and validated against the experimental results. The current design codes from Europe and
North America were assessed.

1 INTRODUCTION of practice Eurocode 3 (EN 1993-1-1, 2005) and

Polygonal steel tubes have been proved as a very
popular structural member in transmission poles
and telegraph towers (Slocum 2015). To achieve an
economical design in such structures, the width to
thickness ratio (cross-section slenderness) should
be optimized. Numerous investigations have been
conducted on the local buckling behaviour of tubu-
lar steel with polygonal cross-sections. Aoki et al.
(1991), Godat et al. (2012) and Tran et al. (2016a)
conducted experimental investigations on hexago-
nal, octagonal and hexadecagonal tubular stub col-
umns. Migita & Fukumoto (1997) and Teng et al.
(1999) carried out numerical investigations on the
critical local buckling stress of steel tubular mem-
bers with polygonal cross-section. Finite element
model was established by Goncalves and Camotim
(2013) and Tran et al. (2016b). However, the above-
mentioned studies mainly focused on thin-walled
tubular sections with Class 4 cross-sections.
To extend the study to Class 1–3 cross-sections,
this paper presents both experimental and numeri-
cal investigations on tubular steel stub columns
with Class 1–3 cross-sections. The experimental
study includes three different cross-section shapes.
In additional to octagonal cross-section, two com-
monly adopted cross-section shapes circular and
square were investigated for comparison. Com-
panion finite element analysis were conducted
and validated by the experimental results. Cross-
section slenderness limit based on the current code
ASCE standard (ASCE/SEI 48-11, 2011) were
assessed by the structural performance data. In
accordance with the assessment, the cross-section
slenderness of octagonal section was discussed.
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
In the present study, three tubular steel stub col-
umns with cross-section shapes of octagonal, cir-
cular and square were tested under monotonic
axial compression. The nominal yield stress of the
steel tubes is 355 MPa. The octagonal steel tubes
were fabricated by welding two cold formed half-
section. The cold-formed steel plates were bent
by the press-braking method. Similar method was
applied to the circular and square steel tubes for
consistency. The octagonal specimen was labelled
as OctHS while CHS and SHS stand for circular
and square specimens respectively. The dimensions
of the cross-section for each specimen were pre-
cisely measured by a digital caliper with an accu-
racy of 0.01 mm and was summarized in Table 1
where b is the width of the octagonal and square
cross-sections as shown in Figure 1; D is the outer
diameter of the circular section; t is the tube thick-
ness; wmax is the maximum local imperfection. The
dimension of the circular section was designed
from the circumscribed circle of the octagonal
cross-section. The height of all the specimens are
700 mm.

567
Table 1. Dimension of the specimens.

b or D t b/t or wmax
Specimen mm mm D/t mm wmax/t

OctHS 55.8 5.55 10.1 1.23 0.22

CHS 199.8 5.96 33.5 2.00 0.34
SHS 189.4 5.92 32.0 0.33 0.06

Figure 2. Set up of imperfection measurement.

Figure 1. Dimensions of OctHS, CHS and SHS.

2.1 Geometric local imperfection

The geometric local imperfection in terms of devia-
tion from a plane surface for all the specimens was
measured over the height of each specimen before
the test. Figure 2 shows the set up for the imperfec-
tion measurement. The specimen was placed on a
milling machine. For specimens OctHS and SHS,
three LVDTs were mounted on the milling machine Figure 3. Imperfection profiles.
in the orthogonal direction to record the imperfec-
tion at the mid-portion and two corner-portions of
each face as shown in Figure 2. For specimen CHS containing welded joint and the surface 90° apart
only one LVDT was mounted in the orthogonal from them in the specimens OctHS and CHS whilst
direction. The local imperfection was calculated as this observation was not found in specimen SHS.
(d1 + d3)/2 − d2 where d1, d2 and d3 are the measured This indicated the welding process may cause such
displacement from LVDT 1, 2 and 3 (Fig. 2). The an imperfection profile on steel tubes with octago-
initial readings at both ends of the specimen were nal and circular cross-sections. The magnitude of
regarded as reference points and other readings the maximum measured imperfection, wmax, and the
were adjusted in relation to the reference points ratio between the maximum imperfection and the
to eliminate the error from the initial tilting of the tube thickness was summarized in Table 1.
tube. Figure  3  shows the recorded imperfection
profile of all specimens (+ve is outwards and −ve
2.2 Tensile coupon tests
is inwards). The surface number with asterisk indi-
cates the location of welded joint. A bow shaped The material properties of steel tubes were examined
imperfection profile was found in the surfaces through the tensile coupon tests. In this investigation,

568
Table 2. Material properties of steel specimens.

ε25 mm or
Tensile σ0.2 σu Es ε50 mm εf
coupon MPa MPa GPa % %

OctHS 384 505 217 27.9 33.8

CHS 453 583 216 31.1 31.1
SHS 478 569 221 28.1 32.5

two flat steel coupons were extracted from the flat side
for each steel tube with octagonal and square cross-
section shape and two curved coupons were extracted
from the circular tube. The dimension of the flat steel
coupon was designed in accordance with the BS EN
ISO 6892-1 (2009) while the dimension of the curved
coupons was designed in accordance with Ma et al. Figure 4. Instrumentations arrangement.
(2015). The tensile coupon test was conducted using a
MTS machine with a load capacity of 50 kN. To cap- Table 3. Results of stub column test.
ture the static stress-strain curves, the test was paused
for 100 seconds near the yield stress and near the ulti- Stub Nu σ0.2, sc σu, sc σ0.2,sc/ σu,sc/
mate stress. The adopted loading rate was 0.05 mm/ column kN MPa MPa σ0.2 σ0.2
min before 0.2% of strain and 0.5 mm/min after that
until fracture (Huang and Young, 2014). Extensom- OctHS 1470 408 471 1.06 1.23
eters with 25 mm and 50 mm gauge length were used CHS 1830 493 504 1.09 1.11
for curved coupon and flat coupon respectively. The SHS 2210 — 471 — 0.99
test results are shown in Table  2, where σ0.2 is the
0.2% proof stress; σu is the ultimate tensile stress of
steel coupon; Es is the Young’s modulus; ε25  mm and specimens was confined by a steel ring to prevent
ε50 mm are the fracture elongation based on the exten- the elephant’s foot buckling at the ends of speci-
someter with gauge length of 25  mm and 50  mm mens. Figure 4 shows the set-up for the specimens
respectively. εf is the elongation at fracture based on CHS. The load rate was maintained at 0.3  mm/
the original gauge length which is calculated from min. To capture the static stress-strain curves,
BS EN ISO 6892-1 (2009), 5.65 S0 where S0 is the same arrangement as in the tensile coupon test
cross-sectional area of the steel coupon. The elonga- was adopted.
tion based on the original gauge length was measured The test results for the stub column tests are
by re-matching the fracture pieces of the coupon. It summarized in Table 3, where Nu is the load capac-
can be found that all the fracture elongations satisfied ity of the specimens; σ0.2, sc is the 0.2% proof stress
the ductility requirement (>15%) in Eurocode 3 (EN for the stub hollow steel tubes; σu, sc is the ultimate
1993-1-1, 2005). stress for the stub hollow steel tubes. From the
σu, sc/σ0.2 value in Table 3, it can be found the ulti-
mate stress of the steel tube with square cross-sec-
2.3 Stub column tests
tion marginally reaches the yield stress obtained
The stub column tests were conducted using a from the tensile coupon test (σu, sc/σ0.2 = 0.99). It
MTS machine with a load capacity of 4600 kN. is noted that the b/t ratio of the square cross-
The arrangement of instrumentation is shown section (b/t = 32.0) is higher than the suggested
in Figure 4. For octagonal and square specimens maximum value for Class 1 to 3 cross-sections
(OctHS and SHS), strain gauges were attached (b/t ≤ 29.4) in Eurocode 3 and the upper limit
at four flat sides and four corners to measure of b/t value (b/t ≤ 31.1) for the condition fu ≥ fy
the axial strain. For the circular tube (CHS), in ASCE standard (2011) where fu and fy are the
strain gauges were attached on the surfaces at ultimate stress and yield stress of steel member.
90° to each other. The axial strain measured by The b/t ratio of the specimen OctHS (b/t = 10.1)
the strain gauge was used to evaluate the 0.2% and d/t ratio of the specimen CHS (d/t = 33.5) are
proof stress of the steel tubes. Four LVDTs with both satisfied the mentioned limits in Eurocode
a measuring range of 50 mm and an accuracy of 3 (EN 1993-1-1, 2005) (b/t ≤ 32.9 & d/t ≤ 46.7)
0.1  mm were installed around the specimens to and ASCE standard (ASCE/SEI 48-11, 2011)
monitor the axial end-shortening. Each end of (b/t ≤ 34.8 & d/t ≤ 57.9).

569
 The normalized axial stress-axial strain relation- 3 FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS
ships of the specimens are shown in Figure 5. The
y-axis indicates the axial stress of the specimens over 3.1 Model description
the yield stress σ0.2 from the tensile coupon test. The
A finite element (FE) analysis was conducted
x-axis indicates the axial strain converted from the
with the use of the commercial software package
axial end-shortening. It can be observed that both
ABAQUS. The results of the tensile coupon tests
the strength hardening behaviour and ductility of
were used for defining the material properties of
the hollow steel tubes OctHS are better than that
steel in FE analysis. Four-node shell element with
of the specimens CHS. The low strength hardening
reduced integration, S4R was used in the analysis.
ratio and the ductility of the specimen CHS after
Chan and Gardner (2008) and Ma et  al. (2015)
yielding may be caused by the large imperfection
have successfully adopted this type of element in
to thickness ratio (w/t  = 0.34) which is much larger
FE model of stub hollow steel tubes under com-
than that in the specimen OctHS (w/t  = 0.22).
pression. Full 3D model was established for all
The failure mode of each specimen was shown
the specimens. The bottom of the column was
in Figure  6. It was observed that local buckling
constrained in all degrees of freedom (fix end).
happened at the surface with welding joint first
The top surface of the column was coupled to a
during the test for specimens OctHS and CHS, it
reference point which was also constrained in all
may attribute to the large imperfection in that sur-
degree of freedom except axial direction. Load
face. The post-peak buckling mode of octagonal
was applied to the reference point by imposing
specimen is similar to a cylindrical shell buckling
an axial displacement. Mesh convergence studies
which may be caused by the bow-shaped geometri-
was conducted to determine the appropriate mesh
cal imperfection.
configuration.

3.2 Imperfection profile

To capture both the axial load-shortening curves
and the failure modes of the specimens in the
experimental investigation. The measured imper-
fection profile was applied to the finite element
model. For the specimens OctHS and CHS, the
bow shaped imperfection profile was found in the
surfaces containing welded joint and the surface
90° apart from them. The input imperfection pro-
file in ABAQUS is the superposition of a half sine
curve with the measured maximum imperfection
amplitude and the buckling mode pattern from
buckling analysis of eigenvalue with three different
Figure 5. Normalized stress versus strain curves of the
stub hollow tubes.
imperfection amplitudes: t/10, t/50 and t/100. For
the model of specimen SHS, only the first buckling
mode pattern with imperfection amplitudes: t/10,
t/50 and t/100 was used.

3.3 Validation
The test results of the current experimental inves-
tigation and test result of one Class 4 octagonal
specimens from Godat et  al. (2012) were used to
validate the finite element model. The imperfection
profile for the specimens from Godat et al. (2012)
was taken as the first buckling mode pattern with
amplitudes of t/100, t/50 and t/10. Table 4 shows
the FE results of load-carrying capacity. It can be
found that the FE model underestimate the load
capacity of specimens OctHS. This is due to the
cold-forming enhancement at the corners which
cannot be captured by the used material model
from the tensile coupon in the flat zone of tubes.
Figure 6. Failure modes for the stub hollow tubes. The load capacity of specimen CHS, on the other

570
Table 4. FE results of load-carrying capacity.

Imperfection Nu,FE Nu,FE

Specimens (mm) (kN) /Nu

OctHS 0.06 (t/100) 1393 0.95

0.11 (t/50) 1388 0.94
0.55 (t/10) 1329 0.90
CHS 0.06 (t/100) 1792 0.98
0.12 (t/50) 1790 0.98
0.60 (t/10) 1766 0.97
SHS 0.06 (t/100) 2242 1.01 Figure 8. FE predictions of failure modes.
0.12 (t/50) 2265 1.02
0.60 (t/10) 2104 0.95 hand can capture the experimental findings well.
OCT-1-A 0.02 (t/100) 378 1.15
The models with the imperfection amplitude
(Godat et al. 0.04 (t/50) 374 1.14
2012) of t/100  give the best prediction of load capac-
0.20 (t/10) 343 1.05
ity on the specimens CHS, OctHS and SHS. For
the Class 4 specimen OCT-1-A from Godat et al.
(2012) the FE model with imperfection amplitude
of 0.2 (t/10) can capture the load capacity well
(Nu, FE/Nu = 1.05).
Figure 7 shows the axial load—shortening curves
of the FE simulations. It can be found the ampli-
tude of the accompanying imperfection profile
(buckling mode pattern) affects the post-yielding
behaviour. However, the influence on the load-
shortening curves are negligible when the ampli-
tude changes from t/100 to t/50. Figure 8 shows the
predicted failure mode for the test specimens.

4 DESIGN ASSESSMENT

The current cross-section classification system for

octagonal cross-section under pure compression
were assessed. The verified finite element model
was used to generate further data for stub columns
with octagonal cross-section for assessment. The
material properties from the specimen OctHS were
used in the additional FE models.

4.1 Current cross-section classification system

For columns under axial compression, the primary
concern is the occurrence of local buckling before
the yielding of steel tube. For the cross-section
classification under pure compression, the cross-
section with an ultimate stress that can reach the
yield stress are considered as Class 1–3, whilst
those where local buckling happened in the elas-
tic stage before the yield stress are considered as
Class 4. Eurocode 3 (EN 1993-1-1, 2005) provides
the limiting proportions for the cross-section Class
1–3 of circular and rectangular cross-section as
follows:

D/t ≤ 90 (235/fy) (1)

Figure 7. FE predictions of axial load-shortening curves. b/t ≤ 42√(235/fy) (2)

571
where D is the outer diameter of circular cross-
section; b is the width of rectangular section and
t is the thickness. It is noted that octagonal cross-
section is not specified in Eurocode 3 (EN 1993-1-
1, 2005).
ASCE standard (ASCE/SEI 48-11, 2011) also
provides the limitation of cross-section slenderness
for Class 1–3 cross-sections as follows:

D/t ≤ 6.9 (3800/fy) = 111.6 (235/fy) (3)

b/t ≤ 2.62 (260/√fy) = 44.4√(235/fy) (4)
ASCE standard also extends the limitation for b/t
ratio to octagonal and hexagonal members. These
Figure  9. σu,sc/σ0.2 versus b/[t√(235/fy)] for octagonal
two current codes of practice on cross-section cross-section.
classification were assessed by the existing experi-
mental data and the accompanying finite element
analysis results in the next section.

4.2 Assessment
The experimental results of Aoki et al. (1991) and
Godat et al. (2012) on octagonal tubular steel stub
columns were adopted for the assessment. The
test results and additional finite element analy-
sis data are listed in Table  5. Figure  9  shows the

Table 5. Comparison between design limit and existing

data.

b t σ0.2 σu,sc σu,sc/

Specimens mm mm MPa MPa b/t σ0.2

Aoki et al. (1991)

OCT-15 147 4.50 289 278 32.7 0.96
OCT15-b 148 4.50 289 274 32.9 0.95
OCT-15w 150 4.50 289 275 33.3 0.95
OCT20-A 196 4.49 289 244 43.7 0.84
OCT25-A 264 4.52 289 206 58.4 0.71
OCT30 296 4.51 289 173 65.6 0.60
Godat. et al. (2012)
OCT-1-A 95 1.90 279 210 50.0 0.75
OCT-4-A 75 1.37 265 225 54.7 0.85
Present study (Experiment)
OctHS 56 5.50 384 471 10.2 1.23
Present study (FE)
O185 59 1.85 384 354 31.9 0.92
O191 59 1.91 384 354 30.9 0.92
O200 59 2.00 384 363 29.5 0.95
O230 59 2.30 384 377 25.7 0.98
O240 59 2.40 384 380 24.6 0.99
O250 59 2.50 384 387 23.6 1.01
O260 59 2.60 384 390 22.7 1.02
O308 59 3.08 384 402 19.2 1.05
O324 59 3.24 384 406 18.2 1.06
O333 59 3.33 384 409 17.7 1.07
OctHS 56 5.5 384 447 10.2 1.17
OCT-1-A 95 1.9 279 221 50.0 0.79 Figure  10. σu,sc/σ0.2 versus D/[t(235/fy)] for octagonal
cross-section.

572
relationship between test/FE results (σu, sc/σ0.2) and
b/[t√(235/fy)] for octagonal steel tubular stub col-
umns. From Figure 9, it can be observed that the
current two limits in Eurocode 3 (42), and ASCE
standard (44.4) may need to be further tightened to
achieve optimum design.
As the shape of octagonal cross-section is
between circular and rectangular cross-section, it
is intrinsic to use equivalent circle approach for
design assessment. In current study, three different
equivalent circular cross-sections were adopted.
Do and Di are the circumscribed and the inscribed
diameter of octagonal cross-section respectively,
Dp is the diameter of the equivalent circle with
the same perimeter of the octagonal cross-section.
Figure 10 shows the normalized ultimate strength
(fu/fy) against D/[t(235/fy)]. The corresponding lim-
its in Eurocode 3 (90) and ASCE standard (111.6)
are also shown in the Figure. It can be observed
that in both three figures, there is no significant
difference among three equivalent circle defini-
tions. The trend suggests both Eurocode 3 and
ASCE limits could be adequately adopted. Based
on the current investigation, it is proposed an
equivalent circle could be used for the design of
octagonal cross-section based on Eurocode 3 and
ASCE standard.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents the experimental and numeri-
cal investigations on the octagonal tubular steel
stub columns. The geometrical imperfection was
measured and adopted in the finite element anal-
ysis. Finite element analysis captured well the
experimental load carrying capacity and load-end
shortening behaviour. The experimental results
from current study and existing literature together
with the additional data from finite element analy-
sis were collated to assess the cross-section classi-
fication system in Eurocode 3 (EN 1993-1-1, 2005)
and in ASCE standard (ASCE/SEI 48-11, 2011).
The assessment shows the current slenderness
limit (b/t) for octagonal cross-section in ASCE/SEI
standard need to be tightened whilst the slender-
ness limit (D/t) in Eurocode 3, ASCE/SEI stand-
ards for circular cross-section can be used for
octagonal cross-section with an equivalent circle’s
approach.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Authors are thankful to WoLee steel Co. Ltd. for
supplying the test specimens. This study was also
partly supported by the research funding from the
Construction Industry Council under the project
573
“Application of Polygonal High Strength Con-
crete-filled Composite Column in Seismic-resist-
ant Buildings in Hong Kong”. The support from
the Chinese National Engineering Research Centre
for Steel Construction (Hong Kong Branch) is also
gratefully acknowledged.
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ling strength of closed polygon folded section col-
umns. Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 20(4):
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structures. Reston, Virginia: American Society of
Civil Engineers; 2011.
BSI (2005) BS EN 1993-1-1:2005: Eurocode 3 Design of
steel structures, Part 1.1, General rules and rules for
buildings. BSI, London, UK.
BSI (2009) BS EN ISO 6892-1: Metallic materials: Tensile
testing, Part 1: Method of testing at ambient tempera-
ture. BSI, London, UK.
Chan, T.M. & Gardner, L. 2008. Compressive resistance
of hot-rolled elliptical hollow sections. Engineering
Structures 30(2): 522–532.
Godat, A., Legeron, F. & Bazonga, D., 2012. Stability
investigation of local buckling behavior of tubular
polygon columns under concentric compression.
Thin-Walled Structures, 53: 31–140.
Gonçalves, R. & Camotim, D., 2013. On the behaviour
of thin-walled steel regular polygonal tubular mem-
bers. Thin-Walled Structures, 62: 191–205.
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Journal of Constructional Steel Research 96: 159–175.
Ma, J.L., Chan, T.M. & Young, B. 2015. Experimen-
tal investigation on stub-column behavior of cold-
formed high-strength steel tubular sections. Journal
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04015147-11.
Migita, Y. & Fukumoto, Y., 1997. Local buckling behav-
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Slocum, R.M., 2015. Considerations in the design and
fabrication of tubular steel transmission structures.
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de Janeiro, Brazil.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Residual stress distribution in cold-rolled curved steel rectangular

hollow sections

Y.F. Jin
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

S.P. Chiew
Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore

C.K. Lee
School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales, Australia

ABSTRACT: Curved steel rectangular hollow sections are commonly produced by applying cold roller
bending using roller machine on hot finished hollow sections. After cold bending, extensive residual stress
was generated along the section walls. While the magnitude of residual stress caused by the roller bending
process could produce sufficient effects on the member’s stability and buckling resistance, few studies have
investigated its distribution in details. In this paper, a proper numerical modelling procedure is employed
to simulate the cold bending process and predict the residual stress distribution of the section after bend-
ing. In addition, a parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of some key parameters on
the resulted residual stress distribution of the bended sections. Based on the results obtained from the
parametric studies, a simple residual stress distribution model is proposed.

1 INTRODUCTION of residual stress due to cold forming process.

The most common method for producing curved
steel hollow section members is to apply cold roller
bending using the pyramid-type 3-roller machine
on a straight hot finished hollow section mem-
ber. During the cold bending process, the straight
member could be considered as a simple beam that
subject to loading from the moving center roller.
Such loading together with the changing position
of the center roller eventually induce large perma-
nent local deformations of the steel hollow sec-
tion and generates residual stresses in the section.
In general, the final residual stress distribution is
closely related to the member radius after bending.
While some studies (Brady 1978, Kennedy 1985 &
Kennedy 1988) were conducted to study the rela-
tionship between the minimum bending radius and
the permanent deformations of the bended steel
hollow section, the effect of roller bending on the
residual stress distribution of steel hollow section
member is relatively less known.
The effects of residual stress on the stability
of straight steel hollow section member has been
investigated and reflected by the inclusion of
buckling curves in design standards such as the
Eurocode 3 (CEN 2005). For straight steel hollow
section members, Li et  al. (2009) and Tong et  al.
(2012) investigate the magnitude and distribution
For members subjected to bending moment, King
& Brown (2001) suggested that the influence of
residual stress on curved members could be more
important than straight members. Simple assump-
tions of residual stress distribution based on the
bilinear material law were adopted to calculate
the resistance of curved members. However, some
of the simplified procedures adopted, including
no stress variation over section thickness and no
deformation of plane sections, actually violate the
real situation during the bending process. Hence,
a more comprehensive study on the residual stress
distribution is worth investigating. The main objec-
tive of this study is to investigate the residual stress
of curved steel hollow section numerically. In addi-
tion, a parametric study will also be conducted to
evaluate the effects of some key parameters of the
roller bending process. Based on the results of the
parametric study, a simple residual stress model is
then suggested.
2 THE ROLLER BENDING PROCESS
AND FE SIMULATIONS
2.1 The bending process
A typical pyramid-type bending machine consists
of three rollers: two fixed outer ones fixed and

575

Figure 1. Typical cross-section shapes before and after
bending.
one movable roller in the middle. The movement
of the middle roller produces the curvature in the
member between the three supporting points. Fur-
thermore, rolling of these three rollers induces per-
manent curvature to the steel hollow section as it
passes above the middle roller. While the steel hol-
low section member can be modelled as a simply
supported beam at any time, to model the roller
bending process by finite element simulation is
complicated by the ever-changing contact surfaces
between the rollers and the steel hollow section.
One of the crucial details of the FE model is the
contact surfaces between rollers and the steel hol-
low section members. The fictional force between
the rollers and the member surfaces enables mem-
ber movement that eventually produces the perma-
nent plastic deformation. The fictional force effect
is accounted for by using an appropriate fiction
coefficient μ = 0.3.
During an actual roller bending process, the
steel hollow section member is usually first slightly
bent for 2 to 3 passes to generate some minor dis-
placements. In numerical modelling, only one pass
is employed by assuming that the residual stresses
generated in a single pass are identical to that gen-
erated by multiple passes. In order to ensure that
the boundary condition applied is consistent with
the actual rolling process, the transverse deforma-
tion of web #4 in Figure 1b is restricted.
2.2 The FE model
In this study, the FE modelling method was
employed to simulate the roller bending proc-
ess. Simulations were conducted for 12 rectangu-
lar steel hollow sections with sizes ranging from
101.6 × 50.8 × 3.81 mm to 254.0 × 254.0 × 9.53 mm
(Brady 1978). The length of the steel hollow sec-
tion members is taken as 3.5 times of the outer roll-
ers separation distance. The FE models employed
accounted for both geometrical and material non-
linear effects, as well as surface-to-surface contacts
576
between the steel hollow section members and the
rollers. The material adopted in the FE models
was approximated by an isotropic trilinear harden-
ing model with a yield ultimate stress of 345 MPa
and an elasticity modulus of 200GPa (Chiew et al
2016).
The geometry of corners are reproduced accu-
rately by using 4 layers of 5 eight-node brick ele-
ments in thickness direction. Note that in Lee &
Xu (2008), it is shown that 4 layers of elements
in the thickness direction is sufficient to capture
the stress variation through the thickness while
the computational cost incurred is still within an
acceptable limit for the parametric study discussed
in Section 4.
3 RESIDUAL STRESSES FORMATION
AND VALIDATION
3.1 Residual stresses formation
The magnitude of residual stress generated dur-
ing the bending process is depended on the stress-
strain relation of the material and the stress in the
material before the release of the load. As shown in
Figure 2a, the free web at the mid-span of a hollow
section (203 × 154 × 6.35 mm) with yield strength
fy = 345 MPa steel is selected to show the residual
stress generation process during roller bending.
The red line in Figure 2a shows the stress variation
at the compressive corner (x = y = 0 in Figure 2b)
during the rolling process. The compressive stress
reached its peak when the centre roller was pressing
the section. Figure  2a shows that similar mecha-
nism also occurred at y = 25 mm (the black curve).
For the variation of residual stress at the neutral
axis in static bending (y = 101 mm), the thick blue
curve in Figure 2a shows that it is rather complex.
At the starting stage, a tensile stress appeared at
this point. As the centre roller was moved in, the
tensile stress is converted into compressive stress
and increased. Finally, when the centre roller was
moved out, the compressive stress was increased
continually along the line b2-c2 due stress redis-
tribution in the section to achieve an overall
equilibrium.
It is worth noting that the residual stress at the
top of web (y = 203 mm) is lower than that at the
bottom. Furthermore, formation of residual stress
at this point is different from others. As shown in
Figure 2a, the tensile stress reached its maximum
value when the centre roller was pressing the sec-
tion and was kept in tension until the second outer
roller passed through the section. It was then
reduced rapidly (b3-c3). After that, the stress was
reversed to produce the finial small tensile residual
stress. The high tensile stresses at both ends of the
Figure 2. Stress history of the free web and final residual stresses distribution of the section at mid-span.

web between Line 2 and Line 3 explain why the

compressive stress increases continually at the neu-
tral axis.
The final residual stress distribution of the
section is shown in Figure  2b which shows that
the final residual stress is not symmetrical. Such
result is conflicting with the theories proposed by
Timoshenke (1940) which assume that the final
residual stress distribution is symmetrical. How-
ever, with detailed FE modelling it is shown that it
is not the case. The differences in the residual stress
distributions between the two webs are due to the
different boundary conditions applied.

3.2 Validation of residual stress

For the validation of residual stress, 16 points
(shown Figure  1) are identified along the circum-
ference of the cross section for investigation. The
longitudinal and von Mises stresses were recorded
to study the residual stress distribution and vali-
date the numerical models. A computer program
has been developed based on the minimum energy
theory to predict the residual stress distribution by
Kennedy (1988) and published by CIDECT. The
residual stresses at the centre of the compression
flange (Point 3) and the quarter point of the free
Figure  3. Residual stress distribution along section
web (Point 6) for 178 × 178 × 7.95 mm are shown circumference.
in Figure 3. The residual stresses obtained by FE
model at all 16 points are also plotted in Figure 3
for comparison. From the plots shown in Figure 3, is in tension at the outer surface and in compres-
it can be seen that the maximum tensile longitudi- sion at the inside surface of the section. Actually,
nal residual stress occur in both compression flange as shown in Figure 3, the residual stresses after cold
corners (Points 1 and 5). The maximum compres- bending showed great variation from the inner sur-
sive longitudinal stress can be observed at the cen- face to the outer surface. For the centre of the com-
tre of the free web #2 (Point 7). The maximum pression flange (Point 3), the CIDECT prediction
value of von Mises stresses also appears at the two is within the range predicted by the FE modelling
compressive flange corners. It should also be noted results. For the von Mises stress at the quarter Point
that both the von Mises stress and the longitudinal 6 at the free web, Figure 3 shows that close agree-
stress actually vary in along the thickness of the ments are obtained between FE analyses and the
compressed flange. The longitudinal residual stress CIDECT predictions. The residual stresses in the

577
longitudinal direction resulted from the numerical
models are slightly larger. Such difference is mainly
caused by the simplified assumptions adopted by
the CIDECT report.

4 PARAMETRIC STUDY

After validation of the numerical model, a

parametric study involving 146 FE models is
conducted to investigate the effects of some
parameters on the final residual stress distribution.
In this parametric study, the following four
parameters are considered and the results are
summarized in the following sections.
1. The bending ratio, R/h
2. The steel yield stress, fy
3. The thickness ratio, h/t
4. The shape factor, h/b
where R is the radius of the curved member after
bending; h is section height; fy is the steel yield
stress; b is section width; t is the thickness of the
section.

4.1 Influence of bending ratio R/h

As the residual stress distribution is affected by
the amount of plastic strain/hardening expe-
rienced during the roller bending process, it is
expected that the magnitude of residual stress
will be closely related to the bending radius R.
For steel hollow sections, the normalised resid-
ual stress σcfl,c/fy at the corner of the compres-
sion flange (Point 5  in Figure  1a) were plotted
as a function of the R/h in Figure  4a. In gen-
eral, a downward trend can be observed with the
increase in R/h. A simple straight trend line with a
slope approximately equal to −0.26% (the red dot-
ted line in Figure 4a) is selected to approximate Figure 4. Variations of σ/fy with bending ratio R/h.
the relationship between σcfl,c/fy and R/h over the
range 20 ≤ R/h ≤ 150.
For σweb,m (stress at middle of free web, Point 7
of Figure 1a), the variation of normalised residual
stress σweb,m/fy with R/h are shown in Figure  4b.
From Figure  4b, an obvious turning point can
be observed in the range of 60 ≤ R/h ≤ 90 and the
slopes before and after this turning point are equal
to −0.35% and 0.25%, respectively. The magnitude
of the compressive stress σweb,m/fy first increases as
R/h increases until the turning point and then that
it decreases again. While it seems that it is unusual
to have the residual stress reduced as the value of
R/h decrease, such phenomenon may be explained
by the self-equilibrium property of residual stress Figure 5. Simplified trends for σ/fy against R/h.
(Figure 5).
The variations of the residual stresses σcfl,m and These curves show that both σcfl,m and σtfl,m fol-
σtfl,m (Point 3 and 11  in Figure  1a) with R/h are low similar trends that as R/h increases, the initial
shown in Figure  4c and Figure  4d, respectively. compressive residual stress decreases and turns

578
into tensile stress and eventually almost reminds
constant when R/h exceeds 75. Hence, the varia-
tions of both σcfl,m and σtfl,m could be simplified
into the bilinear dashed red lines shown in Figures
4c and 4d.
The simplified representations for σcfl,m, σcfl,c,
σweb,m and σtfl,m, are summarized in Figure  5 with
σcfl,c represented as a simple straight line while all
other residual stresses as bilinear curves. It can
be seen that, for a given section, a higher residual
stress is produced in the both flanges (σcfl,c, σcfl,m,
and σtfl,m) when the section is bent to a smaller R/h.
Due to the self-equilibrium property of residual
stress, the residual stress at the middle of the web
is smaller. As the value of R/h is increased gradu-
ally from a small value, the σweb,m/fy curve reaches
its peak value and then appears an upward trend
(as compressive residual stress is considered as
negative).

4.2 Influence of yield strength fy

It is well known that fy may affect the magnitude
of the residual stress. The study by Spoorenberg
et  al (2011) showed that the residual stress in the
compression flange of I-sections is correlated posi-
tively with fy. In this study, 8 different rectangular
sections made from 4 different steel grades (S235
to S460) were modelled and bent to different R/h
values to explore effects of fy.
Figure 6 shows the variation of σcfl,c/fy and σweb,m/
fy with fy for the two sections 203 × 154 × 6.35 mm
and 127  ×  127  ×  4.78  mm. Note that as all other
sections studied produced similar results so they
are not shown here. The curves were generated
from the sections bent to different values of R/h,
e.g 203 × 154 × 6.35 mm section with bending ratio
22 ≤ R/h ≤ 124. Figure 6 shows that sections with
higher fy generally lead to higher residual stress. In
addition, curves corresponding to different R/h are
almost parallel to each another which implies that
the effects of fy is very similar within the range of
R/h studied. Hence, simple straight lines are sug-
gested to represent the effect of fy. The slope of the
straight lines obtained from regression analysis for
σcfl,c/fy and σweb,m/fy are roughly equal to 0.12% and
−0.12%, respectively. Regarding the effects of fy on
σcfl,m and σtfl,m, it is found that fy shows no signifi-
cant influence on the sections studied.
4.3 Influence of shape factor h/b
Galambos (1998), Weng (1990) and Spoorenberg
(2011) have found that for wide flange I-sections,
the magnitude and distribution of residual stresses
due to hot and cold rolling would be positively cor-
related to the ratio between the flange area and the
web area, or the shape factor h/b for section with
equal flange and web thicknesses. The numerical
Figure 6. Plots of σcfl,m/fy and σtfl,m/fy against fy.
results also show that h/b has strong influence on
the value of σcfl,c for 20 ≤ R/h ≤ 160. In order to fur-
ther investigate its effect, more sections were mod-
elled and Figure  7a plots the variations of σcfl,c/
fy with h/b for sections with different R/h. From
Figure 7a, it is suggested that the effect of h/b on
σcfl,c can be represented by a simple trend lines with
slopes close to −0.09.
For the effects of h/b on σcfl,m, σweb,m and σtfl,m,
Figure  7 plots their variations with h/b for sec-
tions with different R/h. Figure  7  indicates that
for the range of h/b and R/h studied, the effects of
h/b is not affected by the value of R/h. Hence, sin-
gle trend lines (dashed red lines in Figs. 7b to 7d)
could be employed to represent the effects of h/b
on σcfl,m, σweb,m and σtfl,m for different values of R/h.
4.4 Influence of thickness ratio h/t
The depth to section thickness ratio h/t could also
affect the residual stress distribution. To study the
effect of h/t, three types of sections (178 × 178 × t
mm, 203 × 101 × t mm, and 254 × 254 × t mm, 22 ≤
h/t ≤ 48) were considered. For each value of h, dif-
ferent thickness ratios were generated by varying
t while the section was bent to different R/h from
20 ≤ R/h ≤ 150.
The variations of σ/fy with h/t are plotted in
Figure  8. In Figure  8(a) and (b), individual lines
are again corresponding to sections bent to differ-
ent R/h. It can be seen that both σcfl,c/fy and σweb,m/
fy increase as h/t increase. This implies that thinner

579

Figure 7. Variations of σ/fy with shape factor h/b.
section tends to produce higher residual stress. As
all curves shown in Figure 8 are almost parallel to
each other, this means that the effects of h/t and R/h
are largely independent. As a result, after conduct-
ing some regression analyses, the effects of h/t can
be simplified as straight lines with slope approxi-
580
Figure 8. Variations of σ/fy with thickness ratio h/t.
mately equal to 0.01 and −0.012 for σcfl,c/fy and σweb,m/
fy, respectively. For σcfl,m and σtfl,m, it is found that the
effect of h/t on the sections study can be ignored.
5 PROPOSED RESIDUAL STRESSES
MODEL
Based on the results obtained from the parametric
study, the symmetrical residual stresses model shown
in Figure 9 is proposed to predict the residual stress
generated by roller bending. The residual stress dis-
tribution is represented by the residual stresses σcfl,m,
σcfl,c, σweb,m and σtfl,m at the four selected Points 3, 5,
7 and 11. As the parametric study results indicated
that σtfl,m is only slightly affected by the geometrical
parameters studied, σtfl,m is simply assumed to be
equal to 0.15fy. For the webs, it is assumed that com-
pressive stress will be generated at the neutral axis
while tensile residual stress will appear at the cor-
ners. As shown in Figure 9, three triangular stress
blocks are employed to represent the web residual
stress distribution. The peak compressive stress is
assumed to be equal to σweb,m while residual stresses
at the tension and compression flange corners are
equal to σtfl,m and σcfl,c, respectively. The two quarter
points from the flanges are selected to define where
the residual stress is zero. For the compression
flange, it is assumed that the middle half part of
the flange is under a constant compressive residual
stress σcfl,m while the residual stress disappear at a
distance of b/8 from the corners.
 To define the magnitude of the residual stress, 75 ≤ R/h ≤ 150
based on the trend lines developed in Section 4 and
using data fitting method to slightly adjust some ⎡ R h h⎤
σ web,m / f y ε .73 + 0.0026 − 0.05 + 0.01 ⎥
of the trend line coefficients to achieve overall ⎣ h b t⎦
optimal results, the suggested expression of σ cffl ,c is:
(2b)
⎡ R h h⎤ where ε = f y / 350 is a material parameter that
σ cffl ,c / f y ε .81− 0.0028 − 0.09 + 0.008 ⎥
⎣ h b t⎦ reflects the increasing trend of residual stress as fy
increases. The scopes of the formulas in this sec-
(1) tion are: 20 ≤ R/h ≤ 150, 1 ≤ h/b ≤ 2, 20 ≤ h/t ≤ 50
While for σweb,m, the suggested expressions are and 235 MPa ≤ fy ≤ 460 MPa.
For 20 ≤ R/h ≤ 75, The magnitude of stress σcfl,m is determined by
the internal stresses equilibrium of the section.
From Figure  9, the internal stresses equilibrium
⎡ R h h⎤
σ web,m / f y ε .28 − 0.0034 − 0.05 + 0.01 ⎥ equation can be expressed as:
⎣ h b t⎦
(2a) ⎛ hσ tfl hσ hσ cflf ,c ⎞
bσ ttfl , m + 2 + web, m +
t ,m

⎝ 8 4 8 ⎟⎠
bσ cflf ,cc bσ tfl
+ + =0
t ,m
(3)
8 8

Rearranging Eq. 5 then gives the expression of

σcfl,m

⎛ ⎛ h⎞ h⎞
σ cffl , m σ tfl , m ⎜1.6 + 0.4 ⎟ + 0.8σ web, m ⎟
⎝ ⎝ b ⎠ b⎠
⎛ h⎞
+ σ cfcflfl ,c 0.2 + 0.4 ⎟ (4)
⎝ b⎠

where, σ cffl , m = 0.15 f y and σweb,m and σcfl,c could be

obtained from Eqs. 1 and 2.
In order to verify the accuracy of the proposed
model, it is applied to predict the residual stress
distributions for rectangular hollow sections with
steel grade from S235 to S460. The sizes of the
rectangular and square hollow section tested are
Figure 9. The proposed residual stresses distribution. from 101 × 101 × 4.78 mm to 500 × 300 × 16 mm.

Figure 10. Verification of the proposed residual stress model for rectangular hollow sections.

581
The results obtained from the proposed model and
FE analyses are shown in Figure 10 for rectangular
and square hollow sections. From Figure 10, it can
be concluded that the predicted stresses distribu-
tions match well with the FE results which indi-
cated that the proposed residual stress model could
be able to give reasonable residual stress predic-
tions. Furthermore, detailed analysis of the results
shown that the maximum differences between
the proposed equations and the FE prediction
for Point 5 (maximum tensile residual stress) and
Point 7 (maximum compressive residual stress) are
respectively equal to 25% and 21%. The coefficient
of correlations the results obtained from proposed
equations reaches 95.5%.
6 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a FE modelling procedure is employed
to simulate the rolling process and to predict the
final residual stress distributions generated by roller
bending of the steel rectangular hollow sections.
The modelling procedure is employed to study the
sequence of stress releasing and stress equilibrium
during the cold rolling process. The validity and
accuracy of the numerical models are confirmed by
comparing the residual stress with the results pre-
dicted by CIDECT report. A small scale parametric
study is also conducted to investigate the effects of
some key parameters of the rolling process, includ-
ing the bending ratio, the yield stress, the thick-
ness ratio and shape factor, on the residual stresses
distribution produced. The parametric study
found that the peak residual stress values generally
increase as the bending ratio decreases and as the
yield stress increases. They are also affected by the
shape factor and the thickness ratio of the section.
Based on the results obtained from the parametric
studies and the internal stress equilibrium principle,
a simple model which makes use of the stress at four
critical locations to describe the residual stress dis-
tribution of the section is proposed. The validity of
the proposed model is then confirmed by compar-
ing the predicted residual stress distributions with
582
the corresponding numerical modelling results for
different size rectangular hollow sections with dif-
ferent steel grades.
REFERENCES
Brady J. F. 1978. Determination of minimum radii for
cold bending of square and rectangular hollow struc-
tural sections, CIDECT Report 11B-78/12.
CEN. 2005. Eurocode 3: Design of steel structures – part
1–1: General rules and rules for buildings.
CEN. 2006. Hot finished structural hollow sections of
non-alloy and fine grain steels—part 2: Tolerances,
dimensions and sectional properties.
Chiew S. P., Jin Y. F., Lee C. K. 2016. Residual stress dis-
tribution of roller bending of steel rectangular struc-
tural hollow sections, Journal of Constructional Steel
Research. 119:85–97.
Galambos T. V. (1998). Guide to stability design criteria
for metal structures, 5ed., John Wiley, New York.
Kennedy J. B. 1988. Minimum bending radii for square
& rectangular hollow sections, CIDECT Report 11C-
88/14.
Kennedy J.B. 1985. Deformations of hollow structural
sections subjected to cold bending, CIDECT Report
11Bt-85/2.
King C. & Brown D. 2001. Design of curved steel, The
Steel Construction Institute, Berkshire.
Lee, C. K., Xu, Q. X. (2008), Automatic adaptive FE
analysis of thin-walled structures using 3D solid ele-
ments, International Journal for Numerical Methods in
Engineering. 76(2):183–229.
Li S. H., Zeng G., Ma Y. F., Guo Y. J. & Lai X. M. 2009.
Residual stresses in roll-formed square hollow sec-
tions, Thin-walled Struct, 47:505–513.
Spoorenberg R. C., Snijder H. H. & Hoenderkamp, J. C.
D. (2011). Proposed residual stress model for roller
bent steel wide flange sections, J Constr Steel Res,
67:992–1000.
Timoshenko S. P. (1940), Strength of materials: Part II:
Advanced theory and problems, 2ed., D. Van Nostrand
Company, Inc. New York.
Tong L. W., Hou G., Chen Y. Y., Zhou F., Shen K. & Yang
A. 2012. Experimental investigation on longitudinal
residual stresses for cold-formed thick-walled square
hollow sections, J Constr Steel Res, 73:105–116.
Weng C. C., Pekoz T. (1990). Residual stresses in cold
formed steel members, J Struct Eng, 116:24–39.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Experimental study on the compressive behavior of circular steel

tube confined UHPC columns

L.H. An & E. Fehling

Institute of Structural Engineering, University of Kassel, Germany

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an experimental investigation on 12 circular steel tube confined Ultra
High Performance Concrete (UHPC) stub and intermediate columns under axial loading. The UHPC
using steel fibers of 0%, 1% and 2% by volume were produced for filling in the steel tube. The test results
show that a significant improvement in the strength and ductility of the columns is achieved by the com-
posite action between the UHPC core and the steel tube. However, there is no noticeable increase in the
strength enhancement and the ductility with incorporation of steel fibers. The ultimate load obtained
from the test results were compared with the predictions by the codes EC4, AISC and AIJ. The com-
parisons reveal that the AIJ gave the best predictions, while EC4 can be safely extended for concrete with
compressive strength up to 200 MPa if the confinement effect is not considered.

1 INTRODUCTION thin-walled stainless steel tube leads to not only a

In recent years, ultra high performance concrete
(UHPC) has not only received a great deal of
attention from civil engineering community but
also become an innovative alternative to conven-
tional concrete in a variety of structural appli-
cation, such as high-rise building, bridges and
support structures. This can be attributed to the
superior mechanical properties of UHPC, such
as extremely high compressive strength exceed-
ing 150  MPa and post cracking tensile strength
approaching 5  MPa (Fehling et  al. 2014). How-
ever, the use of UHPC for structural members
under compression poses difficulties because of its
inherent brittleness accompanying with such very
high compressive strength. Hence, to enhance the
ductility and to increase the compressive strength,
some methods for confining UHPC by externally
combining it with transverse steel reinforcements,
or fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) tube, plastic
tube or steel tube have to be considered. Among
well-known confinement methods, steel tube con-
fined UHPC (STC-UHPC) columns have emerged
as a dominant option for the utilization of UHPC
in composite columns. The STC-UHPC columns
refer as a form of UHPC filled steel tube (UHPC-
FST) columns subjected to the axial load on the
concrete core only. In the past, UHPC, also known
as reactive powder concrete (RPC), confined in
circular stainless steel tubes was firstly used for
manufacturing the diagonal web members for the
Sherbrooke Footbridge erected in 1997 in Canada.
It was remarked that the confinement of RPC in a
dramatic increase in the compressive strength from
200 MPa to 350 MPa but also a very high ductil-
ity for RPC (Blais and Couture 1999). Since this
application, the structural benefits of UHPC-FST
columns have been documented in several compre-
hensive studies such as Tue et  al. (2004), Schnei-
der (2006), Liew and Xiong (2010, 2012), Xiong
(2012), Xiong et al. (2017), An and Fehling (2016,
2017). These authors reported that, for UHPC-
FST columns under axial loading on the entire sec-
tion, no significant confinement effect is developed
until reaching the peak load because the UHPC
core crushes before the steel tube yields. However,
when only the UHPC core is loaded, the tri-axial
confinement effect can be greatly induced as soon
as the lateral deformation of UHPC core develops,
thus resulting in higher load bearing capacity and
ductility as compared to the case of loading on
the entire section. Likewise, Tue et al. (2004) and
Schneider (2006) asserted that loading on only the
UHPC core confined by thicker steel tube can gen-
erate sufficient confinement and restrict the sud-
den load drop right after the peak load of UHPC.
Based on these findings, in order to obtain more
benefits of the strength and the ductility for UHPC
columns, STC-UHPC columns are recommended
to be used instead of UHPC-FST columns under
loading on the entire section. To the best knowl-
edge of the authors, apart from the tests on seven
circular STC-UHPC short columns with con-
crete compressive strength varying from 166.8 to
176.7 MPa reported by Tue et al. (2004) and Sch-
neider (2006), the tests on two circular STC-UHPC

583
short columns with concrete compressive strength
of 184 MPa reported by Liew and Xiong (2012),
there have been no such tests up to present. The
experimental studies on STC-UHPC columns have
also been extremely limited with only a handful of
published studies, thus stating the increased need
for further investigations on the behavior of this
column type.
Besides, all current design codes for concrete
filled steel tube (CFST) columns are applicable
for the use of normal strength concrete (NSC)
and some of them are extended for the use of high
strength concrete (HSC). For instance, Eurocode
4 (EC4 2004) limits the concrete strength up to
60  MPa, while the American Institute of Steel
Construction (AISC 2010) limits the maximum
compressive strength of concrete to 70  MPa. In
addition, the concrete strength up to 90  MPa is
adopted in the code of Architectural Institute of
Japan (AIJ 2001). Recently, Liew and Xiong (2015)
have also published a design guideline based on
EC4 for CFST members with HSC up to 90 MPa.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop the
design codes for CFST columns to cope with the
use of UHPC.
To address the aforementioned research gap,
this paper reports on an experimental study of
12 circular STC-UHPC columns under axial
compression. In this study, STC-UHPC col-
umns employing UHPC without steel fibers
(STC-UHPC-SF0%) and UHPC with steel fiber
volume of 1% and 2% (STC-UHPC-SF1% and
STC-UHPC-SF2%) were tested to investigate
the influence of steel fibers on the strength and
the ductility. The testing program and test results
are presented and discussed in detail. The ulti-
mate loads obtained from test results are com-
pared with the predictions by three design codes
approach (EC4 2004, AISC 2010 and AIJ 2001).
The significance of this study is to contribute to
the experimental database of CFST columns and
to provide a deeper insight into the behavior of
STC-UHPC columns employing UHPC with
compressive strength to 200 MPa.
2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
2.1 Test specimens
As a part of the experimental investigation, 12
circular STC-UHPC columns including 6 stub
and 6 intermediate columns were constructed and
tested under axial compression on the concrete
core only. The length of columns was classified in
accordance with AIJ (2001) standard, in which the
short column is defined as the length to diameter
ratio (L/D) smaller than 4 and the intermediate
column refers to L/D ratio ranging between 4 and
584
12. The commercially available 152.4  × 8.8  mm
and 152.4 × 6.3 mm circular hollow steel sections
provided by ThyssenKrupp Schulte company were
used for the manufacture of test specimens. Details
of test specimens are tabulated in Table 1. The test
specimens were divided into 2 series depending on
the steel tube thickness. All specimens had a con-
stant steel tube outer diameter (D) of 152.4 mm. A
diameter to thickness ratio (D/t) of steel tube was
chosen according to EC4 to ensure that local buck-
ling does not occur before the steel reaches its yield
strength. Each specimen was labelled according to
the steel fiber volume fraction (0%, 1%, 2%), steel
tube thickness (8.8  mm, 6.3  mm), and steel tube
length (600  mm and 1000  mm). For instance, for
the label SF2-t8.8-L600, the first letter SF2 repre-
sents 2% by volume of steel fibers, the middle letter
t8.8 represents the steel tube thickness of 8.8 mm
and the ending part L600 indicates the steel tube
length of 600 mm.
2.2 UHPC properties
UHPC without steel fibers (UHPC-SF0) and UHPC
with steel fibers of 1% by volume (UHPFRC-SF1%)
and 2% by volume (UHPFRC-SF2%) were used in
this study, following the recipe of M3Q which was
developed at University of Kassel during the work
on the priority program (SPP1182) of the German
Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsge-
meinschaft DFG). The details of the mix propor-
tions are given in Table 2. It should be noted that the
M3Q mix was designed to provide a very high self-
compacting characteristic. Therefore, the necessity
for compactness of concrete using external vibra-
tion was eliminated. This is favourable for the cast-
ing UHPC on site and provides a great convenience
during the preparation of test specimens. For three
batches of UHPC-SF0%, UHPFRC-SF1% and
UHPFRC-SF2% in this study, the average slump
flow ranged between 800 and 850  mm, indicating
a very good flowability even with the use of steel
fibers up to 2% by volume, as shown in Figure 1(b)-
(c). The steel fibers with diameter (df) of 0.175 mm
and length (lf ) of 13 mm were added to the UHPC
mix in volume fraction of 1% and 2%, as depicted
in Figure  1(a). The mechanical properties of steel
fibers are illustrated in Table 3.
The compressive strengths (fc) and elastic modu-
lus (Ec) were determined from 3 cylindrical speci-
mens of 100 × 200 mm for each concrete batch in
accordance with DIN EN 12390-3:2009-07 and
DIN 1048-5, respectively. The average values of fc
and Ec are given in Table 1. Prior to compression
test, the two ends of each concrete cylinder were
ground using a grinding wheel so that they were
parallel and the load was transferred uniformly
to the cross section. All cylinders were tested uni-
Table 1. Details of test specimens.

Name of Fiber D×t L Lc fc Ec fy Es

Series specimens Vol. (%) (mm) (mm) (mm) (MPa) (GPa) (MPa) (GPa)

Series 1 SF0-t8.8-L600 0 152.4 × 8.8 600 551.87 178.9 48.37 392.6 197.7
SF0-t8.8-L1000 152.4 × 8.8 1000 942.93
SF1-t8.8-L600 1 152.4 × 8.8 600 559.67 195.5 49.65
SF1-t8.8-L1000 152.4 × 8.8 1000 951.27
SF2-t8.8-L600 2 152.4 × 8.8 600 549.83 188.2 48.42
SF2-t8.8-L1000 152.4 × 8.8 1000 943.77
Series 2 SF0-t6.3-L600 0 152.4 × 6.3 600 553.00 178.9 48.37 373.4 201.4
SF0-6.3-L1000 152.4 × 6.3 1000 949.70
SF1-t6.3-L600 1 152.4 × 6.3 600 554.70 195.5 49.65
SF1-t6.3-L1000 152.4 × 6.3 1000 951.30
SF2-t6.3-L600 2 152.4 × 6.3 600 552.70 188.2 48.42
SF2-t6.3-L1000 152.4 × 6.3 1000 950.50

Table 2. Composition of UHPC and UHPFRC mixes.

Mix composition Unit UHPC UHPFRC-SF1% UHPFRC-SF2%

Water kg/m3 187.98 187.98 187.98

CEM I 52.5R HS-NA kg/m3 795.4 795.4 795.4
Silica fume kg/m3 168.6 168.6 168.6
Superplasticizer Sika Viscorete 2810 kg/m3 24.1 24.1 24.1
Ground Quartz W12 kg/m3 198.4 198.4 198.4
Quartz sand 0.125/0.5 kg/m3 971 971 971
Steel fibers kg/m3 – 79.31 160.25

Figure 1. Steel fibers (a), the fresh UHPC mixture (b), and slump flow test (c).

Table 3. Properties of steel fibers.

Aspect Tensile Elastic

df lf ratio Density strength modulus
(mm) (mm) (lf/df) (g/cm3) (MPa) (GPa) Characteristics

0.175 13 74.29 7.8 2500 200 Smooth and brass

coated surface

formly force-controlled using a 4000  kN capacity
compression machine. In addition, elastic modulus
was measured using a compressometer installed at
the mid-height of concrete cylinder measuring the
average compressive strain. Figure 2 shows the typ-
ical failure modes for the concrete cylinders after
testing. It was observed that a loud cracking noise
was heard around the peak load for all cylinder
tests. In addition, the fragmentation occurred with
UHPC-SF0% cylinders, while it was not observed
in any UHPFRC-SF1% and UHPFRC-SF2%
cylinders.

585
Figure  2. Typical failure modes of concrete cylinders
under compression.
2.3 Steel tube properties
To determine the mechanical properties of steel
tube including the yield strength (fy), the ulti-
mate strength (fu) and elastic modulus (Es), tensile
coupon tests were carried out on tensile coupons
extracted from steel tube segment in accordance
with EN 10002-1. For each steel thickness, three
coupon specimens were cut and machined from
various segments of steel tube. Figure 3 describes
the tension test setup and failure mode of steel
coupon after testing. A displacement controlled
testing machine (Zwick/Roell Z150) with friction
grips and a maximum capacity of 150 kN was used
for testing the coupons, as shown in Figure  3(a).
These tests were controlled at a constant displace-
ment rate of 0.1  mm/s and maintained with this
displacement rate until fracture of coupon speci-
mens (see Figure  3b). A calibrated extensometer
of a 27  mm gauge length was used to measure
the longitudinal strain of specimens, as depicted
in Figure  3(a). The average values of fy and Es
obtained from tensile coupon tests for steel tube
with thicknesses of 8.8  mm and 6.3  mm are also
given in Table 1.
2.4 Fabrication of test specimens
A formwork was designed to assure that the steel
tube remains concentric during the process of
concrete pouring, as shown in Figure  4(a). Fur-
thermore, this formwork was also used to facili-
tate the loading application to only the concrete
core through the utilization of stiff steel blocks.
Due to very high self-compacting characteristic of
UHPC mixture even with incorporation of steel
fibers with volume up to 2%, the concrete mixture
was vertically poured into steel tube without any
additional vibration, as shown in Figure 4(b). For
installation of the upper stiff steel blocks and the
symmetry of the columns, the concrete was filled
up to a level which is roughly 25 mm lower than
the top end of the steel tube as demonstrated in
Figure  4(c). Once the casting was complete, the
top faces of the columns were covered and sealed
using plastic sheet. Then all specimens were cured
586
Figure 3. Tensile coupons test.
at ambient temperature in the laboratory. The
height of concrete core (Lc) and steel tube (L) as
shown in the schematic view of Figure  4(c) were
carefully measured and given in Table 1.
2.5 Test setup and loading procedure
Two upper and bottom steel blocks which have a
fractionally smaller cross-section than that of con-
crete core and a height of 90  mm were placed at
two ends of the concrete core. The use of two steel
blocks ensured that the load was applied on the con-
crete core only. The axial load from testing machine
was directly applied on the concrete core through
the upper block. Prior to testing, the top surface of
concrete core was cleaned and capped using a very
thin layer of sand (about 4 mm) to ensure an even
load distribution from the upper stiff steel block to
the concrete core and to provide an uniform stress
distribution during the testing. To avoid premature
local failure at the top end of column due to lateral
pressure on the steel tube caused by the sand, a hol-
low steel plate was produced and used to confine
the column at the position of sand layer. Figure 5
shows the top surfaces of concrete core after hard-
ening and the sand for capping.
To monitor the longitudinal and the hoop strain
of the steel tube, six unidirectional strain gauges
were attached to the external surface at the mid-
height of the steel tube and placed at 120° spac-
ing around the steel tube perimeter as depicted
in Figure  6(a). Each columns was instrumented
with three strain gauges (SG-V1, SG-V2, SG-V3)
installed in the longitudinal direction and three
strain gauges (SG-H1, SG-H2, SG-H3) installed
in the transverse direction. Axial shortening dis-
placements of the specimens were recorded using
three Linear Varying Displacement Transducers
(LVDTs – V1, V2, and V3), which were mounted
on circular steel collars. These three LVDTs were
Figure 4. Specimen fabrication.

Figure 5. Preparation of end capping.

Figure 6. Schematic view and photos of test setup.

also located at 120o apart and coincident with the controlled universal compression testing machine at
position of the strain gauges. the Laboratory of Structural Engineering Depart-
All column specimens were tested under uniaxial ment, University of Kassel, as shown in Figure  6
compression using a 6300  kN capacity computer- (b)–(c). The load cell of the testing machine was used

587
to measure the axial loads that were applied to the
concrete core. Before formal loading, an initially small
load was applied to the specimens to verify the align-
ment of the columns and to ensure the perfect work-
ing performance of all LVDTs, strain gauges and
testing machine as well. Furthermore, this procedure
was aimed at checking the uniformity of the load
transferring through the sand layer and at allowing
for any settlement of surface grit on the end capping.
Then the load was released to set the zero values for
all readings. Axial load was applied at a constant dis-
placement rate of 0.01 mm/s up to the ultimate load.
This process was found to be continued well beyond
the attainment of ultimate load. When the perform-
ance of post-peak branch was fully observed at the
axial displacements of LVDTs of about 15 mm, the
displacement rate was increased up to 0.05 mm/s. The
testing was continued until the axial displacements
of LVDTs reached a value of 20 mm. The duration
of loading for each test ranged between 25 and 30
minutes. All the readings from LVDTs, load cell and
strain gauges were automatically recorded at a con-
stant frequency of 10 Hz throughout the testing.
3 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
3.1 Test observations and failure modes
The values recorded from three LVDTs were
observed to be quite similar during testing process,
thus indicating the proper action of the sand layer.
There was no loud cracking/crushing noise emanat-
ing from the concrete core around the peak load for
all columns, which contrasts with the brittle behav-
ior of unconfined UHPC and UHPFRC cylinders
Figure 7. Typical failure modes of the test specimens.
588
in compression test. When the load reached the ulti-
mate load, oblique slip lines appeared on the outer
walls of the steel tube and subsequently expanded
along the length of steel tube beyond the ultimate
load, as shown in Figure 7(a). It can be inferred from
this observation that the failure of the columns is
associated with a shear plane failure of the concrete
core and the steel tube provided a restraint to restrict
the slip movement along the shear plane, as depicted
in Figure 7(b)–(d). Therefore, all columns exhibited
a softening behavior after reaching the ultimate
load. This phenomenon is distinctly explained by
some previous studies for high strength concrete
confined by the steel tube columns (O’Shea and
Bridge 1994, Johansson 2002). The local deforma-
tion of steel tube for all columns could be observed
adjacent to and along the shear plane of concrete
core. As a result, two outward bulges were observed
at two opposite sides of the columns after testing, as
seen in Figure 7(b)–(d). For all STC-UHPC interme-
diate columns, the shear plane of concrete core for
the columns using steel fibers occurred near the mid-
height region of the specimens (see Figure 7c), while
the columns without steel fibers experienced a shear
plane near the bottom region of the specimens (see
Figure 7d). These observed differences in the failure
modes of intermediate columns indicated that the
steel fibers formed bridges across the crack of the
concrete core, leading to a distribution of load to the
whole column length. However, for all STC-UHPC
short columns, there was no difference in the failure
modes between the columns with and without steel
fibers. In these short columns, the shear plane pre-
dominantly occurred within the haft length of the
specimens, as shown in Figure 7(b).
3.2 Load versus axial strain It is evident from the Figure 8(a)–(d) that all col-
umns exhibit an almost linear ascending part and a
The measured axial load versus axial strain responses
shortly plastic stage until the ultimate load is reached,
of all specimens are depicted in Figure 8(a)–(d). The
then followed by a decrease of load until the second
axial displacement of specimens was calculated by
peak load, at which a slight recovery stage of the
subtracting the elastic displacement of steel blocks
strength or a virtually horizontal branch develops.
from the average displacement recorded from three
Although the load is applied only on the concrete core,
LVDTs. The axial strain of specimens was subse-
the steel tube carries the load together with the con-
quently calculated from this axial displacement
crete core during the ascending part. This can be con-
divided by the length of concrete core (Lc). Gener-
firmed by the values of longitudinal strain gauges, as
ally, the load-strain curves of all specimens are nota-
illustrated in Figure 9(a)–(d). After reaching the ulti-
bly close in the ascending portion.
mate load, the softening branch is marked by a sudden
At the beginning of the loading, the steel tube
drop of load, which is caused by the brittle nature of
and the concrete core resist the axial load together
UHPC. Beyond the sudden drop of load, the larger
through the interfacial bond between two materi-
expansion of the concrete core leads to a contact with
als. However, the interfacial bond might be broken
the outer steel tube. In this stage, the significant con-
because of the relative slip, thus the load is mainly
finement provided by the steel tube effectively prevents
sustained by the concrete core while the steel tube
the shear failure of the concrete core, thus improves
shares less load. Therefore, the load versus axial
the ductility. The larger confining stress and the hard-
strain curve becomes softer. Subsequently, the lat-
ening effect of steel tube compensate the strength deg-
eral deformation of the concrete core developed
radation of concrete, thus causing a strength recovery.
faster than that of the steel tube, resulting in the
The strength recovery occurs with the columns which
development of a small confinement effect and
have an abrupt load drop, while it is not observed in
friction forces. Hence, the axial load is transferred
the columns which have a strength degradation at a
from the concrete core to the steel tube, thereby
more gradual rate such as SF1-t8.8-L600, SF0-t6.3-
leading to an increase in the axial stiffness of load-
L600 and SF1-t6.3-L1000. This phenomenon was also
strain curve again. For all columns, the axial stiff-
pointed out and explained by Lai and Ho (2014).
ness increased again at the load of about 500 kN.
It is mentioned that the value and the gradient
Figure 8(a) shows the initial load-strain curve. This
of the post-peak strength loss vary from column
observed phenomenon can be found in Xiong et al.
to column. For instance, the columns with thinner
(2017) or Liew and Xiong (2012).
steel tube thicknesses (t = 6.3 mm) perform a steeper

Figure 8. Load-axial strain of test specimens.

589
Figure 9. Load-strain at mid-height of steel tube.
slope and smaller values of load drop as compared
to the columns with thicker ones (t = 8.8 mm). It
is also worth noting that, for the short columns in
both test series, the specimens SF0-t8.8-L600 and
SF0-t6.3-L600 exhibit a more gradual decrease of
load after reaching the ultimate load as compared
to the specimens SF2-t8.8-L600, SF1-t6.3-L600
and SF2-t6.3-L600. Nevertheless, for the inter-
mediate columns in both test series, the specimens
SF0-t8.8-L1000 and SF0-t6.3-L1000 have a steeper
slope of load drop as compared to the other speci-
mens. These observations imply that the presence
of steel fibers may improves the post-peak behav-
ior only in the intermediate columns, while there is
no such enhancement in the short columns.
3.3 Load versus strain of the steel tube
The longitudinal strains (εv) and hoop strains (εh) of
steel tube at mid-height versus the applied loads are
plotted as negative and positive values respectively
in Figure 9(a)–(d). In the post-peak domain, strain
gauge readings were found to vary due to the shear
plane failure of concrete core. In some specimens,
strain reading became erratic when the failure
directly occurred and the steel tube buckled at the
position of strain gauges. Hence, it was impossible
to plot all strain readings in the post-peak domain.
In general, the hoop strain increased slower than the
590
longitudinal strain before reaching the ultimate load.
This can be explained by the fact that in the pre-peak
stage, the restraint of steel tube to restrict the expan-
sion of UHPC is weak because of inherently small
lateral deformation of UHPC core. When the applied
load was close to the ultimate load, the hoop strain
increased at a greater rate and continued to increase
faster beyond the ultimate load. Therefore, the com-
posite action during the pre-peak stage of load-axial
strain response of specimens is mainly caused by the
bonding resistance between two materials, while it is
mainly dependent on the level of confinement effect
during the post-peak stage. The hoop strains at the
ultimate loads were found to be less than the yield
strain of steel except for the specimens SF1-t8.8-
L1000. However, the longitudinal strains at the ulti-
mate loads reached the values which can be higher or
slightly smaller than the yield strain of steel.
3.4 Strength and ductility enhancement
To quantify the strength enhancement due to the
composite action in STC-UHPC columns, a strength
ratio (SR) was introduced by Han et al. (2005) and
expressed by the following equation:
Nu
SR = (1)
Ac fc
where Nu is the ultimate load obtained from
experimental test, Ac is the cross-sectional area of
the concrete core, and fc is the concrete cylinder
strength.
The ductility index (DI) defined in Eq. (2) is
introduced by numerous studies (e.g., Han et  al.
2001, Portolés et al. 2011) so as to evaluate the abil-
ity of circular STC-UHPC columns to withstand a
large plastic deformation without a significant loss
of load bearing capacity.
ε 85%
DI =
εu
in which ε85% is the axial strain when the load
decreased to 85% of the ultimate load, and εu is
equal to the axial strain at the ultimate load.
The experimental results of Nu, SR, and DI are
listed in Table 4. Figure 10(a)–(b) present a graphical
comparison of the influence of steel fiber volume on
the values of SR and DI. In general, the values of SR
and DI were higher with the columns using thicker
steel thickness. Furthermore, the ultimate loads of
the columns using steel fiber is found to be slightly
higher than those of the columns without steel fib-
ers. This is due to the addition of steel fibers slightly
increase the unconfined strengths as noted in Table 1,
thereby slightly increasing the ultimate loads. It is
evident from Figure 10(a) that there is no noticeable
increase in the values of SR for the short columns
with incorporation of steel fibers by volume 1% and
2% as compared to the columns without steel fibers.
However, it is interesting to note that, the intermedi-
ate columns using the steel fibers exhibited a slight
(2) decrease in the values of SR compared to their com-
panions without steel fibers. In addition, the increase
in the steel fiber volume from 1% to 2% did not sig-
nificantly increase the strength enhancement. It is
clear from the trending line in Figure 10(b) that, in
comparison with the columns without steel fibers,
the short columns employing steel fibers experiences
a considerable decrease in the values of DI, while the
use of steel fibers in the intermediate columns leads
to a slight increase in the values of DI.

Table 4. The experimental results of Nu, SR, and DI.

Vol. Nu
Type Specimens Lc/D (%) (kN) SR DI

Short SF0-t6.3-L600 3.63 0 3692.81 1.35 2.65

columns SF1-t6.3-L600 3.64 1 3807.97 1.27 1.29
SF2-t6.3-L600 3.63 2 4033.01 1.40 1.10
SF0-t8.8-L600 3.62 0 4200.84 1.65 1.88
SF1-t8.8-L600 3.67 1 4288.54 1.54 1.81
SF2-t8.8-L600 3.61 2 4354.06 1.62 2.00
Intermediate SF0-t6.3-L1000 6.19 0 3861.14 1.41 1.05
columns SF1-t6.3-L1000 6.24 1 3535.31 1.18 2.95
SF2-t6.3-L1000 6.19 2 3584.70 1.24 1.21
SF0-t8.8-L1000 6.23 0 3919.86 1.54 1.21
SF1-t8.8-L1000 6.24 1 4178.66 1.50 1.36
SF2-t8.8-L1000 6.24 2 4099.03 1.53 1.38

Figure 10. The experimental results of SR and DI.

591
4 COMPARISON WITH DESIGN CODES P0,AISC is defined as the plastic capacity of the
section with zero length. Therefore, to consider the
In EC4 (2004), the cross-sectional plastic resistance length effects, the nominal axial capacity of circu-
to compression of a CFST columns without steel lar CFST columns is computed by:
reinforcement is expressed by the follow equation:
⎧ ⎡ ⎟⎤
⎛ P0 ,AISC ⎞
⎜
N pl ,Rk As f y Ac fc (3) ⎪⎪ P0, AISC ⎢0.658⎝ Pe ⎠ ⎥
N AISC =⎨ ⎢⎣ ⎥⎦ Pe ( 0 44 P0, AISC )
where Ac and As are the cross-sectional areas of the ⎪
concrete core and the steel tube respectively, fc is (
⎪⎩0.877 Pe Pe < 0.44 P0, AISC
A ) (7)
the compressive concrete cylinder strength, fy is the
yield strength of steel tube.
For circular CFST columns with relative slen- where Pe is the elastic buckling load
derness λ ≤ 0.5, additional confinement effect is In AIJ (2001), the ultimate compressive
considered in the calculation of the compressive strength (Ncu1, Ncu2, Ncu3 )of circular CFST col-
resistance as follow: umns is determined depending on the classifica-
tion of column:
⎛ t fy ⎞
N pl ,Rd ηa As f y Ac fc ⎜1 + ηc (4) − For short columns (lk/D ≤ 4):
⎝ D fc ⎟⎠
Ncu1 0 85A
Ac fc As f y (8)
where t is the thickness of steel tube, D is the outer
diameter of steel tube, ηa and ηc are the coefficients whereη is the factor which represents the confine-
of the confinement for steel tube and concrete core ment effect and taken as 0.27 for circular section, lk
respectively. ηa and ηc are given by: is the effective buckling length of column.
− For intermediate columns (4 < lk/D ≤ 12):
⎧ ηa
⎪ ( λ ≤1)
⎨ (5)
⎛l ⎞
Ncu1 − 0.125 ( Ncu1 Ncu 3 ) ⎜ k − 4⎟
2
⎪⎩ηc λ + 17 λ ≥ 0 Ncu 2 (9)
⎝D ⎠
In AISC (2010), the cross-sectional plastic
resistance is calculated by: − For slender columns (lk/D > 12)

P0, AISC As f y Ac fc (6) Ncu 3 Nc ,crcr + N s ,cr (10)

Table 5. Comparison of predictions by EC4, AISC and AIJ with test results.

EC4 AISC AIJ

Nu Npl,Rk N pl ,Rk Npl,Rd N pl ,Rd NAISC N AISC Ncu Ncu

Specimens (kN) (kN) Nu (kN) Nu (kN) Nu (kN) Nu
SF0-t6.3-L600 3692.81 3412.17 0.924 4078.54 1.104 3483.38 0.943 3703.55 1.003
SF1-t6.3-L600 3807.97 3628.65 0.953 4334.44 1.138 3696.82 0.971 3920.03 1.029
SF2-t6.3-L600 4033.01 3533.45 0.876 4221.57 1.047 3604.16 0.894 3824.83 0.948
SF0-t8.8-L600 4200.84 4109.70 0.978 4376.83 1.042 3804.59 0.906 4147.53 0.987
SF1-t8.8-L600 4288.54 3928.18 0.916 4607.83 1.074 4003.67 0.934 4348.79 1.014
SF2-t8.8-L600 4354.06 3839.67 0.882 4511.88 1.036 3920.70 0.900 4260.29 0.978
SF0-t6.3-L1000 3861.14 3412.17 0.884 3850.07 0.997 3126.22 0.810 3623.01 0.938
SF1-t6.3-L1000 3535.31 3628.65 1.026 4103.73 1.161 3285.25 0.929 3837.16 1.085
SF2-t6.3-L1000 3584.70 3533.45 0.986 3992.53 1.114 3220.59 0.898 3743.91 1.044
SF0-t8.8-L1000 3919.86 3726.91 0.951 4095.33 1.045 3479.06 0.888 4019.34 1.028
SF1-t8.8-L1000 4178.66 3928.18 0.940 4332.96 1.037 3645.90 0.873 4229.80 1.012
SF2-t8.8-L1000 4099.03 3839.67 0.937 4227.80 1.031 3573.02 0.872 4141.66 1.010
Mean 0.938 1.069 0.901 1.007
Standard deviation 0.048 0.046 0.046 0.040

592
where Nc,cr is the buckling strength of a concrete
column, and Ns,cr is the buckling strength of a steel
tube.
The predictions of the ultimate loads obtained
from EC4, AISC and AIJ for all test specimens are
compared with the test results as shown in Table 5.
Overall, the standard deviation of all predictions
is quite small, thus indicating the small scatter in
predictions. The comparison in Table 5 reveals that
the Equation 3, which does not taking into account
the confinement effect, conservatively predicts the
compression resistance for most of the specimens,
but slightly overestimates the compression resist-
ance of the specimens SF1-t6.3-L1000 by 2.6%. In
addition, the Equation 2, which considers the con-
finement effect, overestimates the ultimate loads
of most of specimens except for three intermedi-
ate columns SF0-t6.3-L1000. On average, EC4
approach overestimates the ultimate loads of the
specimens by 6.9% when the confinement effect is
considered and underestimates the ultimate loads
by 6.2% when the confinement effect is not con-
sidered. With respect to AISC approach, it can be
seen that all the ultimate loads of the specimens
are underestimated by 9.9%. It is interesting to find
that, among three codes, AIJ approach gives the
most precise predictions because on average, the
ultimate loads of all specimens are slightly overes-
timated by only 0.7% by this code.
On the basis of the comparisons, it is recom-
mended that the AIJ formulation is the most suit-
able for predicting the ultimate load of circular
STC-UHPC columns in both cases of the short
and intermediate columns. Besides, EC4 limita-
tion on concrete cylinder strength could be safely
extended to 200  MPa for this type of columns
without considering the confinement effect. How-
ever, further tests to justify this recommendation
is ongoing.
5 CONCLUSIONS
A total of 12 specimens were tested to evaluate the
compressive behavior of the circular STC-UHPC
short and intermediate columns. Based on the test
results and analyses presented in this study, the fol-
lowing conclusions can be derived:
The failure modes of all specimens are mainly
associated with the shear plane failure of con-
crete core. The intermediate columns without
steel fibers exhibit a local deformation near
the bottom region. The addition of steel fibers
affects to the failure modes of the intermediate
columns, in which the shear plane failure occurs
near the mid-height region, while there is no
such influence in the short columns.
593
Overall, the loading on only concrete core
results in an improvement in the strength and
ductility for the circular STC-UHPC short
and intermediate columns. The pre-peak stage
of load-axial strain response of specimens is
mainly controlled by the bonding resistance
between two materials, while the post-peak stage
is mainly dependent on the level of confinement
effect.
There is no noticeable increase in the strength
enhancement with incorporation of steel fib-
ers. The use of steel fibers may slightly increase
the ductility of the intermediate columns, while
there is an adverse influence on the ductility of
the short columns. The strength and ductility
enhancement are generally increased with thicker
steel thickness. Hence, it would have more sense
to use UHPC without steel fibers in combina-
tion with thicker steel thickness for this type of
columns.
Among three codes introduced in this study, the
AIJ approach performs the best predictions of
the ultimate loads for both short and intermedi-
ate columns.
It is recommended that the EC4 method can
be safely extended for circular STC-UHPC col-
umns using UHPC with compressive strength
up to 200 MPa if the confinement effect is not
considered.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The work presented in this paper was supported
by Vietnamese Government for PhD scholar-
ship and Institute of Structural Engineering—
University of Kassel for the project of UHPC
confined by circular steel tube columns. The first
author also wishes to thank the assistance of
Dr.-Ing. Jenny Thiemicke, Dipl.-Ing. Beniamino
Faion, Dr.-Ing. Thomas Hahn, Mr. Klaus Trost,
Mr. Hendrik Mattfeld, M.Sc. Paul Lorenz who
actively participated during the tests.
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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Buckling of multiple outside geometry (MOG) hollow sections

O. Fleischer & S. Herion

KoRoH GmbH—CCTH Center of Competence for Tubes and Hollow Sections, Karlsruhe, Germany

P. Lang & S. Scherf

Vallourec Deutschland GmbH, Düsseldorf, Germany

ABSTRACT: The loading of structures made of Circular Hollow Sections (CHS) are either limited by
the design resistances of the joints or by the buckling resistances of the sections. For structures loaded
by alternating loads, the fatigue design resistances of the joints have to be considered additionally. To
increase the static and the fatigue resistance of joints, sections with higher chord slenderness d0/t0 or a
higher wall-thickness ratio ti/t0 can be used. Since these sections are only required for increase the joint
resistances but not for the resistances of the members, expensive weldments are necessary to connect sec-
tions with different dimensions. In this paper the buckling resistances of forged columns with a constant
inner but varying outer diameter (MOG) in steel grades S355 and S690 with transitions at the middle as
well as the accordant CHS columns are numerically determined. Appropriate initial imperfections of the
columns are investigated beforehand.

1 INTRODUCTION usage of details categorized in lower fatigue classes

(FAT). Since forged sections offer smooth transi-
Forged hollow sections (PFP®) offer flexible tions between different diameters or varying wall-
adaptations to specific requirements for obtain thickness transversal welds are avoided and a higher
optimized design solutions. Forged CHS have a fatigue resistance of the construction is obtained.
continuously changing wall-thickness within a But not only the more favorable fatigue behav-
transition length providing either a constant outer ior encourages the use of hot-finished hollow sec-
but varying inner diameter (MIG – Multiple Inside tions, but also the higher buckling resistance for
Geometry) or a constant inner but varying outer statically loaded members as a result of the more
diameter (MOG – Multiple Outside Geometry). uniform residual stress distribution than of cold-
A combination of MIG and MOG is also possi- formed hollow sections (Mang et al, 1984).
ble. Thus increased joint resistances due to locally For hot rolled sections of steel grade S355 an
increased chord slenderness d0/t0 or wall-thickness imperfection factor of α  =  0.21 according to EN
ratios ti/t0 are possible without expensive weld- 1993-1-1 (2010) for buckling curve a (Fig.  1) is
ments being necessary to connect sections with dif- used for the determination of the design buckling
ferent dimensions. Additionally, replacing sections resistance Ncr (Eq. 1).
with outer diameters at the joints differing from
the outer diameters of the members would require Ncr = χNpl (1)
mechanical processing.
Environmental conditions like wave, storm and −1
⎡
( ) ⎤⎥⎦
2
current loads, sometimes at extremely low serv- with: χ = ⎢Φ + Φ 2 − λ
λ1
≤1
ice temperatures down to −60°C determine the ⎣
demanding requirements on steels for offshore
and Φ = 0.5 ⎡1 + α ( ) ( ) ⎤⎦⎥
2
λ λ
applications. Especially alternating loads as a con- − 0.2 +
⎣⎢ λ1 λ1
sequence of waves, currents and stormy weather
conditions encourage the use of hot-finished seam-
where χ = reduction of axial capacity Npl; λ = slen-
less hollow sections due to their more favorable
derness; λ1 = reference slenderness; α = imperfec-
fatigue behavior. Additionally, the design of more
tion factor of buckling curve related on production
fatigue-tolerant steel constructions requires the
type and yield strength.
avoidance of notches like longitudinal weldments
For hot finished sections according to EN 10210
of cold-formed hollow sections which additionally
(2006) with yield strengths fy ≤ 460  N/mm2 even
intersect with transversal weldments or at least the

595
 morphology and to improve castability. The steel is
continuously casted to round steel billets in vary-
ing diameters depending on the diameter, length
and weight of the required final tube dimensions.
PFP@ tubular products developed and patented
by Vallourec are produced in two steps by combin-
ing a cross roll piercing and a subsequent forging
process.
For produce the hollow sections the cross roll
piercing process invented by the Mannesmann
brothers at the end of the 1880 s is used in a first
step (Fig. 2). The steel billets are reheated to roll-
ing temperature held by the rolls in the tapered
entry section of the cross-rolling mill. A piercing
mandrel arranged in the roll gap enables the pierc-
ing of the billets in a helical motion. In a second
step the hollow sections are hot formed by a four
hammer forging machine using a cylindrical man-
drel reducing both, diameter and wall-thickness
Figure  1. Buckling curves of EN 1993-1-1 (2010) of (Fig. 2).
cold formed and hot finished hollow sections and buck-
The CNC-controlled setting of the forging ham-
ling lengths of Euler buckling modes.
mers and of the mandrel allows any desired varia-
tion of diameters and wall-thickness (Fig. 3).
Presently qualified forged circular hollow sec-
buckling curve a0 (Fig.  1) can be used by using
tions are available with outer diameters from
the reduced imperfection factor α  =  0.13. How-
D  =  209  mm up to D  =  406.4  mm and a wall-
ever, for cold formed hollow sections according to
thickness from T = 25 mm to T = 90 mm. Weights
EN 10219 (2006) the design resistance is based on
per section should not exceed 3,600 kg, lengths up
buckling curve c (Fig. 1) and an increased imper-
fection factor α = 0.49 has to be considered for the
determination of the design buckling resistance
Ncr. The European buckling curves included in EN
1993-1-1 (2010) for cold formed and hot finished
hollow sections and the buckling lengths of the
equivalent member method in reference to the sup-
port conditions of the compressive loaded mem-
bers are given in Figure 1.
The determination of design buckling resist-
ances with the equivalent member method of EN
1993-1-1 (2010) requires compressive loaded mem- Figure 2. Two step production process: Cross roll pierc-
bers with constant diameter and constant wall- ing process and subsequent PFP® four-hammer forging
thickness in longitudinal direction of the members. process, schematically for MIG and MOG sections.
Since forged hollow sections offer changing diam-
eters as well as changing wall-thickness the equiva-
lent member method is not applicable to determine
the design buckling resistance of forged hollow
sections. Therefore, numerical investigations are
carried out for MOG circular hollow sections.

2 FORGED CHS FOR OFFSHORE

APPLICATIONS

2.1 Production process

Fully aluminum killed fine grain steels made by
blast oxygen furnace (BOF/EAF) process and
refined by ladle techniques are used as raw materi- Figure  3. Four-hammer forging machine with MOG
als. Calcium treatment is added to control sulphide section.

596
to L = 13.4 m are possible. Currently under develop-
ment is the extension of the outside diameter range
up to D = 420 mm and the increase of the maximum
weight up to 4,000 kg. As a unique feature of the
production process any sizes within these ranges
can be produced covering inner diameters from
D = 90 mm to D = 311 mm in 1 mm increments.
Any desired wall-thickness is obtained by adjust-
ing the reach of the forge hammers accordingly,
so that CHS with variable outer and/or variable
inner diameters and/or a variable wall-thickness
can be produced. Furthermore, forged CHS with
a maximum outer diameter of D  =  711  mm and
a wall-thickness up to T  =  150  mm are currently
in qualification for additional extension of avail-
able size range. Multiple inside geometry tubes
(MIG, Fig.  4) and multiple outside geometry
tubes (MOG, Fig.  5) are produced using specific
tools during the hot forming resp. forging process
(Fig. 2).
After hot-forming, the sections are heat-treated
using appropriate quenching and tempering proc-
esses to obtain homogeneous mechanical proper-
ties over the entire tube length and wall-thickness
of the sections.
2.2 Material properties
The manufacturing process provides PFP® tubular
products in all steel grades acc. to European and
international standards relevant for offshore appli-
cations e.g. EN 10225 (2009), NORSOK M-120
(2008), DNVGL-OS-B101 (2015), API 5 L (2005)
and the recommendations of the American Bureau
of Shipping (e.g. ABS (2015)) This also covers high
strength steels commonly used in offshore applica-
tions with excellent ductility even at low tempera-
tures down to −60°C.
The material developments for offshore con-
structions are strongly linked to micro-alloyed
low carbon high strength steels. Such fine grained
quenched and tempered structural steel grades
are used in various modern offshore rig designs.
Offshore steel grades for modern rig designs have
Figure 4. Multiple Inside Geometry (MIG) section.
Figure 5. Multiple Outside Geometry (MOG) section.
597
to ensure cost effective construction and long-term
low-maintenance operation of the units. Aspects as
an efficient design including a streamline construc-
tion process with reduced welded connections, low
weight, an increased strength to cost ratio and long
term safety and constructive durability.
3 NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS
3.1 General
For the numerical investigations, ABAQUS is used
as pre- and postprocessor and as solver for the
finite element analyses (FEA).
CHS with a constant inner diameter D – 2⋅T1
but continuously varying wall-thickness (MOG) are
manufactured by forging. The numerical investiga-
tions are based on MOG sections with a thinner
wall-thickness of T1  =  25  mm and a thicker wall-
thickness of T2 = 35 mm (see Fig. 6). However, the
production process allows also other wall-thickness
combinations, e.g. T1  =  25 and T2  =  55  mm. The
minimum length of the transition Lf is given by its
maximum possible inclination of (T2-T1)/Lf ≥ 1/4
(Fig. 6).
Since numerical investigations on the buckling
behavior of MIG columns give only a significant
influence on the buckling resistance for thick-
ened sections arranged at the ends of the columns
(Fleischer et al. 2017), only columns with thickened
sections at the middle are investigated (IMOG,
Fig.  7, left). For columns having both, thickened
sections at the ends and at the middle, the results
are used as lower bound solution.
The degrees of freedom (DOF) at the support
and at the load introduction are kinematically
coupled in order to give uniform displacements
and rotations. At the support all deflections are
fixed ux = uy = uz = 0, for the load introduction the
deflection in longitudinal direction of the column
is possible. In order to obtain buckling about one
axis, the rotation about the y-axis ury = 0 is fixed,
Figure 6. Transition of MOG sections D × T1 × T2 × Lf.
 having nine integration points in thickness direc-
tion (Simpson’s rule) are used in the model.

3.3 Model discretisation

The columns are modelled using nominal dimen-
sions and material properties. In the numeri-
cal investigations the CHS have a constant inner
diameter of D − 2⋅T1  =  305.6  mm, the wall-
thickness of the thinner section is T1  =  25  mm
and the wall-thickness of the thicker section
Figure  7. Thickened sections at the middle (IMIG/
T2  =  35  mm, resulting in a thickness ratio of
IMOG, left), at both ends (EMIG/EMOG, mid) and at T2/T1 = 1.4. As transition length the smallest per-
middle as well as at both ends of the column (CMIG/ mitted length of Lf = 40 mm is used.
CMOG, right). The parameterized geometry of columns with
transitions at the middle (IMOG) is given in
Figure 8.
The slenderness ratios λ/λ1, the lengths Le,
giving a buckling length of Lcr  =  0.5⋅L about the Lm and L1 of sections with a continuous wall-
y-axis whereas the buckling length about the z-axis thickness as well as the total lengths L of the col-
is Lcr  =  L. For equilibrium reasons the rotation umns are given in Tables 3 and 4 for each numeri-
about the longitudinal axis urx = 0 of the column is cally investigated IMOG column.
fixed additionally. The shell elements are arranged at the mid-
For the analysis, axial deflections δx are incre- surfaces of the sections and coupled with the solid
mentally prescribed at the reference point of the elements using multipoint constraints (MPC).
load introduction. Subsequent to the analyses the
reaction force at the reference point are extracted
3.4 Material properties
which are equating to the loading Nx of the col-
umn. Modified Newton-Raphson method is used Non-linear material behavior with a Young’s
in ABAQUS for the iterative-incremental solution modulus E = 210000 N/mm2 and a Poisson’s ratio
procedure. ν = 0.30 with isotropic hardening is used. The yield
fy and ultimate fu strengths are taken as nominal
values from standards (Table 1). Since no informa-
3.2 Element selection
tion about the uniform strain Agt is available, it is
Solid elements don’t offer rotational DOF, thus considered to be Agt = 10% for steel grade S355 and
multiple element layers are necessary. Additionally, Agt = 5% for grade S690 as a safe estimate, based
the dimensions of elements should be balanced
to obtain an accurate response of the numerical
model. Therefore, a model meshed by solid ele-
ments gives a huge number of DOF resulting in
high demands for the hardware equipment. Since
only standard computers are available long calcu-
lation times cannot be avoided for models meshed
by solid elements.
However, shell elements offer arbitrary integra-
tion points in thickness direction if Simpson’s rule
is used. Therefore, a coarse mesh refinement can be
used giving lower demands on the hardware equip-
ment. But since shell elements offer only a constant
thickness the changing thickness of the transitions
can only be considered incrementally.
To reduce the expenditure of calculation time
but take account for the change in thickness of the
transitions accurately, only the tapered sections of
the MOG sections are meshed by 8 layers of linear
solid elements with reduced integration (C3D8R).
For sections with constant wall-thickness linear
shell elements with reduced integration (S4R) Figure 8. Column with transitions at the middle (IMOG).

598
Table 1. Nominal and true material data for the FEA.
Engineering stresses True stresses and
and strains strains
σ = fy σ = fu σt = fy σt = fu
Mat. N/mm2 N/mm2 ε = Ag N/mm2 N/mm2 εt = Ag
S355* 355 510 0.100 355.6 561.0
S690** 690 770 0.050 692.3 808.5
Annotations:
*EN 1993-1-1 (2010);
**EN 10025-6 (2005).
on experience. ABAQUS needs true stresses σt
(Eq. 2) and true plastic strains εt (Eq. 3), thus the
engineering stresses σ and strains ε are converted
accordingly (Table 1).
True stress: σ t σ ( − ε )
σ
True plastic strain: εt l ( + ε) −
E initial imperfections (Fig.  9), buckling curve a of
where σ, ε  =  engineering stress and strain; σt,
εt = true stress and strain; E = Young’s modulus.
For the CHS and the transitions the same mate-
rial properties are assumed. Geometrical non-
linearity (large displacements) is also taken into
account.
3.5 Size of initial imperfections
In numerical buckling analyses initial imperfec-
tions δv have to be applied to obtain critical loads
Nmax. Since it is assumed that the deflections of
the first Eigenmode of the static system give the
lowest critical load these deflections are used as
initial imperfections δv of the static system. Initial
imperfections of the sections are considered in the
numerical model. Additionally, residual stresses are
not taken into account in the present investigations
since they are not determined for MOG sections by
experimental investigations.
Normalized deflections of the first Eigenmode
are numerically determined prior to the buckling
analyses and brought up factorized to the model
for adjusting the maximum initial deflection. Sub-
sequently, the critical load is determined.
To determine the size of the initial deflection
applicable in parameter studies an initial numeri-
cal investigation is carried out. A CHS 355.6 ×
25 mm made of S355 with a slenderness ratio of
λ/λ1 = 1.5 is used. Due to pinned boundary condi-
tions a length of L = Lcr = 13435 mm is obtained.
For is column the initial deflections are varied
from δv = 1‰ to 1% of the column length L.
Since hot finished hollow sections of steel grade
S355 are used to investigate the influence of the
0.0926
0.0449
Figure  9. Influence of initial imperfections on load-
deflection.
(2)
(3)
EN 1993-1-1 (2010) with an imperfection factor of
α = 0.21 is used for the determination of the design
buckling resistance Ncr,25 = 3433 kN (Eq. 1).
In the numerical investigations an initial deflec-
tion of δv  =  1‰⋅L gives a critical load slightly
higher than the design resistance of EN 1993-
1-1 Nmax > Ncr. Section imperfections and residual
stresses neglected in the numerical investigations
will reduce the buckling resistance. Additionally,
the maximum loads of the numerical investiga-
tions have to be reduced to design level by statisti-
cal evaluations. Therefore, and in accordance with
Sedlacek et al. (1996 & 1999) initial deflections of
δv  =  1‰⋅L are used in the subsequent numerical
investigations.
4 PARAMETRIC STUDIES
Maximum loads of columns made of S355 and
S690 with slenderness ratios of λ/λ1 = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5,
2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 and a wall-thickness of T1 = 25 mm
and T2 = 35 mm are determined numerically. For
columns with a wall-thickness of T2 = 35 mm the
larger radius of gyration i results in slightly higher
slenderness ratios. The lengths L = Lcr of the col-
umns determined based on Euler buckling mode
2 (Fig. 1), the maximum loads Nmax,25 and Nmax,35
of the numerical investigations and the ratio to
the design resistances Nmax,25/Ncr,25 and Nmax,35/Ncr,35
calculated according to EN 1993-1-1 (Eq. 1) are
given in Table 2. The ratios of the maximum loads
Nmax,35/Nmax,25 also given Table 2 specifies the maxi-
mum possible increase in buckling resistance for
MOG sections.
599
Table 2. Max. loads Nmax of num. investigations for reference columns, ratios to design resistances Ncr acc. to EN
1993-1-1 (2010) and max. possible increase of buckling strength

Ref. column Ref. column Max.

(T = 25 mm) (T = 35 mm) increase

Length
λ N max,25 N max ,25 λ N max,35 N max ,35 N max ,35
L = Lcr
mm Mat. λ1 kN Ncr ,25 λ1 kN Ncr ,35 N max ,25

4478 S355 0.5 8784 1,031 0.51 12299 1.068 1.352

8957 1.0 6718 1.095 1.03 8800 1.089 1.310
13435 1.5 3650 1.063 1.54 4693 1.056 1.286
17913 2.0 2142 1.043 2.06 2746 1.036 1.282
22391 2.5 1396 1,032 2.57 1957 1.123 1.281
26870 3.0 980 1.026 3.08 1373 1.117 1.280
3212 S690 0.5 17346 1.018 0.51 24288 1.053 1.356
6424 1.0 13716 1.054 1.03 17863 1.042 1.302
9637 1.5 7302 1.030 1.54 9377 1.024 1.284
12849 2.0 4244 1.019 2.06 5438 1.014 1.281
16061 2.5 2752 1,014 2.57 3857 1.105 1.281
19273 3.0 1926 1,011 3.08 2700 1.102 1.280

Table 3. Dimensions of columns made of S355. Table 4. Dimensions of columns made of S690.

Le Te Lm Tm L Nmax Le Te Lm Tm L Nmax
λ/λ1 mm mm mm mm mm kN n25 n35 λ/λ1 mm mm mm mm mm kN n25 n35

1310 25 5D 35 4478 8973 1.022 0.756 677 25 5D 35 3212 NA NA NA

0.5 866 25 7.5D 35 4478 9087 1.035 0.768 0.5 233 25 7.5D 35 3212 NA NA NA
421 25 10D 35 4478 NA NA NA – 25 10D* 35 3212 NA NA NA
3549 25 5D 35 8957 6944 1.034 0.789 2283 25 5D 35 6424 14457 1.054 0.809
1.0 3105 25 7.5D 35 8957 7168 1.067 0.815 1.0 1839 25 7.5D 35 6424 15024 1.095 0.841
2660 25 10D 35 8957 7478 1.113 0.850 1394 25 10D 35 6424 15641 1.140 0.876
5788 25 5D 35 13435 3839 1.052 0.818 3889 25 5D 35 9637 7832 1.073 0.835
1.5 5344 25 7.5D 35 13435 3944 1.081 0.840 1.5 3445 25 7.5D 35 9637 8135 1.114 0.868
4899 25 10D 35 13435 4054 1.111 0.864 3000 25 10D 35 9637 8444 1.156 0.900
8028 25 5D 35 17913 2231 1.041 0.812 5495 25 5D 35 12849 4489 1.058 0.825
2.0 7583 25 7.5D 35 17913 2279 1.064 0.830 2.0 5051 25 7.5D 35 12849 4623 1.089 0.850
7139 25 10D 35 17913 2327 1.087 0.847 4606 25 10D 35 12849 4760 1.122 0.875
10267 25 5D 35 22391 1443 1.033 0.807 7101 25 5D 35 16061 2882 1.047 0.818
2.5 9822 25 7.5D 35 22391 1468 1.051 0.821 2.5 6657 25 7.5D 35 16061 2951 1.073 0.837
9378 25 10D 35 22391 1493 1.069 0.835 6212 25 10D 35 16061 3022 1.098 0.858
12506 25 5D 35 26870 1007 1.028 0.803 8708 25 5D 35 19273 2002 1.040 0.812
3.0 12061 25 7.5D 35 26870 1022 1.043 0.815 3.0 8263 25 7.5D 35 19273 2042 1.061 0.828
11617 25 10D 35 26870 1036 1.058 0.826 7819 25 10D 35 19273 2083 1.082 0.845

Annotation: *)Geometrically not possible.

Six different column lengths L and three differ-
ent lengths of the thickened sections are investi-
gated. Additionally, two steel grades are analyzed.
The lengths L of the MOG columns are obtained
based on a slenderness ratio of λ/λ1 = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5,
2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 of a CHS with a continuous wall-
thickness of T1 = 25 mm and Euler buckling case 2.
The geometry of the thickened sections Le, L1 and
Lm and the accordant thickness te, t1 and tm and the
length of the complete MOG columns are given in
Table 3 for columns made of S355 and in Table 4
for columns made of S690.
5 EVALUATION
From the numerical investigations reaction forces
Nx at the load introduction resulting from the
applied deflection δx are determined. The buckling
resistances of the MOG columns Nmax correspond
to the maximum reaction forces Nx.
Exemplarily, the numerically determined load-
deflection curve of a MOG column made of S355
with a thickened section middle of Lm  =  7.5⋅D

600

Figure 10. Exemplarily load-deflection curves.
length and the load-deflection curves of the ref-
erence columns with T1 = 25 mm and T2 = 35 mm
wall-thickness is given in Figure  10. The length
L  =  8957  mm of the columns correspond to the
length of the reference column with a wall-thick-
ness of T1 = 25 mm having a slenderness ratio of
λ/λ1 = 1.0.
As can be seen in Figure 10, the load-deflection
curve of the MOG column is located between the
load-deflection curves of the accordant reference
columns. The design resistances (Eq. 1) of the ref-
erence columns Ncr,25 and Ncr,35 (Tab.  2) and the
buckling resistances of the MOG column Nmax
and of the reference columns Nmax,25 and Nmax,35 are
given in Table 3.
6 RESULTS
The maximum loads Nmax of the numerical investi-
gated IMOG columns and the ratios to the maxi-
mum loads of the reference columns n25  =  Nmax/
Nmax,25 (T1  =  25  mm) as well as n35  =  Nmax/Nmax,35
(T2  =  35  mm) are given in Table  3 for columns
made of S355 and Table  4 for columns made of
S690. The value of n35 represents the increase in
relation to the maximum possible increase of
buckling strength of the IMOG columns (Fig. 7).
The buckling resistances of the IMOG columns in
relation to the buckling resistances of the reference
columns with a wall-thickness of T1 = 25 mm Nmax/
Nmax,25 are given in Figure 11 for columns made of
S355 and in Figure 12 for columns made of S690
additionally.
It is observed, that the buckling resistances of
IMIG columns increase with the length of the
thickened CHS Lm and with the yield strength fy
compared to resistances of CHS columns with a
601
Figure  11. Influence of slenderness ratio on buckling
resistance for columns made of S355.
Figure  12. Influence of slenderness ratio on buckling
resistance for columns made of S690.
wall-thickness of T1  =  25  mm. However, for the
influence of the column length L on the buckling
resistance Nmax it is determined, that for columns
with a high and a low slenderness relatively small
increasing buckling resistances occur.
The thickened CHS at the mid of the columns
restrains the outside CHS. Whereas this effect is
negligible for columns with high slenderness ratios
resp. large lengths of the outside CHS Le, a reduc-
tion of the buckling lengths Lcr has to be taken into
account for short columns resp. short lengths Le
(Fig. 8).
Due to reduced buckling lengths Lcr buckling
is not governing but yielding. In the numerical
investigations this results in increasing loads and
maximum loads Nmax aren’t determined before the
analyses is terminated due to attaining the maxi-
mum deflection δx. This is observed for the column
made of S355 and a length of the thickened CHS
of Lm = 10⋅D, for columns made of S690 even no
maximum loads are determined for all columns
with a slenderness ratio of λ/λ1 = 0.5.
Since the initial deflections dv are small, bend-
ing can be neglected and the maximum load Nmax
equates to the axial capacity Npl,25 of the outside
CHS. Additionally, the low slenderness ratio
λ/λ1  =  0.5 of the reference columns result in low
reductions of their axial capacities χ⋅Npl. This
explains the decreasing ratios of the buckling
resistances Nmax/Nmax,25 (Figs. 11 and 12).
For long columns the influence of the restrain-
ing effect on the buckling resistance gets smaller,
thus the maximum loads approximate the buckling
resistance Nmax,25 of the reference column with a
wall-thickness of T1 = 25 mm.
A maximum increase of the buckling resistance
of the thinner CHS of 11,3% is obtained for an
IMOG column with a slenderness ratio of λ/λ1 = 1.0
and a length of the thickened CHS of Lm = 10⋅D.
For columns made of S690 the maximum increase is
15.6% for λ/λ1 = 1.0 and Lm = 10⋅D (Fig. 13).
To be able to determine buckling resistances Ncr
of IMOG columns with the equivalent member
method of EN 1993-1-1 (2010) (Eq. 1) a continu-
ous effective thickness teff of the IMOG columns is
calculated giving the same buckling design resist-
ance Ncr as the numerically determined buckling
resistance Nmax of the IMOG columns (Eq. 4).
Ncr χ efff N pl ,eeff
π fy 2
=
4
( D (D − tefff )2 ) Nmax (4)
( (
with: iefff 1 / 4 D 2 + D 2teff
and λefff = Lcr / ieeff
))
2
where χeff  =  reduction determined with a con-
tinuous wall-thickness teff; Npl,eff  =  axial capac-
ity; ieff  =  radius of gyration, fy  =  yield strength,
Figure  13. Influence of thickened length Lm on buck-
ling resistance.
602
Figure 14. Effective thickness for IMOG columns.
Nmax = numerically buckling resistance; D = outer
diameter.
In the evaluation it is assumed that the buck-
ling length Lcr mainly depends on the boundary
conditions, here Lcr  =  L due to pinned supports.
Since modifying the section dimension does not
change the boundary conditions (except for a low
slenderness), the buckling length Lcr is not influ-
enced by the changing geometry of the MOG sec-
tions. The buckling resistance of a IMOG section
Ncr can therefore be determined using an increased
wall-thickness teff (Fig. 14).
7 CONCLUSIONS
For columns made of forged sections in steel
grade S355 as well as for columns in grade S690
the buckling resistance increases for columns hav-
ing a thickened section in middle (IMOG). The
maximum increase of the buckling resistance is
obtained to 15.6% for an IMOG column made of
S690 with a slenderness ratio of λ/λ1 = 1.5 (Table 4)
and a length of the thickened section of Lm = 10⋅D.
However, the weight of this column is only 12.3%
higher than the weight of the reference column
with a wall-thickness of T1  =  25  mm but 17.3%
lighter than the weight of the reference column
with a wall-thickness of T2 = 35 mm.
For cold formed sections (EN 10219 (2006)) the
buckling resistance is obtained by using the Euro-
pean buckling curve c with an imperfection factor
of α = 0.49. In comparison to hot finished sections
acc. to EN 10210 (2006) or EN 10225 (2009) this
results in significant lower buckling resistances.
With forged sections (MIG, MOG) weldments to
connect sections with different dimensions can be
avoided. Therefore, no additional costs for weld
preparation, welding, post weld heat treatment
and non-destructive testing are necessary. Further-
more, the fatigue behavior of the constructions is
improved.
8 FUTURE WORK
More detailed investigations on the influence of
the slenderness ratio on the maximum increase in
buckling resistance will give an optimized layout
of the column.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper is dedicated to the memory of Mr.
Jürgen Krampen, who sadly died in 2017. Jürgen
was not only a respected colleague and the rep-
resentative of Vallourec Deutschland GmbH at
CIDECT for a long time, but also a friend.
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tures—Part 1.1: General rules and rules for buildings.
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—Part 6: technical delivery conditions for flat prod-
ucts of high yield strength structural steel in quenched
and tempered condition. German version.
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Technical delivery conditions. German version EN
10210-1:2006. Beuth Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
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Zhao, X.L., Herion, S., Packer, J.A., Puthli, S., Sedlacek,
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Identification of parameters for continuum damage mechanics

of ductile damage evolution of cold formed Grade C450 steel
rectangular hollow sections

M. Mohan & T. Wilkinson

School of Civil Engineering, The University of Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT: The present paper investigates the numerical model to characterize material stress-strain
law and damage evolution for cold formed Grade C450 steel. Adopting continuum damage mechanics
theory developed by Lemaitre & Desmorat (2005) and the results from coupon test analyses, the dete-
rioration with increasing strain has been examined and damage parameters have been derived. A unique
approach in the range of large deformation after necking is explored with two techniques for both flat
and corner regions of RHS. The first technique evaluates true stress-strain from engineering stress-strain
using a weighted average method. When strains to fracture are not recorded, a second methodology
devised previously by Hockett & Gillis (1970) has been extended and a new technique to derive stress/
strain states to rupture from crosshead data taking into account machine stiffness has been proposed.

1 INTRODUCTION − Using continuum damage mechanics theory

In the continuum damage mechanics theory for
ductile materials, given the appropriate loading
conditions, ductile fracture occurs due to forma-
tion of voids, growth and then coalescence lead-
ing to potential failure. The continuous variable
related to the density of defects was first proposed
by Kachanov (1958). Different damage definitions
and models have since been put forth (e.g. Chabo-
che 1981, Lemaitre & Desmorat 2005)). The moti-
vation for the inclusion of damage studies came
from the need for a post processing tool in numeri-
cal analysis that would predict fracture (location
and magnitude of loads) reliably in joints made of
Grade C450 rectangular hollow sections (RHS).
The results of Grade C450 T, X, K and N RHS
joints previously reported in earlier ISTS confer-
ences by Mohan & Wilkinson (2013, 2015) adopted
damage theory as outlined by Lemaitre & Desmorat
(2005) with promising results. The isotropic dam-
age parameter was determined for a coupon test
representing nominal Grade C450 material through
a reverse analysis without taking into account cor-
rections to true stress-strain curve after necking.
The main focus of this paper is to refine this model
to take into account material variations and charac-
terise ductile damage evolution under plastic defor-
mations beyond ultimate stress of Grade C450
steel. The paper discusses the following:
− Post processing of previous 150 coupon tests
from locations within a RHS to derive variations
in elastic, plastic, necking and damage patterns;
and the experimental characterization of ductile
damage evolution of Grade C450 RHS, damage
parameters in accordance with proposed model by
Lemaitre & Desmorat (2005) have been derived;
− During the post processing of coupon test results,
a concept devised previously by Hockett &
Gillis (1970) was extended and a new technique
to derive stress/strains to rupture from crosshead
data taking into account machine stiffness has
been proposed. This methodology addresses from
inadequate/ incomplete extensometer test data;
− True stress-strain including material response
of coupon tests after necking has been captured
for various regions within the RHS adopting a
weighted average method.
2 EXPERIMENTAL COUPON
TEST RESULTS
Material characterization of Grade C450 steel is
based on two sets of data. Becque et al. (2011) and
Yao et al. (2013) conducted a total of 48 tensile tests
on coupons cut from Grade C450 RHS of Australian
and Japanese origin; this forms the first dataset. 42
coupons were non-strain aged coupons and formed
a matched pair to sections adopted in T, K, X and N
joint tests. Six other coupons were strain aged cou-
pon tests as specified in AS/NZS 1391: 2007.
A typical measured profile of the geometry of
coupon from adjacent and opposite faces to the weld
of RHS 150 × 100 × 5 with dimensions for original
gauge length Lo, parallel gauge length Lc, distance

605
between grips Lg, width, shoulder length and devia-
tion from flatness is shown in Figure 1. The meas-
ured thickness is about 0.5% to 6% less than nominal
thickness. Engineering strains (ε) were measured
using extensometers at the center at a gauge length
Le of 40  mm. A second set of material coupon
tests for section sizes with smaller wall dimensions
(25  mm to 150  mm) and wall-thicknesses (1.6  mm
to 5 mm) was previously undertaken by Wilkinson
(1999) for 107 coupons cut from corners, adjacent
and opposite faces to the weld. The dimensions of
these coupons are smaller with width of 12.5 mm, Lc
of 65 mm, Le of 25 mm as per AS/NZS 1391:1992.
The key identification parameters are derived
with reference to the identification of points
marked in Figure  2 for every coupon test. True
stress–true strain (σtrue  =  σ(1+ε); εtrue  =  ln(1+ε))
Figure 1. Location and geometry of test coupon.
Figure 2. Material characterisation: Grade C450 tensile
test.
606
requires a correction method to be included
beyond necking in coupon tests. The parameters
that characterize damage evolution are εPD associ-
ated at σu; σR; and εPR.
In Figures 3 and 4, a plot of values of engineer-
ing-strain εPD (at σu) against σu/σy is provided along
with mean values and 95% lower confidence limits
(LCL) from both datasets. Aged samples, smaller
section sizes and nominal thickness values of 4 to
5  mm contribute to values of σu/σy with a signifi-
cance level less than 0.05 for the first dataset shown
in Figure  2. The results for the second dataset are
summarised in Figure 4 with coupons from corners
identified as a group. The effects of work hardening
to values of εPD and σu/σy on smaller dimensions and
on opposite face of the weld can be inferred from
Figure 3. Ductility comparisons of tensile coupon tests.
Source: Becque et al. (2011), Yao et al. (2013).
Figure 4. Ductility comparisons of tensile coupon tests.
Source: Wilkinson (1999).
these tests. The σu/σy values are 1.12 (1.08) for εPD Table 1. Conditions for damage and mesocrack.
0.05 (0.02) corresponding to flat faces (corners).
Condition of damage

Identifi- Initia- Equation for

3 DAMAGE MODEL Parameter cation tion mesocrack

The equations governing ductile damage evolution Damage Monotonic p = εpD ε pD ε p (σ σ u )

by Lemaitre & Desmorat (2005), damage variables Threshold Loading
and definitions are summarized as follows: Critical Isotropic D = Dc D = 1 − σ R
Damage Damage 1c
σu
⎧Y σu −σ f Damage Isotropic E, υ, S 1
⎪ p iiff p ≥ pD d pD = ε PPD σ u2 ⎛ ε * pR − ε ppD ⎞ s
D = ⎨ S
Law Damage, and s
σ eq − σ f (1) S =
⎪
Fatigue 2 E ⎜⎝ Dc ⎟⎠
⎩ 0 p < pD tests
σ2
S=
dD
2E (1 D )2
There is crack initiation if dε p
Plane of Isotropic Princi-
σ u2
D = Dc with Dc Dc ≤1 (2) crack damage pal σ
σ *2 max
In the expressions above, Y and Rν are derived
from

σ eq2 Rv − Method I: Adopt the last recorded extensom-

Y= (3) eter data εRE and associated stress result as σRE
2E ( D)
2

to derive damage parameter D1C. S is based on

1 approximations and is derived from the linear
⎡2 ⎛σ ⎞
2
⎤2
Rv = ⎢ ( + ) + 3( − )⎜ H ⎟ ⎥ (4)
⎢3
⎣ ⎝ σ eq ⎠ ⎥
⎦ changes in strain due to necking;
where S is the energy strength of damage; p is the
accumulated plastic strain, pD is the damage thresh-
old plastic strain and pD = εPD in pure tension; Dc is
the critical damage, a function of the material and
the loading for isotropic damage; σeq is the von-
mises equivalent stress; σ * is the unidimensional
tensorial effective stress; σu is the ultimate stress;
and σf is the fatigue limit stress.
The choices in modelling damage law, damage
threshold, critical damage, mesocrack initiation and
orientation for Grade C450 are provided in Table 1.
The most common approach to determine duc-
tile damage evolution is to avoid the problem of
localization during necking and instead adopt low
cycle fatigue tests to track the deterioration of elas-
tic modulus E. The practical implementation of
this methodology for Grade C450 RHS requires a
number of tests to account for variations in flat faces
and corners of RHS and is shown in Figures 3 and 4.
Ductile properties beyond ultimate stress (εpD) to
fracture stress (εpR) are therefore taken into consid-
eration in the properties of stress-strain behaviour
through proposed new methods. The values of E,
σy, σu and εpD from coupon tests in section 2 along
with stress (force) and strain (crosshead displace-
ment) data for these tests are used to derive damage
parameters using methods identified as I to IV.
slope of the curve between damage D versus the
plastic strain εP and does not take into account
− Method II: Re-analyse force deflection of cross-
head data and derive D1C replacing σR with rup-
ture load PR and σu with ultimate load Pu;
− Method III: A new method to derive σR and
εpR from force deflection of crosshead data is
proposed in section  4. The outlined methodol-
ogy takes into account the elastic interaction
between machine stiffness and tensile specimen;
− Method IV: Increase in the accuracy of s, S
with more sophisticated models by taking into
account necking behaviour beyond ultimate
strains. This is detailed in section 5.
3.1 Methods I and II
The damage variables are derived adopting a
mixed-methods approach with critical damage,
D1c in Table  1 based on either stress σRE or load
PR. An example where either is suitable is illus-
trated for coupon test from adjacent face of RHS
300 × 300 × 8 identified as #1 in Table 2. 12 tests
(out of 48) in the first dataset (section  2) record
final extensometer reading εRE nearly equivalent to
elongation Δ and illustrate behaviour where i) elon-
gation equals reduction in cross sectional area at
rupture and ii) all strains up to rupture are within
the gauge length of the extensometer. All values
of critical damage for the first dataset are derived

607
Table 2. Methods I, II: Damage parameters s, S, Dc. LCL and standard deviation (S.D.) values using
either final extensometer readings or rupture
300 × 300 × 8 loads for coupon tests from the adjacent face are
95% included in Table 2.
Location Material #1 #2 Average LCL S.D.

s 1.16 1.11 1.03 0.90 0.29 4 ENGINEERING STRESS STRAIN FROM

S 0.75 0.84 1.02 0.88 0.31 CROSS HEAD DATA TAKING INTO
εRE% 23 12 17 13 8 ACCOUNT MACHINE STIFFNESS
D1c 0.13 0.04 0.12 0.08 0.08
D1c – 0.30 0.25 0.23 0.03 4.1 Background
σu 563 549 537 523 31
Δ% 25 23 25 24 3 Hockett & Gillis (1970), Davis (2004) outlined
εu 0.11 0.10 0.10 0.09 0.02 the importance of elastic interaction between the
machine and specimen in mechanical property
tests and proposed a methodology wherein the
crosshead displacement could be adopted with
some corrections required to take into account
machine stiffness. Both methods when verified
against extensometer data of tensile tests Grade
C450 coupons required modifications to account
for lower ductility in steel.
Two independent methodologies to obtain strains
from crosshead displacement are proposed. The
first methodology assumes no extensometer data
is avail-able and relies on FEA analysis conducted
on the geometry of the test coupon adopted for the
test. Non linear material stress-strain curve obtained
from either past tests or literature for Grade C450
steel is provided as input parameter for this FEA
model. The second empirical methodology involves
correlating available extensometer readings to evalu-
ate changes in gauge length and is not part of this
Figure 5. Critical damage D1c based on extensometer. paper (Mohan, in prep.). The first methodology,
results and outcomes are provided in sections below.

4.2 Finite element model

Figure 6. Critical damage D1c based on cross head data.
using final extensometer readings as identified in
Figure 5.
An example where final extensometer readings
are found unsuitable is identified as #2 of Table 2
(and is later discussed using Fig.  14). Adopting
rupture load and peak load from cross head data
shown in Figure 6, D1c = 1 − PR/Pu. Average, 95%
A FEM of a quarter of a flat coupon test has been
developed using MSC.Patran. The method con-
sists of idealising the measured geometry of the
specimen with linear hexahedral elements, check-
ing the adequacy of the mesh through mesh con-
vergence studies; with higher order elements; and
benchmarking with experimental results. The FE
model for 5  mm thick coupon test with coupon
width of 20 mm and adopting symmetry to repre-
sent a quarter model is shown in Figure 7. Flat and
curved coupons from the faces or corners of RHS
tubes adopted by Wilkinson (1999) are smaller
with a gauge length of 50 mm. Finite element
model representing the corner coupon test of RHS
150 × 50 × 5 is included in Figure 7.
4.3 Fracture strains through measured cross
head displacement and FEA
FEA simulations were conducted on coupons for
a range of 4 to 16 mm thickness. The simulations
adopted quarter symmetry and results for 5  mm

608
Figure 7. Finite element mesh for coupon test.
Figure 9. Reference stress-strain states at coupon centre.
a) FE model (Yao et al. 2013, Becque et al. 2011); b) FE
model for corner coupon (Wilkinson 1999).

Figure 10. Isochronous simulated relationship between

load and displacement at various locations along gauge
length from the centre showing convergence.

and provide evidence for an effective coefficient

− Strains derived from FEA displacements at vari-
Figure 8. Simulated contour plots.
a) Longitudinal stresses; b) Longitudinal strains.
thickness are discussed. Variation in stress/strain
contours for material stress strain curve at loca-
tions corresponding to three states: state A, at 2/3
σy; state C at σu; and state E at εpD identified in
Figure  9 are provided in Figure  8. The displace-
ment data at a spacing of 10 mm from the centre of
the specimen are shown in Figure 10. The details
− The displacement and strain contour plots also
and observations that can be seen in the combina-
tion of these plots are outlined below:
− The isochronous displacement vs. load converge
beyond a certain load value (as shown in Fig. 10)
that can be used with crosshead spacing Li at
strains near and beyond yield values. Li corre-
sponds to changes in L0 (Fig. 1) with time;
ous lengths (40  mm to 90  mm away from the
centroid of the sample equating to locations
80 to 180 mm parallel lengths) have been com-
pared against FEA strains corresponding to
extensometer grips at a spacing of 40 mm length
in Figure  11. The 45 degrees line along with
observations made on converging isochronous
displacement lines gives an option of adopting
reduced crosshead spacing with measured cross-
head displacement;
show similar trend and with increase in load,
the extent of constant minimal displacement
and strain fields increase. Beyond a certain
load and at points C, D, E of Figure 9, strain/

609

Figure 11. Simulated relationship between extensom-
eter strains and strains at various locations.
Figure 12. Coupon length α L0 as a function of stress
for strains from crosshead displacement.
displacement field variations are predominantly
restricted to the gauge length of the coupon
and for larger thickness coupons (such as in the
8  mm and 16  mm simulations) the variations
extend to the region of necking.
All three observations point to the possibility
of deriving an empirical coefficient α that could be
adopted with L0 as a function of σy and σu that can
be used to equate cross head derived strain values
to peak strain values. Figure 12 shows a bilinear fit
for αL0 as a function of ratio σ⁄σu. At any instan-
taneous time, the strains εi are calculated from the
following:
Si L0 Pi
εi = − (5)
Lppi Ki
−1
⎛ vL
L L ⎞
Ki = ⎜ 0 0 ⎟ (6)
⎝ P EAA0 ⎠
610
where Si is the crosshead spacing at any time; Pi
is the load; Ki corresponds to the initial machine
stiffness; v is the nominal strain rate (cross head
speed/specimen gauge length); L0 is the no load
spacing between the grips; P is the load rate; A0 is
the initial cross sectional area of the specimen and
E is the elastic modulus of the specimen.
4.4 Results
Strains derived using the reported crosshead dis-
placement values as outlined above are compared
against measured extensometer data in a number
of coupon tests by Becque et al. (2011) and Yao
et al. (2013). A result for one case study is illus-
trated in Figure  13. The scenario chosen corre-
sponds to limited extensometer readings beyond
ultimate stress previously identified in Table  2.
Good correlation in results between derived rup-
ture εR and measured elongation Δ is observed.
The validity of this methodology is also proven
for a change in geometry corresponding to a
shorter gauge length specimen of 65  mm previ-
ously adopted in the tests reported by Wilkinson
(1999) and for variation in thickness. In these
studies, the machine stiffness is based on an aver-
age slope derived from load values corresponding
to stress magnitudes of 400/100 MPa; 300/200
MPa and 200/100 MPa.
The Lemaitre damage evolution parameter S
previously reported in 3.1 is based on extensom-
eter based damage versus strains and in most
coupon tests, the difficulty is the partial capture
of stress-strain history data in the region of neck-
ing. A plot of damage versus strains obtained
using the above method superimposed on meas-
ured extensometer data in Figure 14 provides the
strains during damage to rupture of the speci-
men. The slope of damage D versus the plastic
strain εp is defined as a linear slope by Lemaitre.
The results on Grade C450 steel show that the
Figure 13. Strains calculated from crosshead displace-
ment.
 The present study opens up a promising approach
to evaluate strains from manufacturers’ data or in
cases wherein extensometer data are inadequate or
show slippage. Based on a modified parallel speci-
men length technique and making suitable allow-
ance for machine stiffness interaction results have
been presented for various scenarios with different
thickness values, material data and gauge lengths
(Mohan, in prep.). The study has been validated with
a conservative variation of 20% or less compared to
measured extensometer or strain gauge data.

5 TRUE STRESS STRAIN BEYOND

NECKING
Figure 14. Identification of damage parameters using
crosshead load displacement method for 300 × 300 × 8.
The method in essence consists of making an
assumption to the true stress-strain with an input
Table  3. Extensometer vs. derived results from cross- curve derived using equations such as Holloman
head: 75 × 75 × 5. (1945), Ling (1996) and iteratively determining the
Extensometer FEA
coefficients to the equation by correlating derived
FEA vs. experimental stress strain curve to actual test results.
σ σ measured Ling pioneered a weighted average method for
Parameter ε (MPa) ε (MPa) (%) flat coupon tests using FEA of the form

ε − 0.1% 0.0013 240 0.0013 265 10.49 ⎡ εP

⎤
⎛ εp ⎞
PD

0.2% offset 0.0046 508 0.0043 493 −2.91 (

σ = σ u ⎢W 1 + p − ε PPD ) + (1 − w ) ⎜
⎝ ε PPD ⎟⎠
⎥ (7)
σu 0.085 556 0.086 556 1.23 ⎣⎢ ⎥⎦
εe 0.095 534 0.1024 534 7.84
εRE ** This is found suitable for Grade C450 steel
396 0.1734 396 1.81
Δ% 17.65 and the bounds for the experimental curves is
S 1.42 /0.90
1.54/0.93 (D < 0.05) established for weighting functions of w  =  0.005
4.5/2.5 (D > 0.25) (or w  =  0.05) and w  =  0.2. Derived engineering
D1C 0.04* 0.22 stress-strain curves for w equal to 0.005 to 0.2
are compared against experimental results for
* Extensometer strain at rupture not recorded.
400 × 300 × 8 RHS in Figure 15. Contour plots of
relative displacement with respect to a node at the
extensometer location for a 5 mm thick FEM with
slope is nonlinear and an approximation that can true stress strain based on w  =  0.05 at observed
be used is a bilinear curve with a knee point or
region of uniform elongation observed typically
at 0.05. Beyond these strain values, strain rates
(mm/s) decrease rapidly.
Limiting the damage to region of uniform elon-
gation and approximating this as a linear behav-
iour, S obtained as an average over a number of
data points for D < 0.05 is included in Table 3. An
increase in slope s and rate of damage evolution S
is observed for D > 0.05. These results are also pro-
vided in the table as values for slope s and Lemaitre
damage parameter S beyond D of 0.05. The values
of D1C being function of final stress and ultimate
stress as outlined in case B is unchanged and is pro-
vided in the table for completeness. Limiting values
of D to region of uniform elongation is conserva-
tive and covers the variations in damage values due
to cold forming of smaller section sizes to wall- Figure 15. Simulated vs. experimental engineering
thicknesses and regions (adjacent or opposite). stress strain.

611
rupture load of 43 kN is illustrated in Figure 16.
The local detail corresponds to the region identi-
fied in Figure 7.
Figure 16. Necking displacement at 43 kN load.
a) Longitudinal (axial); b) lateral (width); c) Thickness.
Figure 17. Comparison of true stress strain versus engineering stress strain for flat/corner coupon tests.
612
5.1 Identification of true stress strain curve
Parametric studies conducted confirm that an
appropriate weight w in the equation can be
used to define the true stress strain curve behav-
iour for both flat and corner faces: w of 0.005
provides conservative lower bound to both flat
and corner faces. The true stress-strain and
the derived engineering stress-strain for nomi-
nal, corner and less than 95% LCL material
stress-strain values for w  =  0.005 are shown in
Figure 17.
A feature of interest in Figure  17 are the
highlighted points A, B, C in both simulated
experimental and true stress strain curves at
rupture. Although the flat coupon tests have a
higher εPD at σu and strains at rupture (B > A)
when compared against corner coupon tests, the
rupture loads PR in flat coupon tests are higher
resulting in lower damage values D, necking
region resulting in reduced ductility (A* > B*).
With less than 5% difference in true stress val-
ues at any true strain between the two, it is rea-
sonable to adopt true stress-strain behaviour of
flat coupon tests with w = 0.005 for all elements
and limit damage to 90% of the lowest damage
values observed resulting in D1c of 0.054. With
the true stress strain curve for the parametric
variations identified, the damage evolution
parameters s, S are derived taking into account
variations in coupon tests and are summarised
in Table 4.
Table 4. Identification of damage coefficients.
Location in RHS σu MPa; w Damage
Peak
550; 0.2
Nominal
Flat
Peak
550; 0.005
Nominal
Peak
Corner 580; 0.005
Nominal
Nominal
Values in brackets correspond to upper bound.
6 CONCLUSIONS
A numerical characterization of the ductile dam-
age evolution of Grade C450 RHS adopting
Lemaitre damage model has been presented. To
this end, damage identification procedure that
adopts two new methods to take into account
variations observed in 150 coupon test results has
been proposed. The first method is a data reduc-
tion technique from crosshead displacement and
overcomes the need to monitor strains in the neck-
ing zone of coupon tests. An extension to this
concept adopting FEA enables to identify stress-
strain state beyond ultimate loads taking into
account material variability in corners and flat
faces within the RHS. The second method predicts
true stress-strain curve beyond necking for Grade
C450 RHS and is derived from experimental data
using a weighted average method. The combina-
tion of the two techniques enables the inclusion
of a large experimental database to effectively
determine damage evolution parameters for Grade
C450 steel. The methods provide close correlation
with observed results and present an effective way
forward in predicting partial safety factors in the
design of joints made of Grade C450 steel.
REFERENCES
AS/NZS. 1391:1991. Methods for Tensile Testing of
Metals, Australian Standard/New Zealand Standard
1391:1991, Standards Australia, Sydney, Australia.
AS/NZS 1391:2007. Methods for Tensile Testing of
Metals Australian Standard/New Zealand Standard
1391:2007, Standards Australia, Sydney, Australia.
613
s S D εPR
0.3 3 0.4
0.06 to 0.1
0.5 to 0.6 1.5 to 2.0 0.3
0.4 2 0.4 (0.72)
0.1(0.2)
0.6 to 0.9 0.9 to 1.5 0.25 (0.42)
0.5 2 0.35 0.8
0.6 2 0.3 0.65
0.5 3 0.5
Becque, J., Wilkinson, T. & Syam, A. 2011. Experimen-
tal investigation of X and T truss connections in C450
cold-formed rectangular hollow sections, CIDECT
report 5BV.
Chaboche, J. L. 1981. Continuous damage mechanics—
a tool to describe phenomena before crack initiation.
Nucl Eng Des 64:233–247.
Davis, J., R. 2004. Tensile testing, ASM Int., Metals Park,
Ohio, 2004.
Hockett, J. E. & Gillis, P. P. 1970. Mechanical machine
stiffness Part I: Theory and calculations, International
Journal of Mechanical Sciences, 1971, Vol 13: pp
251-264
Hollomon, J. H. 1945. Tensile Deformation,Trans. AIME,
162,268 1945.
Kachonov, L. M. 1958. On time to rupture in creep con-
ditions (in russian), Izviestia Akademii Nauk SSSR,
Otdelenie Tekhnicheskikh Nauk, 8 (1958), pp 26-31.
Lemaitre, J. A. & Desmorat, R. 2005. Engineering dam-
age mechanics- Ductile, Creep, Fatigue and Brittle
Failures, Springer-Verlag.
Ling, Y. 1996. Uniaxial true stress strain curve after neck-
ing AMP Journal of Technology, 5, pp 37–48.
Mohan, M. & Wilkinson, T. 2013. FEA of T and X joints
in grade C450 steel, Tubular Structures X1V, pp 185-
194, Gardner Ed, Balkema.
Mohan, M. & Wilkinson, T. 2015. Finite element simula-
tions of 450 grade cold formed K and N joints, Tubu-
lar Structures XV, pp 449-456, Batista Ed, CRC.
Mohan, M. PhD Thesis (in preparation), University of
Sydney, Australia.
Wilkinson, T. 1999. The Plastic Behaviour of Cold-
Formed Rectangular Hollow Sections, PhD thesis, The
University of Sydney, Sydney.
Yao, E. Z., Wilkinson, T., Xu, Fadhli, M. A., Chen, L
& Syam, A. 2013. Connections in high strength cold-
formed rectangular hollow sections, CIDECT report
5BV 1/13.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Predicted behaviour of cold formed Grade C450 rectangular

hollow sections under tensile or compression loads

M. Mohan & T. Wilkinson

School of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT: In this paper, the results of finite element analyses simulating full section tensile and com-
pression tests of rectangular hollow sections (RHS) are presented. It is shown how a material model with
damage evolution parameters from coupon test results of Grade C450 cold formed steel is necessary to
correlate the fracture/failure behaviour with observed results. The influence of geometric imperfections,
variability in actual/nominal stress strain curves in material model and the resulting partial safety factors
in design as brace members with local tensile or compression failure were investigated. Adopting actual
stress strain curves, it was observed that the limits to σu /σy can be reduced to 1.1 and still provide a partial
safety factor of 1.25 now prevalent in axial brace failure. A more conservative approach was however
required when nominal stress strain values were adopted in design.

1 INTRODUCTION simulations as full RHS against indirect test

In the last ISTS conference numerical and
experimental studies were reported for K and
N Grade C450  steel rectangular hollow sections
(RHS) joints (Mohan & Wilkinson, 2015 and
Yao & Wilkinson, 2015). The aim of this study
was to review the current CIDECT guidelines
(Packer et al. 2009) of adopting min [0.8σu, σy]
and the extra factor of 0.9  stipulated for Grade
C450 steel. For failure modes associated with the
brace in tension or compression, the need for both
factors was not conclusive and it was felt neces-
sary to investigate the fracture/failure behaviour,
taking into account actual and nominal material
variations.
A second paper (Mohan & Wilkinson, 2017) in
this conference provides theory and results from
a detailed damage evolution study characterising
true stress-strain curves along with damage param-
eters to determine fracture and failure in various
locations within the Grade C450 RHS. Adopting
this outlined theory for material model, simula-
tion studies of 48 parametric variations to 8 RHS
sizes is demonstrated. The paper focuses on the
following:
− Benchmark FEA methodology by correlating
predicted end capacity and failure behaviour of
RHS under tension and compression loads;
− Determine full section capacities of RHS sec-
tions exhibiting compression/tension brace
failure (some unexpected), in K and N joints
through reverse analysis. Benchmark FEA
results;
− Verify the validity of a simplified assumption of
adopting a uniform material stress-strain curve
for all elements across the cross section;
− Examine the reliability of partial safety factors in
axial design resistance and compare them against
current IIW (2009) standards for static design.
2 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The test configuration for the loading condi-
tions referred to as direct tests is as shown in
Figure 1. The section dimensions for three Grade
C450 150  ×  50  ×  3  RHS, 150  ×  50  ×  4  RHS and
150 × 50 × 5 RHS along with previous test results
by Wilkinson (1999) for the tensile or compressive
load cases as full RHS sections are as outlined in
Table 1.
The mode of failure for full section tensile test
is reported as sudden fracture initiated in both
of the adjacent faces (the webs), with the line of
fracture across the web at an angle of 45 to the
direction of loading. In the Grade C350 full sec-
tion tensile test, failure is reported to have started
at the corner and moved to the flanges with a
V shaped failure at mid length of the webs. The
mode of failure in compression tests is local buck-
ling in the flat faces.
Five additional members adopted in various K
and N joint tests with observed tensile/compres-
sion brace failures are included in Table 1. These
tests provide benchmarking through meta models

615
Figure 1. Axial load test set up, FEM for RHS 150 × 50 × 3: a) Tensile test; b) Compression test; c) Regions within RHS.

Table 1. RHS test results: Dimensions, material, capacities in full section or as brace members in joints study.

Face adjacent to the Face opposite the

weld weld Corner

d b t r σy σu σy σu σy T C
RHS mm mm mm mm MPa σu εpD σy MPa σu εpD σy MPa σu εpD kN kN

150 × 50 × 3 150.5 50.2 2.9 6 445 520 0.08 1.17 442 506 0.06 1.14 480 566 0.03 618a 422a
150 × 50 × 4 150.4 50.2 3.9 7.1 460 537 0.07 1.17 514 580 0.04 1.14 545 601 0.02 – 670a
150 × 50 × 5 151 50.1 4.9 11.8 425 492 0.03 1.16 505 543 0.05 1.14 480 566 0.03 – 878a
150 × 50 × 3# 150.4 49.9 2.9 6 370 433 0.13 1.17 380 436 0.07 1.15 465 511 0.02 618a 422a
150 × 100 × 4 150 99 3.9 7.1 389 469 0.1 1.2 438 487 0.06 1.11 – 464b,k6
75 × 75 × 5 74.7 74.7 4.8 6.2 449 493 0.05 1.1 468 497 0.04 1.06 – 551b,n6
100 × 50 × 5 100.5 50.5 4.9 10.5 515 601 0.08 1.17 515 588 0.08 1.14 727b,k4 –
150 × 100 × 5 149.5 100 4.8 11.5 473 557 0.13 1.18 479 560 0.12 1.17 – 686b,k3
125 × 125 × 5 125.8 125 4.7 5.3 446 531 0.12 1.19 439 529 0.12 1.2       648b,n2 641b,k2

a) Full section tests; Source of results Wilkinson (1999); b) Brace failure in k joints with gap or N joints with overlap;
Source and ID of tests Yao (2015); T – Tension; C – Compression; # – Grade C350.

and address the effects of sizing and corner radii.
Coupon tests from an adjacent and opposite flat
face to the weld of these RHS sizes (identified in
Fig. 1c) are included in the same table. 85% of the
coupon tests reported are less than the CIDECT
requirements of σu⁄σy = 1.2.
3 METHODOLOGY
3.1 FEM
The finite element meshes were generated using
MSC.Patran and the analyses performed using
MSC.Marc. The measured geometry is defined
using four hexahedral elements through the thick-
ness, imperfections included, load and constraint
regions such as the ends reinforced with steel plug for
the tensile test, platen in compression tests are taken
into account. The selection of an appropriate mesh
size is verified in a mesh convergence study subjected
to axial loads in both compression and tension.
3.2 Material
Numerical analysis helps to overcome the lack of
data available on the effect of material variations
on cross sectional capacities of full sections. In
Table 2, coupon tests for Grade C450 150 × 50 ×
3 RHS (case study 4) are compared against five
other possibilities in true stress σu true, true strain
εPD at maximum load and also against Grade
C350 RHS. Broadly these case studies repre-
sent nominal (case study 3), less than 95% lower
confidence limits (LCL, case study 2), CIDECT
compliant material (case study 6), hypothetical
with all elements as corners (case study 5) and
Grade C350  steel (case study 350). These case
studies are retained for other RHS sections in
Table  1. In addition, actual coupon test results
specific to the RHS under consideration are
included. As an example, case studies 7 and 8
correspond to measured coupon test results for
100  ×  50  ×  5  RHS and 125  ×  125  ×  5  RHS and
are reported in results Table  5. The weighted

616
average provided in Table  2 provides a compar- 4 TENSILE TESTS OF RHS: VALIDATION
ison of ultimate stress and σu⁄σy for the 6 case AND INFLUENCE OF MATERIAL ON
studies; each flat face and corner being weighted SAFETY FACTORS
with respect to the proportion of area of the
entire section the region contains. The predicted results from 20 parametric FE analy-
ses representing axial tensile test of full sections are
post processed comparing ultimate loads, fracture
Table 2. Material sensitivity case studies: 150 × 50 × 3. behaviour against direct tests in Tables 3 and 4 and
indirect tests in Table 5. The true stress-strain curve
Opp Adj Cor Adj Weighted Av and damage models, symbols are based on the
theory developed in Mohan and Wilkinson (2017).
ID σu true σu true σu true εpD σu engg σu/σy The limiting bound for σu⁄σy and σu for which a
conditional partial safety factor of 1.25 in ultimate
1 450a 0.03 439 1 loads is met is identified.
2A 550a 0.06 495 1.06
2B 550b 644 0.06 526 1.07
3A 645b 644 0.11 577 1.11 4.1 Direct tests
3B 645a 0.11 562 1.12
4.1.1 Benchmarking against test
4A 627 607 (550) 644 0.07 569 1.13
4B 627 (550) 627 (550) 644 0.06 576 1.12
The simulations with measured σu, σy as per sub-
4C 627 (550) 607 (550) 644 0.07 563 1.13
cases 4A, 4C of Grade C450 RHS predict end ten-
4D 627 607 644 0.07 561 1.11 sile load of 631 and 627 kN; this is within 2% of
4E 607a 0.07 553 1.17 test result at 618 kN. Material perturbation study
4F 627 540 644 0.08 543 1.12 4B, 4D, 4E to 4F provides end capacity results with
4G 550a 0.08 526 1.19 a maximum difference of (+)3% to (–)4% when
5 644a 0.03 627 1.11 compared against test results. A second simulation
6 625 625 644 0.15 555 1.2 study for Grade C350 150 × 50 × 3 RHS based on
350 513 534 548 0.13 454 1.15 measured material provide results which are within
95% LCL 537 1.1 1% of observed values. The close correlations with
test results confirm that the material model, meth-
a
: opposite (opp) = adjacent (adj) = corner (cor); odology in FEA is verified.
b
: opposite  =  adjacent; Stresses reported are in MPa;
Values in brackets correspond to variations between 4.1.2 Material sensitivity studies
faces. Predicted end loads for identified material bounds
as per case studies 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 in Table 2, are

Table 3. Predicted results and factors of safety for 150 × 50 × 3 RHS under axial tensile test.

FEA predicted Comparison between methods

load (kN) (%) Ratio

Pyielld
Weighted v FEA v FEA v
ID Yield Ultimate Test Test FEAnom Pdesign γ111 γ221 γ231 γ222 γ232 γ223

1 492 494 −20 −20 −22 1.25 1.39 1.26 1.12 1.39 1.25 1.39
2A 510 559 −10 −10 −12 1.15 1.39 1.29 1.23 1.43 1.36 1.43
2B 510 573 −5 −7 −10 1.08 1.39 1.32 1.26 1.47 1.40 1.47
3A 558 637 5 3 0 1.08 1.39 1.28 1.28 1.42 1.42 1.27
3B 552 639 2 3 0 1.09 1.39 1.30 1.30 1.44 1.44 1.29
4A 531 631 3 2 −1 1.04 1.39 1.32 1.33 1.47 1.48 1.31
4B 538 635 4 3 0 1.04 1.39 1.31 1.32 1.46 1.47 1.30
4C 522 627 2 1 −2 1.03 1.39 1.33 1.35 1.48 1.50 1.32
4D 539 635 2 3 0 1.07 1.39 1.31 1.32 1.45 1.47 1.30
4E 525 624 0 1 −2 1.06 1.39 1.27 1.33 1.41 1.48 1.26
4F 489 614 −2 −1 −4 1.00 1.39 1.40 1.41 1.55 1.56 1.38
4G 516 595 −5 −4 −7 1.09 1.39 1.21 1.29 1.35 1.44 1.20
5 588 818 14 32 28 0.84 1.11 1.39 1.56 1.54 1.73 1.38
6 506 594 1 −4 −7 0.81 1.11 1.17 1.31 1.30 1.46 1.30
350 433 523 −3 −15 – 1.06 1.25 1.21 – 1.21 – 1.21

617
 Table 4. Material sensitivity studies and damage evolution for 150 × 50 × 3.

4A(2) adopts S  =  2 and D  =  .02; 4A(3) adopts S  =  0.2 and D  =  0.2 for
flat faces, S  =  3 and D  =  0.2 for corners; All adopts S  =  1 and D  =  .05
All symbols S, D for damage variables are identified in Mohan and
Wilkinson (2017).

Table 5. Material sensitivity results for 100 × 50 × 5 RHS, 125 × 125 × 5 RHS with tensile brace failure.

Partial safety factor

Predicted Design based on
load (kN) 0.8 σu for actual Actual σy, σu Nominal σy, σu

0.8 σ u F.Syield F.Syield,

Section ID Pyield Pultimate σy Pdesign actual (nominal) γ221 γ222 γ223 γ231 γ232 γ233

100 × 50 × 5 2B 592 646 0.85 502 1.18 1.03 1.28 1.43 1.43 1.13 1.25 1.18
3A 622 720 0.89 555 1.12 1.09 1.3 1.45 1.29 1.26 1.4 1.32
4C 611 716 0.94 573 1.07 1.07 1.25 1.39 1.30 1.25 1.39 1.31
7* 641 754 0.93 598 1.07 1.12 1.26 1.41 1.31 1.32 1.46 1.38
125 × 125 × 5 2B 1057 1154 0.85 899 1.18 1.04 1.28 1.43 1.43 1.13 1.26 1.18
3A 1118 1279 0.89 995 1.12 1.09 1.29 1.43 1.27 1.25 1.39 1.31
4C 1086 1305 0.94 1021 1.06 1.06 1.28 1.42 1.34 1.28 1.42 1.34
8** 1013 1183 1 1013 1 0.99 1.17 1.3 1.30 1.16 1.29 1.21

*- Test load at yield is 666 kN, at ultimate is 727 kN; **- Test load at yield is 997 kN, at ultimate is 1175 kN.

summarised in Table 3. Ignoring outlier case stud-

ies 5 and 1, the predicted end capacity results are
no more than (–)10% to (+)3% of test results. It
is also observed that the substitution of corner
material with one of the adjacent faces provides a
maximum difference of 3% in end capacity results.
This offers a simplified methodology to represent
all elements in the RHS section with a governing
material stress strain curve corresponding to the
adjacent face and is validated through approxima-
tion case studies 2A, 3B, 4E and 4G.
4.1.3 Failure behaviour
Table  4 provides examples of predicted contour
plots of strains at maximum load, evolution of
damage from initiation of fracture during unload-
ing for measured material inputs. Observed differ-
ences in failure modes for Grades C450 and C350,
150 × 50 × 3 RHS (Section 2) are also identified
in simulations indicating the accuracy of failure
model employed and are summarized as follows:
− Location of first failure in Grade C450 is pre-
dicted in adjacent faces, towards the centre when
properties of opposite faces and adjacent faces
are similar and symmetric. A reduced input mate-
rial stress strain curve such as in 4C due to clos-
ing weld in the opposite face provides assymetry.
− The predicted relative Lemaitre damage con-
tour plots during damage are at 45  degrees to

618
 the direction of load with a v or × symmetric or
unsymmetric pattern. The contour plots show-
ing damage are observed in both adjacent faces
and correlate well against observed behaviour;
− Initiation of fracture is conservative and about
3% more than observed values. The ratio of
initiation of fracture to complete failure loads
for grade C350 is 0.45 compared to 0.9 in grade
C450 section. These predictions correlate within
(+) 5% to (–4)% of observed results;
− Grade C350 full section tensile simulation pre-
dicts onset of fracture at the corner, followed
by failure of the flanges and then the web. The
initiation at corners can be attributed to simi-
lar σu values for both flat faces and corners. In
approximation case studies 2A, 3B, 4E and 4G
for Grade C450; section, initiation is also pre-
dicted at the corners;
− The differences in progressive failure behaviour
between Grade C350 RHS and Grade C450
RHS can be related to the damage coefficients.
The larger magnitudes of εpR/εpD (ratio of
strains at rupture to strains at ultimate) and
D1c (Lemaitre critical damage) at corners as
identified in Figure 17 (Mohan and Wilkinson,
2017) result in slow crack growth in Grade C350,
increased ductility and a significantly lower fail-
ure load during unloading to complete failure.
4.2 Partial safety factors
The background to partial safety factors in deter-
mining design resistance of joints is referenced
in Table C.1 of Annex C of ISO document on
static design procedure of welded hollow sections
IIW (2009). For brace failure in joints, the par-
tial safety factor is identified as 1.25. Design joint
resistance is required to be calculated based on
minimum of [0.8 σu, σy] and reduction factor of
0.9 when σy exceeds 355 MPa. Partial safety fac-
tor γ, is defined as the ratio of predicted loads at
ultimate, Pultimate to load at design, Pdesign. Table 3
identifies 6 design scenarios where factor of safety
is defined by γxyz with x, y and z values assigned to
Pultimate, Pdesign and overall reduction respectively as
detailed below:
− x refers to method adopted to derive Pultimate, val-
ues of 1, 2 are derived from weighted average
and predicted values from FEA;
− y refers to method adopted to derive Pdesign at
yield; values 1, 2 or 3 are derived from weighted
average, FEA with actual material and, when
FEA for measured is unknown, FEA with
FEAnominal;
− z refers to reduced factors for ductility; z  =  1
adopts min [0.8 σu, σy] with no reduction factors,
z = 2 includes additional overall reduction factor
of 0.9, z = 3 adopts reduction factor of σy = 0.8
619
σu for modified criteria σu < 1.1 σy and includes
overall reduction factor of 0.9.
A pattern that is not recognisable through a
linear relationship function is the dependence of
partial safety factor γ on (σu /σy) and has a regres-
sion value of 0.1. A multiple linear regression with
(σu/σy) and εpD improves the regression coefficient
to 0.4, permits a more precise prediction of γ and
is of the form:
σu
γ = a0 + a1 + a2 ε PD (1)
σy
For the multiple regression of γ231  in Table  3,
a0, a1 and a2 are solved to give 3.41, 1.56 and
1.74. Although 95% confidence limits for these
coefficients suggest that these are not precisely
determined, Figure 2 confirms the dependence of
partial safety factors with both (σu /σy) and εpD. The
possibility of other regression combinations can
be explored further. A summary of findings for
material parametric variations is provided below:
− derived values γ222, γ322 for both actual and
nominal material are conservative with values
between 1.30 to 1.55;
− *For σu in the range 1.2σy > σu > 1.1σy, one of the
factors either σy = 0.8 σu or an overall reduction
factor of 0.9 is adequate to meet partial safety
factor of 1.25;
− An additional reduction factor of 0.9 is required
in material with σu > 1.2σy to take into account
reductions in ultimate loads as observed in both
grades C350 and C450 RHS section (case study
350 and 6).
The background to partial safety factors is ref-
erenced against failure mechanism of joints. In
order to verify the above findings, observed tensile
brace failure in joints have been analysed and are
detailed in the next section.
Figure 2. Predicted partial safety factor: FEA vs regres-
sion analyses.
4.2.1 Indirect tests: Tensile brace failure in joints
This section outlines two cases of brace failure,
100 × 50 × 5 RHS in joint K4 and 125 × 125 × 5
RHS in joint N2 with observed local tensile failure
of the brace. Analysed as a full section tensile test
the objectives are to:
− benchmark FEA methodology against test
results adopting brace perimeter in CIDECT;
− verify partial safety factors with actual and
nominal σy and σu.
The effective brace perimeter lbefff according to
the CIDECT code for K joint with gap and overlap
N joints is defined by equations 2 and 3.
10 ⎛ σ y 0 t0 ⎞
lbefff = ⎜ ⎟ (2)
⎛ b0 ⎞ ⎝ σ y1 t1 ⎠
⎜⎝ t ⎟⎠
0
⎛O ⎞
lbefff = ⎜ v ⎟ 2hhi beeii + be OV ti (3)
⎝ 50 ⎠
where bi, is the width; ti is the thickness; σyi yield
of RHS; i = 0,1 corresponds to chord or brace; hi
overall in-plane depth of RHS; bei, be,ov are func-
tions in the criteria for local yielding of the over-
lapping brace/brace shear; p is the length of the
projected contact area of the overlapping brace
member; q is the length of overlap measured at the
face of the chord and Ov = (q/p) 100
These equations provide:
− yield of 666  kN and ultimate of 727  kN in
100 × 50 × 5 RHS as a brace in K joint with gap
− yield load of 997  kN and ultimate load of
1175 kN in 125 × 125 × 5 RHS as a brace in N
joint with overlap.
A FE model for 100  ×  50  ×  5 RHS and
125 × 125 × 5 RHS was generated. Actual mate-
rial and case studies 2, 3 and 4 were adopted as
parametric variations in material. The predicted
yield load Pyield corresponding to 0.2% proof
stress of the adjacent faces and ultimate tensile
failure loads Pultimate is reported in Table  5. Case
studies 7 and 8 for actual σy, σu provide predicted
results within 4% and 2% of observed loads. The
analyses thus confirm FEA methodology through
two additional full section tensile tests.
The partial safety factor values with or without
reduction in σy and overall reduction factors as
case studies previously identified in Section 4.1.4
are provided in Table  5 and confirm previous
findings. For known material, reductions to σy
are only required when 1.2σy  >  σu  >  1.1σy with
an overall reduction factor 0.9 to factor of safety
of 1.25.
620
5 COMPRESSION TEST SIMULATIONS
5.1 Direct tests
Simulation studies of three RHS sections in Grade
C450 with one matched RHS in Grade C350 based
on actual material, measured imperfections in
geometry and with constraints at the loading end
corresponding to pinned support are reported in
Tables 6 and 7. Predicted loads Pp at limits of lin-
earity have been compared against tensile yield
loads Pyield, observed Pp(test) loads, and, predicted
loads Ns using current column compression equa-
tions. Simulations correlate within 10% of test
results in 3 out of 4 cases; ultimate loads, Pu predict
− overstrength by 20% for Grade C450 150 × 50 × 3;
−
overstrength by 5% for Grade C450 150 × 50 × 4;
− understrength by 7% for Grade C450 150 × 50 × 5;
− overstrength by 9% for Grade C350 150 × 50 × 3.
Although a 20% difference in observed σu val-
ues of coupon tests and predicted full sections
tests of Grade C450 and C350 150 × 50 × 3 RHS
is reported, the difference in peak loads for full
section compression capacity is less than 5%. Six
additional case studies to better assess the effects
of residual stress, boundary conditions, eccentric-
ity of loads, increased geometric imperfection and
finite element mesh type/density were therefore
undertaken. The results of four of these are sig-
nificant and are reported. These include effects
of 10% residual stresses in material inputs as 4C-r
for Grade C450 and 350-r for Grade C350, eccen-
tricity of 10  mm in loads as 4C-e and ineffective
pinned end support as E24C. Each independ-
ent variation 4C-r, 4C-e and E24C closes the gap
between predicted and observed by 50%. Results
for Grade C350 150  ×  50  ×  3 RHS with a 10%
residual stress, identified as 350-r reduce the differ-
ences between predicted to observed values from
over prediction of +10% to −2%. An increased
residual stress (>10%) or a combination of residual
stress and eccentricity as per analysis case 4C-re
provides correlation within 2% of test results. The
larger understrength observed in 3  mm thickness
was not evident for increase in thickness.
5.1.1 Material sensitivity studies
Analyses results for parametric variations in mate-
rial provided in Tables  6 and 7 confirm bounds
for predicted compression capacities to be defined
by 2B and 3B with a maximum difference of 10%
between them. Predictions with measured material
properties in the RHS sections are about 2% to 3%
higher than 2B.
Predictions for maximum capacity with corner
element properties assumed to be the same as flat
Table  6. Summary of material sensitivity studies and column compression results comparing predicted and stub
column tests for 150 × 50 × 4 and 150 × 50 × 5.

Grade C450 150 × 50 × 3 Grade C350 150 × 50 × 3

Material E24C 4C 2B 3A 2A 4C-r 4C-e 4C-re Test 350 350-r TEST 350

Pp (kN) 427 436 437 442 439 423 381 383 400 364 348 350
Pu (kN) 470 513 518 547 505 467 467 419 429 436 399 400
Pc unload (kN) 391 438 273 443 359 399 247 328 300 283 252 225
% (Maximum test) 10 19.58 20.74 27.39 17.74 9 9 −2 0.00 9.02 −0.34 0.00
% (Pp vs Test) 6 8.26 8.52 9.46 8.82 5 −5 −4 0.00 3.90 −0.71 0.00
% (Tensile yield) −17 −14.45 −14.12 −12.95 −13.75 −18 −31 −30 −24.75 −15.32 −20.85 −20.00
Pu/Pp 1.10 1.18 1.18 1.24 1.15 1.10 1.23 1.09 1.07 1.20 1.15 1.14
γy1 = Pp/Ns 1.21 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.24 1.20 1.07 1.08 1.13 1.15 1.09 1.10
γy2 = Pp/Ns(0.8σu) 1.30 1.33 1.33 1.35 1.34 1.29 1.16 1.17 1.22 1.19 1.14 1.14
γy3 = Pp/0.9 Ns(0.8σu) 1.45 1.48 1.50 1.49 1.43 1.29 1.30 1.36 – – –
γu1 = Pu/Ns 1.33 1.45 1.46 1.54 1.43 1.32 1.32 1.18 1.21 1.37 1.25 1.26
γu2 = Pu/Ns(0.8σu) 1.43 1.56 1.58 1.67 1.54 1.42 1.42 1.28 1.31 1.43 1.30 1.31
γu3 = Pu/0.9.Ns(0.8σu) 1.59 1.74 1.75 1.85 1.71 1.58 1.58 1.42 1.45 – – –

Table  7. Summary of material sensitivity studies and column compression results comparing predicted and stub
column tests for 150 × 50 × 4 and 150 × 50 × 5.

Grade C450 150 × 50 × 4 Grade C450 150 × 50 × 5

Material 9 2B 2A 3A Test 4C 2B 3B 10 Test

Pp (kN) 674 655 643 685 600 739 770 856 792 800
Pu (kN) 707 697 676 751 670 787 805 863 820 878
Pc unload (kN) 504 506 506 514 514 650 669 727 652 700
% (Maximum test) 5.18 3.90 0.92 10.83 0.00 −11.55 −9.08 −1.72 −7.11 0.00
% (Pp vs Test) 11.02 8.44 6.68 12.38 0.00 −8.29 −3.85 6.55 −0.95 0.00
% (Tensile yield) 0.93 −1.94 −3.90 2.45 −11.33 −6.94 −2.55 7.72 0.31 1.25
Pu/Pp 1.05 1.06 1.05 1.10 1.12 1.07 1.04 1.01 1.03 1.10
γy1 = Pp/Ns 1.18 1.15 1.12 1.20 1.05 0.92 0.96 1.06 0.98 1.09
γy2 = Pp/Ns(0.8σu) 1.28 1.24 1.22 1.30 1.14 0.99 1.03 1.15 1.06 1.18
γy3 = Pp/0.9 Ns(0.8σu) 1.42 1.38 1.35 1.44 1.26 1.10 1.15 1.28 1.18 1.31
γu1 = Pu/Ns 1.24 1.22 1.18 1.31 1.17 0.98 1.00 1.07 1.02 1.09
γu2 = Pu/Ns(0.8σu) 1.34 1.32 1.28 1.42 1.27 1.06 1.08 1.16 1.10 1.18
γu3 = Pu/0.9.Ns(0.8σu) 1.49 1.47 1.42 1.58 1.41 1.17 1.20 1.29 1.22 1.31

Results identified as 4C in Grade C450 150 × 50 × 3, 350 in Grade C350 150 × 50 × 3, 9 in 150 × 50 × 4 and 10 in
150 × 50 × 5 correspond to actual material.

faces (case studies 2A and 2B) are conservative
by about 3% with buckling predicted in the flat
faces. The study confirms the previous findings for
tensile test simulations and provides a simplified
method to model/predict performance of RHS
sections in joints.
Predicted load, Pc during unloading corresponds
to axial deformation of 5 mm. With the exception
of Grade C450 150 × 50 × 3, predicted loads Pc dur-
ing unloading correlate within 5% of test results.
All sections exhibit web buckling. The capture
of buckling behaviour for sensitivity studies in
material and boundary conditions is provided in
Table 8 and correlates well with observed behaviour.
5.1.2 Partial safety factor
The partial factors of safety γu in Tables 6 and 7 are
calculated based on average value of σu = 520 MPa
and σy = 450 MPa. γu is calculated as:
− γu1 = Pu/Ns where Ns adopts no reduction in σy;
− γu2 = Pu/Ns’ where Ns’ is based on reduced σy of
416 MPa with σu/σy < 1.2;
− γu3 = Pu/0.9 Ns’ with an overall reduction factor
of 0.9 required when σu/σy < 1.2.

621
Table  8. Contour plot of strains, deformed plot for modelled as full RHS members in stub column
variations in boundary conditions and material. tests with lengths of both 20ry and 3d. Joint details
are provided in Table 9. Adopting the expressions
identified in (2) and (3) for effective width, test
results have been converted to full section capaci-
ties and are included in Table  10. These brace
members provide parametric variations in mate-
rial, end support condition at the chord interface
with the following scenarios:
− 150  ×  100  ×  4: Material coupon test from the
adjacent face has values below 95% LCL pro-
vided in Table 2, with properties nearly equiva-
lent to Grade C350. Additionally, with measured
value of 39 for b/t, the class 2  section require-
ment of 35 is not satisfied;
− 125 × 125 × 5: RHS size in two joints facilitates
the influence of effective restraints at the chord
interface. In an N joint, no compression brace
These partial safety factors are compared
against 1.25 which forms the basis of design resist- Table 9. Test configuration: Nominal size of RHS.
ance of joints of IIW document (2009). The safety
factor γp by replacing Pu by Pp in the above equa- Compression
tions is also included in the results to further proc- Test brace Chord Other brace
ess scenarios when λw exceeds AS4100 slenderness
limits of 40. N6 75 × 75 × 5 150 × 150 × 5 100 × 150 × 5
The required partial safety factor of 1.25 is met N5 125 × 125 × 5 250 × 250 × 6 200 × 200 × 5
in 150 × 50 × 3 RHS and 150 × 50 × 4 RHS with K2* 125 × 125 × 5 300 × 300 × 8 125 × 125 × 5
either σy as 0.8 σu identified as γu2 or an overall K6 150 × 100 × 4 150 × 250 × 5 150 × 100 × 4
reduction factor of 0.9 (γu1/0.9). Results for case
study with residual stresses or eccentricity 4C-re is *– β1 ≥ 0.1 + 0.01 b0/t0 is not satisfied; where β1 =
(300/125) = 0.41; 0.1 + 0.01 b0/t0 = 0.475.
also verified. Further, the calculated factor of safety
for Grade C350 is also comparable against Grade
C450. The shape factor k of 0.7, 0.84 corresponding Table 10. Predicted and indirect tests for RHS in joint
to 150 × 50 × 3 and 150 × 50 × 4 RHS respectively, as tests as a compression brace.
a multiplier to σy results in reduced Ns and provides
the target magnitude of 1.25 in factor of safety. 125 × 125 × 5:
150 × 50 × 5 RHS, provides an interesting case Support at 150 × 100 × 4:
with (σu/σy)  =  1.08 (<1.1) for an adjacent and base Material
opposite face. With shape factor k = 1, Ns has no
Parameter 75 × 75 × 5 Fixed Sinking Nominal Actual
further reductions and partial safety factor of 1.25
based on nominal material stress value is predicted Py (kN) 675 936 936 675 675
only when reductions for 0.8 σu and an overall Pu (kN) 718 1036 800 924 734
reduction factor of 0.9 to ultimate load are both Ns (kN) 569 984 984 716 636
deployed. Pu (test) (kN) 744 1038 756* – 696
Δ% (Pu) –4 0 6 25 5
5.1.3 Restraints at the loading end Pu/Py 1.06 1.11 0.86 1.37 1.09
A difference in end restraints in the loading end γy1 1.19 0.95 0.95 0.94 1.06
from idealised pinned end condition to fixed is pre- γy2 1.28 1.03 1.03 1.02 1.15
dicted to increase compression end loads by 10%. γy3 1.43 1.14 1.14 1.13 1.28
A change from pinned end to free end reduces end γ u1 1.26 1.05 0.81 1.29 1.15
capacity by 10%. γ u2 1.37 1.14 0.88 1.29 1.15
γ u3 1.52 1.27 0.98 1.43 1.28
5.2 Indirect tests γu(test)1 1.31 1.06 0.77   1.09
γu(test)2 1.42 1.14 0.83   1.09
Four brace members with observed compres- γu(test)3 1.57 1.27 0.92   1.22
sion buckling failure in K and N joints have been

622
 failure is observed in tests and the converted
full section capacity at ultimate test load can be
interpreted as a bound in design capacity. In a
K joint, the brace width to chord width ratio of
0.41 is 15% less than the required limit of 0.48.
This provides a scenario with ineffective restraint
at the chord interface and can be viewed as end
with sinking support. This is normally not taken
into account in designs adopting matrix meth-
ods of analysis. Analysis of RHS test with an
8  mm thick plate at the end retrained along 2
edges has therefore been conducted;
− 75 × 75 × 5: The material properties of the brace
with opposite faces (σu  /  σy) ≤ 1.1 is below the
CIDECT requirement of 1.2. The influence on
partial safety factor can therefore be examined.
Predicted results have been compared against
RHS capacities interpreted from reverse analyses of
joint tests and are identified as Δ in Table 10. An inter-
pretation benchmarking FEA against test results and
partial safety factors are as provided below:
− Outside the range of brace to chord width, the
flexibility of the supports needs to be accounted
for through either FEA analyses or tests. This is
particularly the case in K joints with gaps;
− N joints without gaps provide a restraint at the
base and partial safety factors for compression
brace buckling are satisfied without the addi-
tional reduction of 0.9 in load carrying capacity;
− Correlation within ± 5% confirms that the
effective width equation to derive compression
brace capacity of sections and FEA methodol-
ogy adopted is appropriate. Compression brace
capacity is significantly reduced when brace
width to chord width ratio is not met resulting
in a 25% decrease in compression capacity for
125 × 125 × 5 RHS in K2 joint study;
− The three case studies for compliant brace
width to chord width ratio, material properties
σy near 450 MPa, (σu/σy) ≥ 1.1 satisfy the par-
tial safety factors of 1.25 in compression brace
buckling without an additional overall factor
of 0.9.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The paper outlines a robust approach to predict axial
capacities and associated partial factors of safety
623
of cold formed Grade C450 RHS. By means of
two direct tensile tests and two indirect tensile tests
from brace failure in joints, initiation of damage
and progressive failure of RHS under tension has
been demonstrated. The predicted results corre-
late within 4% of observed results. The methods
provide meaningful insights to the differences in
the behaviour of Grade C450 and Grade C350
RHS.
The compression buckling behaviour of 4 stub
columns in direct compression and 4 columns from
joint studies have been reliably simulated. With
the exception of one compression test, predicted
results corresponding to maximum load/buckling
load correlate and are within 6%. of test results.
Adopting actual material data in parametric
simulations, it has been observed that the design
philosophy for limits to σu/σy can be reduced to
1.1 but requires an overall reduction factor of
0.9. This would provide a partial safety factor of
1.25 in axial brace failure.
REFERENCES
IIW. 2009. Static design procedure for welded hollow sec-
tion joints – Recommendations. 3rd edition, Interna-
tional Institute of Welding, Sub-commission XV-E,
Annual Assembly, Singapore, IIW Doc. XV-1329-09.
Lemaitre, J. & Desmorat, R. 2005 Engineering Damage
Mechanics, Springer Berlin.
Mohan, M. & Wilkinson, T. 2015. Finite element simula-
tions of 450 grade cold formed K and N joints, Tubu-
lar Structures XV, pp 449–456, Batista (Ed), CRC.
Mohan, M. & Wilkinson, T. 2017. Identification of
parameters for continuum damage mechanics of duc-
tile damage evolution of cold formed steel rectangu-
kar hollow sections, in preparation.
MSC.Marc 2013, 2014. MSC.Software Corporation.
Packer, J.A., Wardenier, J., Zhao, X.-L., van der Vegte,
G.J., Kurobane, Y. 2009. Design guide for rectangu-
lar hollow section (RHS) joints under predominantly
static loading. Second edition, Construction with
hollow steel sections, No. 3, Verlag TUV Rheinland,
Köln, Germany.
Wilkinson, T. 1999. The Plastic Behaviour of Cold
Formed Rectangular Hollow Sections, University of
Sydney, Australia.
Yao, Z. & Wilkinson, T. 2015 Experimental investiga-
tion of the static capacity of grade C450 RHS K and
N truss joints, Tubular Structures XV, pp. 489–496,
Batista (Ed), CRC.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Leak-before-break (LBB) analysis and failure processes for

small-diameter cast iron pipes

R. Jiang, D. Weerasinghe, C. Zhang, X.L. Zhao & J. Kodikara

Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Australia

C.R. Hutchinson
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Monash University, Australia

ABSTRACT: Cast iron water pipes have high failure rates in Australia, and these pipes were generally
buried in reactive soils without effective coatings. As the majority of the water network consists of small-
diameter (< 150 mm) pipes, circumferential fractures are the predominant failure mode, and the failure
was considered as brittle fracture without warning. However, recent failure analyses indicate that multiple
failure processes occur and leaks are frequently observed before breaks. Liner Elastic Fracture Mechan-
ics (LEFM) is used to evaluate the remaining strength of cracked pipes. Leaks are normally caused by
soil bending stress in deep corrosion patches. The cracks can stably grow through 20–60% of the entire
perimeter, which allows the installation of tightened clamps to stop leakages. Cracks may propagate over
a long period until the leak becomes detectable. Therefore, it is argued that the leak-before-break concept
developed for large-diameter pipes may be applicable to small-diameter pipes.

1 INTRODUCTION the viability of conducting LBB analysis for these

vital infrastructures (Makar, 2000).
Cast iron (CI) pipes manufactured prior to 1990still One of the key issues in LBB analysis is the
account for a significant proportion of Australian investigation of the corrosion condition of CI
urban water supply systems (Rajeev et  al., 2014). pipes. Most CI water pipes were buried in natural
The predominant failure mode for small-diameter soils without effective coatings, and the common
CI pipes (nominal diameter, D ≤ 150  mm) is cir- soil corrosion mode, pitting corrosion, tends to
cumferential fracture due to external bending and produce local metal losses and reduce the structural
soil corrosion (Makar, 2000). In Australia, static capacity (Rajani, 2000). Correlations between cor-
CI pipes were manufactured before the 1920s, rosion depths and fracture stresses have been inves-
and thereafter spun CI pipes were widely installed tigated for both static and spun CI pipe specimens
because of their superior strength and uniform (Atkinson et al., 2002, Gould, 2011, Rajani, 2000,
thickness (Jiang et al., 2017). Both static and spun Yamamoto et al., 1983, Antaki, 2003).
CI pipes are relatively brittle with low fracture Bending loads, another important contribu-
toughness compared to other pipes such as steel tion to circumferential fracture failures, are mainly
and ductile iron pipes. Therefore, CI pipe fail- induced by external factors, including ground
ures are generally assumed to be brittle fractures
with limited warning (Seica and Packer, 2004).
As a result, the leak-before-break (LBB) concept
adopted by other piping industries, with the aim
of preventing catastrophic fractures by detect-
ing leakages in pressurized pipelines (Wilkowski,
2000), is considered to be inapplicable for CI pipes.
Rathnayaka et al. (2017) introduced the LBB con-
cept for large-diameter CI pipes through full-scale
laboratory bursting tests. However, recent failure
analyses of CI pipes by examining fracture surfaces
have shown multiples failure stages in the develop-
ment of circumferential fractures, i.e., crack initia- Figure 1. Typical pipe bending stresses due to ground
tion, crack growth and final fracture, which shows movement in Altona North, Melbourne.

625
movements, traffic loads and temperature changes 2.2 Leak criterion—crack initiation
(Rajani, 2000). Of these factors, thermal stress is
Leakage in corrosion pits is controlled to a large
insignificant for Australian cities, due to the mod-
extent by the corrosion depth. The linear-relationship
erate changes of underground temperatures (Chan
between corrosion depth and remaining strength
et  al., 2015), and traffic loading tests indicate a
(Eq. 1) has been investigated based on mechanical
relatively minor effect of traffic loads in CI pipes
tests of corroded specimens (Gould, 2011, Rajani,
(Chan et  al., 2016). Hence, the seasonal swelling/
2000, Yamamoto et al., 1983). The minimum speci-
shrinking behaviour of reactive soils and differ-
fied tensile strengths for static and spun CI pipes
ent ground conditions in pipe trenches are the
listed in BS-78 (1938) and AS-1724 (1975) are used
predominant causes of bending loads for CI pipes
in this analysis. The remaining strengths and corro-
(Gould, 2011, Weerasinghe et al., 2015). The criti-
sion depths are plotted in Figure 4(a).
cal bending soil stresses range from 20 to 30 MPa
The hoop stress induced by internal pressure for
obtained from site measurements (Chan et  al.,
intact pipes is expressed in Eq. 2. The condition
2015) and simulation models developed under the
of corroded pipeline predominantly subjected to
Smart Water Fund (SMF) in the Melbourne region
soil bending stress is shown in Eq. 3. Eq. 4 presents
(SMF, 2017). The critical bending stresses in pipe
the condition when the circumferential crack is
barrels are located in either the pipe crown or base
generated, i.e., the bending stress is higher than the
due to seasonal ground movements. An example of
hoop stress as well as the tensile strength of the
typical pipe bending stress variations in a selected
CI pipe (Eq. 3). For corroded pipes, a circumfer-
suburb is presented in Figure 1 (SMF, 2017).
ential crack initiates when pipe stress is above the
The circumferential failures in corroded CI pipe
residual strength (Eq. 4). The crack orientation is
barrels are caused by the soil bending stress rather
determined by the magnitudes of hoop and bend-
than hoop stress from internal pressures due to
ing stresses.
the crack orientation (Makar, 2000). The bi-axial
Figure  4(b) shows the remaining strengths
stress state induced by both internal pressure and
of corroded CI pipes in full-scale bending tests
soil bending stress can result in the failure mode
conducted by Atkinson et  al. (2002). CI pipes
of spiral barrel fracture, instead of circumferential
barrel fracture (Makar et al., 2001).
This paper evaluates the failure processes of cir-
cumferential fractures in CI pipes through recent
failures. A crack initiation criterion is proposed
using the limit stress method, and the residual
strength of pipes containing a circumferential crack
is evaluated using linear-elastic fracture mechanics
(LEFM). The applicability of the LBB concept for
maintaining and replacing small-diameter CI pipes
is proposed.

2 METHODS AND MATERIALS

2.1 Circumferential failures

Between 2014 and 2017, ten failure cases of CI
pipes were collected for failure analysis. Most of
these pipes had previously leaked (Fig.  2(a)) and
were repaired using tightened clamps (Fig.  2(b)).
The background information is shown in Table 1.
The nominal thickness (t) and diameter (D)
were measured, and the corrosion products were
removed by low-speed sand blasting. The cor-
roded metallic surfaces were recorded using a three
dimensional (3-D) Creaform laser scanner. The
wall thickness changes along the major fracture
surface were analysed by 3-D scanning data. The
circumferential crack opening angles (2θ, shown Figure  2. (a) Leakage of a 100  mm-diameter CI pipe
in Figure 3) were obtained by measurement or site through a circumferential crack; (b) Tightened clamp in
pictures. a leaking CI pipe.

626
Table 1. Summary of CI pipe failures.

ID D mm Location Depth m Burial Leak1 Replacing2 Failure mode 2θ

1 100 Driveway 0.95 1973 5/2016 – Leak 180

2 100 Natural strip 0.90 1966 5/2016 – Leak 160
3 100 Natural strip 0.95 1973 8/2006 3/2017 LBB –
4 150 Minor road 0.85 1958 3/2017 – Leak 140
5 100 Driveway 0.45 1960 3/2017 – Leak 150
6 100 Driveway 0.85 1960 3/2017 – Leak 70
7 100 Minor road 0.60 1958 3/2017 – Leak 85
8 150 Driveway 0.90 1967 5/2014 6/2014 Leak 220
9 100 Driveway 0.90 1959 12/2009 6/2014 Leak 300
10 100 Driveway 0.75 1929 2/2003 6/2014 LBB –

1. Leaking time refers to the first site inspection or installation of tightened clamps.
2. Some repaired pipes are still in service.

Figure 3. Pipe containing a circumferential crack.

containing through-wall corrosion pits are able

to sustain a bending stress up to 100  MPa (Fig-
ure 4(b)), which indicates the cracked pipes have
remaining strength and localised failures occur
before catastrophic breaks.

⎛ c⎞
σr σu 1− ⎟ (1)
⎝ t⎠
D
σh = P (2)
2t
σb > σh (3)
σb ≥ σr (4)

where σu = tensile strength; σr = remaining strength;

σh = hoop stress induced by internal pressure; c = cor- Figure  4. Correlations between fracture stresses and
rosion depth; t  =  nominal thickness; D  =  nominal corrosion ratios from literature: (a) Specimen tests; (b)
diameter; P = internal pressure; σb = bending stress. full scale bending tests.

627
2.3 Break criterion along with the typical bending stress (detailed in
Figure  1), based on the average wall thickness
The break criterion of CI pipes containing a cir-
of 10  mm and operating pressures ranging from
cumferential crack is controlled by bending stress,
300 and 1,200  kPa. As shown in Figure  6, the
crack length and fracture toughness. The intensity
critical hoop stress is generally less than the soil
factor is expressed in Eq. 5, and the geometric fac-
bending stress, which indicates that circumferen-
tor is adopted from Tada et al. (2000) and Miedlar
tial fracture is more critical for small-diameter CI
et  al. (2002). The half-crack opening angle (θ) is
pipes. According to the linear strength reduction
demonstrated in Figure 3.
The fracture toughness of CI pipes can be deter-
mined by material and full-scale tests. The results
of tests of single-edged-notched-beam (SENB)
specimens range from 15 to 27 MPa m1/2 (Mohebbi
et  al., 2010), and full-scale bending tests provide
higher values between 22 and 29 MPa m1/2 (Conlin
and Baker, 1991). Therefore, the value of 15 MPa
m1/2 is conservatively selected for evaluating the
remaining strengths of cracked CI pipes.

Kl σ 3 π aaF (5)
Kl K lc (6)

Where, Kt  =  intensity factor of pipes with a

circumferential crack; a  =  half-crack length; F  = 
geometric factor; Klc = fracture toughness.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Failure analyses

The original wall thicknesses of the selected fail-
ure cases range from 9 to 11  mm, which match
the achieved standards BS-78 (1938) and AS-1724
(1975). The circumferential crack lengths account
for 20–60% of the entire perimeter when the leak-
ing pipes were initially repaired. The cracks open Figure 5. Case 8 with a circumferential crack (a) Corro-
sion damage; (b) 3-D scanning image.
to either pipe crown or base. Significant wall reduc-
tion is observed in the region of crack initiation,
and the crack tips are arrested in the thick-walled
areas (Figure 5)
Water leakage from a through crack may be
detectible when the backfill soil is fully saturated
prior to a catastrophic break. A partial circumfer-
ential crack is easily repaired using screw-tightened
clamps (Figure  2(b)). Field observations show
that tightened clamps provide additional service
life to leaking pipes without allowing breakages.
However, corrosion rates in clamped sections are
expected to rise and eventually cause breaks or
capacity loss (Case 3, 9 and 10).

3.2 Crack initiation

The hoop stresses induced by internal pressures
for CI pipes with diameters of 100 and 150  mm Figure 6. Soil bending stress, hoop stress and remain-
are calculated using Eq. 2 and plotted in Figure 6 ing strength in small-diameter spun CI pipes.

628

Figure 7. Remaining strength of CI pipes containing a
circumferential crack.
correlation (Eq. 1), circumferential crack initia-
tion requires a corrosion depth at least 85% or
more of the original wall thickness.
3.3 Remaining capacity
For CI pipes with diameters of 100 and 150  mm
and with a nominal thickness of 10  mm, the
remaining strengths are evaluated using Eqs. 5 and
6. The half-crack opening angle ranges from 10º
to 110º. The geometric factors were adopted from
both Tada et al. (2000) and Miedlar et al. (2002),
and the lower boundary of fracture toughness of
15 MPa m1/2 was selected. The results are plotted
in Figure  7, and the remaining capacity declines
with increasing crack length along the perimeter.
The required bending stresses for seven leaking CI
pipes listed in Table 1 are also shown in Figure 7.
4 CONCLUSIONS
This study analyses the recent failure of small-diam-
eter CI pipes. Multiple failure processes of circum-
ferential fracture occur in CI pipes. The LBB criteria
are proposed for CI pipes under bending stress using
the stress criterion and the LEFM. The LBB con-
cept is shown to be applicable to these pipes with
circumferential fracture, which explains the broad
time window between initial leak and final fracture
under ordinary soil stresses. The findings of failure
analysis and case studies are detailed below:
• Pitting soil corrosion causes significant corro-
sion pit-induced stress concentrations.
629
• Bending stresses from ground movements in
small-diameter CI pipes are generally higher
than the levels of hoop stress produced by inter-
nal pressure.
• Circumferential fracture is more commonly
observed than longitudinal fracture in CI pipes
with diameters of 100 and 150 mm.
• Crack initiation occurs in severe corrosion pits (at
least 85% of pipe wall) and leads to water leakage.
• Leaking pipes still show substantial structural
capacity, and the LBB concept is potentially
applicable to CI pipes under bending stress.
• The lengths of circumferential cracks normally
go through 20%–60% of the entire perimeter,
which allows the easy solution of installing
tightened clamps.
• Clamps may lead to the increased corrosion
rates and soil moisture in local areas. More effort
is required to investigate these observations.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by the Smart Water Fund
(SWF) project, City West Water, Yarra Valley
Water, Melbourne Water and South East Water.
REFERENCES
Antaki, G.A. 2003. Piping and pipeline engineering:
design, construction, maintenance, integrity, and repair,
New York, USA, CRC Press.
AS-1724 1975. Australian Standard Specification: Cast
Grey Iron Pressure Pipes and Fittings with Bolted
Gland Joints. Sydney, Australia: Standards Australia.
Atkinson, K., Whiter, J., Smith, P. & Mulheron, M. 2002.
Failure of small diameter cast iron pipes. Urban water,
4, 263–271.
BS-78 1938. British Standard Specification for Cast Iron
Pipes (Vertically Cast) for Water, Gas, and Sewage and
Special Castings for Use Therewith. British Standards
Institution.
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Circular hollow section joint fabrication using laser cutting technology:

Tolerance assessment

A. Kanyilmaz & C.A. Castiglioni

Fincon Consulting Italia, Milano, Italy

S. Raso, A. Valli & M. Brugnolli

ADIGE-SYS, Trento, Italy

A. Galazzi
OCAM, Modena, Italy

R. Hojda
Vallourec, Düsseldorf, Germany

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the preliminary results of the fabrication tolerance study performed
within the EU-RFCS project LASTEICON (Laser technology for innovative connections in steel
construction), funded by Research Fund for Coal and Steel of European Commission. The project started
on July 2016, and will last for 3.5 years. LASTEICON project aims to eliminate the use of excessive
amount of stiffener plates and welding in steel joints, using laser cutting technology (LCT). This will lead
to enhance the economy and sustainability of the fabrication process as well as the aesthetic of any type
of steel joints. Major focus has been given to I-beam-to-CHS-column connections to promote hollow
sections, because of their excellent structural properties combined with their aesthetic appeal. In this
paper, an overview of the project is provided and the preliminary experimental results on the laser-cutting
and fabrication tolerances have been discussed.

1 INTRODUCTION and Japan (Kurobane et al. 2004; Dutta et al. 1998;

Packer et  al. 2010; Morino & Tsuda 2002; ANSI/
Circular hollow sections (CHS) have excellent prop- AISC 2010), it is seen that most common types of
erties with high compression, tension and bending I-beams-to-CHS columns connections are directly
resistance in all directions, thanks to their inherent welded, or diaphragm connections. Both solutions
shape and geometrical properties. Structures pro- include vast amount of welded local stiffeners or
duced using tubular sections have lighter overall gusset plates, which makes the design and construc-
weights in the order of 40% (BLM Group 2012; tion of these joints complicated and expensive, slow
BLM Group 2013; BLM Group 2008), and they down the design and construction process and spoil
require smaller volume of fire protection material the aesthetics of the design.
than their equivalent H section (Bursi 2009). Indeed When steel hollow sections are involved, the
CHS columns can be designed to have a fire resist- complexity of joints has always been a problem,
ance up to 120 minutes, without using fire protection
(Kurobane et al. 2004). Moreover, tubular profiles
also have reduced transport costs. They are archi-
tecturally very appealing offering more space, and
freedom to the designers (Dutta et al. 1998; Packer
et al. 2010) (Figure 1). However, these profiles have
complex detailing, fabrication and erection proc-
esses for their connections, always requiring stiffen-
ers and gusset plates. From an extensive literature
study including the largest steel users in the world Figure 1. Examples hollow section joints with stiffeners
construction market such as Europe, United States, and welding – EXPO 2015 Construction site.

631
worldwide. Commonly used through-diaphragm
connections require a large amount of welding,
since they are fabricated by cutting the steel tube
into pieces, and then welding them together with
diaphragms (Morino & Tsuda 2002). Extensive
research and implementation have been made in
the last three decades to improve the performance
of the structural systems consisting in tube col-
umns and I-shaped beams (Morino & Tsuda 2002;
Fujimoto et al. 2000). These researchers indicated
the necessity of new connection type developments
without cutting the column body and without
using excessive welding.
In a typical building project, cost of fabrica-
tion is usually between 30% to 50% of the total
project cost. This portion is due to the time spent
for designing the connection, making the fittings,
placing stiffeners, drilling the holes, welding and
testing. Therefore, efficient connection solutions
must have the lowest detailing, fabrication and
erection labor content.
EU-RFCS research project LASTEICON
(started on July 2016 thanks to the funding received
from the European Commission, for details see
www.lasteicon.eu) (Kanyilmaz et  al. 2016) pro-
poses using laser cutting technology (LCT) in the
fabrication of I-beam-to-CHS-column joints. This
can drastically reduce fabrication costs, as well as
meeting the structural requirements, expanding
also the freedom of architects and engineers when
developing new projects (Figure  2). Some types
of passing through concept have been studied at
a preliminary phase by some researchers (Moazed
2010) (Azizinamini et  al. 1995), with very prom-
ising conclusions, though further in-depth studies
did not follow probably due to practical difficulties
in traditional cutting process.
In general, proposed joints are composed of steel
profiles inserted through CHS columns, thanks to
a fitted slot that is cut with a laser machine. Fabri-
cation is entirely made in shop, and then the sub-
assemblies are shipped to the construction site for
final assembly. The whole process consists in four
steps:
i. Laser cutting: CHS column and a portion of I
beam are cut by laser machine with high pre-
Figure 2. LCT reducing the complexity of connections.
632
cision, properly accounting for tolerances on
the nominal sizes of the steel profiles. As the
process is numerically controlled, this is easily
achieved by automatic profile scanning of the
members to be connected, hence optimizing
cutting length, tolerances, assembly proce-
dures and weld sizes.
ii. Main idea is that first, an I beam portion is
inserted inside the CHS column, through a
laser-cut slot. Then, a minimal amount of
welding is used to attach the beam portion
to the column around the slot hole, for integ-
rity purposes. Eventually, in the case of three
or four way joints, steel plates (web and/or
flange) are inserted through CHS column and
I beam. In the joint assembly, no extra plate
is needed to strengthen or stiffen the joint,
thanks to the continuity of the beam.
iii. Transport to site: Laser cutting machines can
handle elements long until 14  meters. For
logistics efficiency, columns of 11–12  meters
length are prepared with assembled joints,
and shipped to the site.
iv. Construction: On site, primary and secondary
beams are connected to the shop-assembled
joints.
Laser cutting machines can detect the differ-
ences between the expected profile and the real
profile, and this allows calculating the necessary
compensations, which bring the machining preci-
sion to very elevated standards [20]. Merchant steel
bar rolling tolerances are regulated for I beams by
EN 10034: 1995 (UNI EN 10034 : 1995 1995). This
European standard provides the admissible size
scatters for each nominal profile dimension such
as flange width, thickness and depth, web thick-
ness, out of square and web off-centre. Although
the precision of LCT can achieve an accuracy of
10 μm, it will be necessary to consider geometric
tolerances with respect to nominal size of com-
mercial steel profiles. This will minimize the inter-
ferences, while optimizing the cut length (and
hole size), and the welding quantity used during
the steel joint fabrication. This paper provides the
preliminary experimental results of LASTEICON
project Work-package 1, which focused on the
laser-cutting and fabrication processes to optimize
the tolerances.
2 LASER CUTTING
Modern laser tube cutting machines are capa-
ble of making any type of cut on steel tubes, in
entirely automatic, programmed cycles, from 10 up
to 508 mm in diameter, with wall thickness up to
20 mm and lengths up to 14 m (BLM Group 2012)

Figure 3. Laser cutting of steel.
(Figure 3). CAD programming and the laser beam
eliminate the traditional fixed costs determined by
punches, clamps, tools, templates and dies (Aloke
et  al. 1997). The laser cutting technology (LCT)
has so far generated significant benefits in both
processing and cost terms, for a wide range of
applications. ADIGE-SYS reports that their cus-
tomers obtained production improvements in the
range from 70 to 80% through LCT, with respect
to conventional processes. This was mainly thanks
to more stringent machining tolerances resulting in
improved quality of joints, fittings, easier fasten-
ings, process efficiency and vast flexibility (BLM
Group 2015).
2.1 General notes on laser cutting
The properties of the workpiece and the properties
of the laser beam determine what happens during
machining. The workpiece absorbs only a part of
the laser beam, while reflecting another (Figure 4).
A third part of the beam passes through the work-
piece without interaction (transmission). The
relationship between absorption, reflection and
transmission varies depending on the material. The
degree of absorption is decisive. It is determined
by various factors: the wavelength, polarization,
and incidence angle of the laser beam as well as
the material, temperature, state, geometry, and sur-
face of the workpiece. A higher degree of absorp-
tion means that more energy can be transferred, or
“coupled,” into the workpiece, and therefore it is
available for the machining process.
Energy coupled into the workpiece causes the
material to become warm. The idea is to generate
an amount of heat at the machining point greater
than the amount that can be dissipated by heat
conduction into the surrounding material (heat
accumulation).
The heat conductivity of the material, therefore,
has a relevant effect on the machining process. The
lower the heat conductivity is, the more intensely
the workpiece can be locally heated – even at low
power. As an example, copper is more difficult to
633
Figure 4. Interaction between laser beam and material.
Figure 5. Laser cutting process.
be laser machined than steel because it combines a
low degree of absorption with high heat conduc-
tivity. It absorbs only a small amount of energy
and quickly dissipates it.
When the focused laser beam hits the workpiece,
the affected area becomes so hot that the material
melts or vaporizes. Once the laser beam has pierced
the workpiece, the cutting process can initiate.
A gas jet, coaxial to laser beam, blows the molten
material downward, producing a narrow gap (cut-
ting kerf) in the workpiece, that is scarcely wider
than the focused laser beam diameter (Figure 5).
Oxygen-cutting with CO2 laser is the most com-
mon method for cutting mild steels and low-alloy
steels, hollow profiles and beams for constructions.
Today, plates with a thickness of up to 20 mm
(3/4 in) can be cut easily with laser powers of up
to 3,5 kW (25 mm – 1 in with 4,5 kW). The focal
point is located close to the upper surface of the
workpiece.
Purity of oxygen is an important issue when
cutting mild steels and low alloy steels, as much as
the quality of the material, because the gas reacts
with the material during the laser cutting proc-
ess. Cutting speed is directly related to material
thickness: the thicker materials the lower the cut-
ting speed. Surface condition is as well relevant
in laser cutting: Oxygen-cutting of rusted mate-
rial, for example, may result in dross and notches.
Likewise, painted surfaces can also cause
problems.
2.2 Laser cutting of the test specimens
Laser cutting of the parts has been carried on in
ADIGE-SYS, using two different laser systems. The
choice of the laser system was driven by the dimen-
sion of the tubes and beams, and by the availability
of the machines, as the cutting features of the two
laser systems used are partially overlapping.
Most of the parts were machined by an
LT24  machine equipped with a CO2 laser source
Rofin DC045. HEB120 beams were machined by
LT14 fiber laser machine, equipped with solid state
laser source IPG YLS 3000. Machining of HEA
and HEB was only a straight cut, in order to get
parts 800 mm long (Figure 6).
Parts were drawn using ArTube CAD/CAM
software, that generates the machine code provid-
ing all technological parameters required for the
machining of the parts (Figure 7).
An example to the cutting operation is shown
in Figure 8.
Figure 6. Beam specimens of 800 mm length.
Figure  7. CAD/CAM software for tubes (ARTUBE
software by BLM GROUP).
634
Figure 8. Laser cutting of a CHS specimen.
3 FABRICATION STUDY
IPE200, IPE400, IPE500, HEB120 and HEA240
beam profiles have been ordered from five differ-
ent steel producers (in total 25 beam specimens of
6 m length). From each 6-m specimen, beam pieces
of L = 800 mm were extracted and the pieces have
been precisely measured. Example of nominal and
measured dimensions are shown in Figure 9. Then,
several tests have been performed in the shop, to
decide the optimum “oversize” for the fabrication
of the profiles. To do this, each column (CHS)
profile has been laser-cut with I-shaped slots, five
times with different tolerances.
3.1 Cut tolerances
The beam specimens have been inserted all the way
through the other side of the columns. For each
specimen tested, photographic documentation has
been produced and the required minimum level of
tolerance has been noted (Figure 10).
For each cross-section, overlaps have been
reported graphically, with the corresponding
nominal cross section with different tolerances
(Figure 11–Figure 12).
The 5  slots (from S1 to S5) have cross section
dimensions with different tolerances (S1: nomi-
nal  +  2  mm, S5: nominal  +  6  mm). None of the
cross sections could pass through the nominal
dimensions of the cross section. There were some
outliers which needed the largest S5 tolerance
(10%). But the wide majority of cross sections fell
in the S1-S2-S3-S4 tolerance range (16%, 36%,
20% and 18% respectively).
With higher tube thickness, an extra issue raised
due to the geometry of the slots. It’s known that
cutting performances are widely affected by the
temperature of the material. Due to the shape of
the slots, the laser head has to operate very near to
Figure  9. Nominal and measured dimensions of the
beam specimens. Figure 12. Overlap checks – S3, S4, S5 tolerances

Figure 13. Fillet welding.

lower power level and pulsing the laser with a rela-

tively low duty cycle and frequency. Power reduc-
tion on the other hand entails speed reduction and
a longer cutting time.
Some irregularities in the tube section geometry
Figure 10. Pictures from the fabrication studies. also caused problems. In case of CHS 355 × 8 and
CHS406*17.5  specimens, the difference of tube
diameter between two orthogonal measurements
was in the order of 2 to 3  mm. Because of this
irregularity, in some cases the beam portion could
pass each single slot, but failed to pass through the
tube section. In the tube CHS 508 × 10 without any
irregularities, such an issue has not been observed.
It has been observed that CE marked open pro-
files may have tolerances larger than permitted
in EN 10034 :1995 (UNI EN 10034 :1995 1995).
In practice, slightly larger tolerances do not cre-
ate problem for the assembly, so this situation is
so far accepted among the steel producers and the
manufacturers.
Figure 11. Overlap checks – S1, S2 tolerances.

3.2 Welding
part of the profile already cut, where the material
On the basis of the test results, three types of weld-
is still very hot; in such operating condition poor
ing can be proposed (Figure 13–Figure 15):
cutting quality may result, thus it is necessary to
reduce the overall energy involved in the process. a. Fillet welds for 0.7x decreased or increased
Average laser power has to be reduced, either using thickness

635

Figure 14. Partial penetration welding.
Figure 15. Full penetration welding (to be downgraded
to partial penetration).
b. Partial penetration welds with the chamfer
reduced to 50% of the thickness
c. Full penetration welds but downgraded to a
partial welding during the calculation.
The structural performance of these joints is
currently under investigation by means of numeri-
cal and experimental studies, within LASTEICON
project.
4 DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
Experimental tolerance study showed that some of
the beam specimens required slots with very low
tolerances (S1, S2), while some others required
slots with large tolerances (S4, S5 or even more).
Therefore, it seems difficult to set an optimized
small tolerance that can be valid for all the com-
mercial profiles. The tolerance issue may be over-
come in three ways.
First option might be to set large tolerances
(S3+) to guarantee sufficient slot size for all pro-
files. This would increase the amount of welding in
the cases with small tolerances.
Second option is to apply precise cutting with
an integrated fabrication approach. This means
that, the beam profiles should be measured in
detail before the slot cutting operation, so that the
column slots can be cut almost according to the
measured nominal dimensions (with very small tol-
erances, such as S1). This would optimize the weld-
ing quantity. This solution requires an efficient
636
Figure 16. Precise measuring.
way of measuring each beam profile (Figure 16),
which can be done automatically with a specifically
developed software. The laser machines LT124 and
LT14–2 are both equipped with a Renishaw probe,
that allows some measurement of the machined
bar. The probe moves together with the cutting
head, and the software of the machine includes
features and cycles for high precision measures,
as probe calibration, on-the-fly detection of probe
activation with deletion of residual path. The
probe was included in the machine to improve the
accuracy of the machined part: normally rectilin-
earity of the tubes and beams is poor and clamp-
ing eccentricity errors may occur, then the actual
axis of rotation of the beam or tube normally dif-
fers from the theoretical center of rotation. Thus,
in order to get required accuracy in the position of
the holes and geometries with regard to the tube or
beam axis or to one side, it is necessary to detect
the actual position of the tube or beam. The probe
is then used to measure the external sides of the
material, and, due to its position and shape, has
limited capabilities to measure concave section of
the material, as, for example, the core of an HE
beam.
With some software development, required pro-
file dimensions can be measured, and values stored
in a file, with an id-code of the beam, to be further
used by the CAD/CAM designer for the generation
of the part-program for the CHS column. In this
perspective, traceability of cut parts will be neces-
sary. For that purpose, laser marking capabilities of
the laser system will result useful; part-id and or id-
code of the bar could be laser marked on each HE
beam part, to correctly couple it with the CHS ele-
ment machined with slots designed for that beam.
The third option is to order beam profiles with
strict tolerances from the supplier. In tubular pro-
file sector, clients can order for stricter tolerances,
but with higher prices. For the open section pro-
files, this is only possible for significant amount of
order for the same cross section profile. According
to our investigations, the steel profile suppliers can
guarantee a 15% improvement based on the code-
requested tolerance values, if the order for one
single type of profile is more than 100 tons. Con-
sidering the general building constructions, such a
request does not seem feasible.
 To decide the most feasible and economic
approach, the cost analysis of these three solutions
are currently under investigation.
5 CONCLUSIONS
EU-RFCS project LASTEICON proposes using
Laser cutting technology (LCT) in the fabrication
of I-beam-to-CHS-column joints. This can dras-
tically reduce fabrication costs, while meeting the
structural requirements, expanding also the free-
dom of architects and engineers when developing
new projects. Given the precision of laser cutting
machines (with an accuracy of 10 μm), the choice
of the accurate tolerance value becomes crucial for
the joint fabrication. The value has to be such as
to have balance between facilitating the assembly
in shop, accommodating a large number of com-
mercial steel profiles with their imperfections and
minimizing the hole size to optimize the welding
quantity and take full advantage of the LCT accu-
racy. This paper presented the preliminary findings
obtained in the Task 1.1 of Work-Package 1 of the
LASTEICON project, which consisted in a study
of tolerance optimization for an efficient fabrica-
tion of I-beam-to-CHS column joints.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This study has been realized thanks to the research
fund received from European commission with the
contract LASTEICON EU-RFCS 709807 (www.
lasteicon.eu). The project consortium is cover-
ing five EU countries namely, Belgium, France,
Germany, Italy, and Portugal, composed of five
research centres (RWTH Aachen, University of
Pisa, Hasselt University, Instituto Superior Tec-
nico of Lisbon and INSA Rennes), a world-wide
company specialized in the production of laser cut-
ting machines (ADIGE SYS), a steel construction
company with more than 50 years’ experience in
the sector (OCAM), and one of the largest tubular
solution provider of the world (VALLOUREC).
Team leader is a design office specialized in steel
637
and composite structural design (Fincon Consult-
ing Italia, www.finconitalia.com).
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Propagation of buckling mechanisms of pipe-in-pipe systems

under external pressure

M. Alrsai, H. Karampour, B.P. Gilbert & S. Chowdhury

Griffith School of Engineering, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Australia

F. Albermani
School of Engineering, Central Queensland University, Australia

ABSTRACT: This study investigates buckling propagation mechanisms of subsea pipe-in-pipe (PIP) sys-
tems under hydrostatic pressure. Unlike previous studies which covered propagation pressure of PIPs with
carrier pipes of diameter-to-thickness (Do/to) ratio smaller than 26, in this study PIPs with Do/to of 30 and 40
are examined. Experimental tests on 1.6 m long PIP with Do/to 40 and of inner pipe diameter-to-thickness
(Di/ti) ratio of 25 is carried out inside a hyperbaric chamber. The experimental results are used to validate
a 3D nonlinear (material and geometry) finite element (FE) model. Using the validated FE model a para-
metric study is conducted to capture the effect of the parameters affecting the buckling collapse pressure
mechanism of the PIP system. Based on the results from the FE study, the collapse propagation modes of
the PIPs are identified and empirical formulae for the propagation pressure of the PIP system are proposed.

1 INTRODUCTION ear material properties including the yield stress,

Pipe-in Pipe (PIP) systems are widely used in offshore
pipeline applications due to their high thermal insula-
tion capacity. Typically, a PIP system is composed of
a concentric inner pipe (also known as the product
pipe) and the outer pipe (sometimes called carrier
pipe). Normally, the annular space between two pipes
is filled with a non-structural insulation material such
as foam or water. In deep-water applications, where
the hydrostatic pressure is high (water depths up to
3,000  m), the outer pipe must be designed to resist
and protect the system from external pressure, while
the design of the inner pipe is mainly based on high
temperature and high pressure of transporting hydro-
carbons inside the pipe. The large external pressure in
vicinity of local dents in the outer pipe-wall can cause
a local collapse which may quickly propagate along
the length of the outer pipe or both outer and inner
pipes (Karampour et al. 2013; Karampour & Alber-
mani 2014; Tang et al. 2014; Xue et al. 2015; Karam-
pour & Albermani 2016; Alrsai & Karampour 2016).
Previous researches (Palmer & Martin 1975;
Pasqualino & Estefen 2001; Albermani et al. 2011;
Stephan et al. 2016) have identified that the onset
of collapse in a single pipe due to external pressure
depends on the geometry of the pipe (D/t ratio), its
elastic material properties and most significantly to
the initial geometric imperfections. These geomet-
ric imperfections are normally detected in shape
of ovality of the pipe cross-section and variations
in the wall-thickness. On the other hand, the prop-
agation pressure is highly contingent on nonlin-
639
strain-hardening, anisotropies in yielding and
residual stresses introduced in the manufacturing
process (Dyau & Kyriakides 1993).
Mesloh et al. (1973) initially explored the propaga-
tion buckling phenomenon in a single pipeline, and
then Plamer and Martin (1975) first proposed an
equation for the propagation pressure as a function
of diameter-to-thickness ratio D/t and material yield
stress. Most notable investigations on buckling of PIP
systems were implemented by Kyriakides and Vogler
(2002). They developed an empirical formula for
buckle propagation pressure of PIP system based on
an extensive experimental study. Gong and Li (2015)
proposed a different empirical equation based on
finite element (FE) simulations which estimates the
propagation pressure of the PIP system. It is worth
mentioning that both of those studies only included
Do/to ratios smaller than 26  in almost similar range,
however their proposed equations are different. The
practical range of Do/to ratios of pipelines exploited
in subsea engineering is between 15 and 40. This sug-
gests the necessity of an investigation to be performed
on buckling of PIPs with Do/to ratios larger than 26.
This study aims to investigate the collapse of
PIPs with large Do/to ratios under external pressure
and to elaborate the corresponding propagation
mechanisms using finite element (FE) simulations.
The nonlinear FE models are validated against
hyperbaric chamber tests conducted on aluminum
(Al-6060-T5) PIP system with Do/to of 40. Based
on the parametric study of PIPs with various ti/to,
Di/Do and σYi/σYo, empirical formulae are proposed.
Table 1. Geometric and material parameters and experimental and FE results.
Do Di to ti L E
ID Do/to (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) (mm)
PIP-1 40 80 40 2 1.6 1600
Figure  1. (a) The experimental set-up; the hyperbaric
chamber, high-pressure pump, scales, pressure gauge
and vents, (b) Deformed configuration of PIP system of
Table 1.
2 VALIDATION OF THE FINITE
ELEMENT MODEL
Three experimental tests were conducted on alu-
minum (Al-6060-T5) PIP system with parameters
summarized in Table 1 inside the hyperbaric cham-
ber shown in Figure 1(a). Coupon samples were cut
from the outer and inner tubes and were tested in a
tensile machine to produce the material properties.
The intact PIP system was sealed at both ends by
gluing on thick aluminum discs ensuring that the
inner was completely sealed from the outer pipe. In
order to initiate a propagating buckle in the system,
the pressure was increased using a high pressure
pump, until collapse of the system due to external
pressure occurred under quasi-static steady-state
conditions. Detailed discussion on the experi-
mental procedure is given in Alrsai & Karampour
(2016). The post-collapse deformed configuration
of the PIP sample is shown in Figure  1 (b) and
represents a dog-bone buckle shape that has been
propagated in both tubes over their entire lengths.
Finite element simulation of the PIP system of
Table 1 used in the hyperbaric chamber tests were
conducted using ANSYS (ANSYS 17.0 Release).
Thin 4-node shell elements (181) were used to model
the carrier pipe and the inner pipe. Frictionless con-
tact and target elements (174 and 170) were used in
640
E//E σYo σYi Pp2 /Pp Pp2/Pp
(MPa) (%) (MPa) (MPa) (Exp.) (FE)
69,000 1.01 169 156 1.11 1.07
three pairs to define the non-linear contact between
the carrier and inner pipes as well as the inner sur-
faces of the inner pipe wall. Due to symmetry, a one
half model of the pipe wall (180o) was discretized
using 24 elements in the circumferential direction
with 7 integration points through the thickness of
the carrier pipe and inner pipe. A von Mises elasto-
plastic (bi-linear) material definition with isotropic
hardening was adopted. The modulus of elasticity
(E) and tangent modulus (E/) used in the FE mod-
els are also shown in Table 1 and are based on the
stress-strain curves obtained from the tensile longi-
tudinal coupons taken from the pipe wall.
The experimental and FE results of propagation
pressure of the tested PIP system are compared in
Table 1. The experimental results of the propaga-
tion pressure of the PIP system (Pp2) and that of
the single outer pipe (Pp) which are given in Table 1
are the average of three test results. As depicted in
Table  1, the normalised pressure Pp2/Pp obtained
from the FE model is only 4% lower than that
measured from the hyperbaric chamber test.
3 PROPAGATION BUCKLING MODES
A comprehensive parametric study is conducted
using the validated FE model to capture the col-
lapse mechanism of the PIP systems with various
wall thickness ratio ti/to, diameter ratio Di/Do, and
the material yield ratio σYi/σYo. Prior to reviewing
results of the parametric dependency of propaga-
tion buckling of PIPs, it is worth mentioning the
buckling modes observed from the FE simula-
tions. The FE model validated in the previous sec-
tion considers the nonlinear material, nonlinear
geometry and nonlinear contact behaviour of the
PIP during the propagation buckling response.
Based on results of numerical models with various
parameters adapted for the outer and inner pipes,
two dominant modes of failure under external
pressure were observed in the PIPs.
The first mode is shown in Figure  2 for a PIP
with Do/to of 40. The pressure is plotted against
the normalized ovalization of the carrier and inner
pipes (ΔD/D). The materials properties of outer
and inner pipes are identical with yield stress of
169  MPa and modulus of elasticity of 69 GPa.
Other geometric parameters of the PIP system are
given in Figure 2. By increasing the hydrostatic pres-
sure, the carrier pipe in Figure 2 gradually deforms
from the undeformed shape (I) into a deformed
shape (II). At this stage the outer and inner pipes
come into contact. Following the touchdown (II),
the pressure is slightly increased and the collapse is
propagated in the outer and inner pipes simultane-
ously as shown in stage (III). The outer and inner
pipes are then collapsed and buckle propagation is
distributed along the length of the sample as shown
in deformation stages (IV) and (V).
The cross section of two pipes deforms in a
dog-bone buckle mode which is similar to the fail-
ure mode shown in Figure  1 obtained from the
hyperbaric chamber tests. The aforementioned col-
lapse propagation is referred to as Mode I in this
manuscript.
Figure  3  shows the pressure response and the
deformed shape referred to as Mode II. The mate-
rials properties of two pipes are kept identical and
other geometric parameters are shown in Figure 3.
In collapse Mode II, as the hydrostatic pressure
increases the carrier pipe is gradually ovalised until
it touches the inner pipe as shown in deformed
shape (II). The collapse is then propagated in the
outer pipe until arrested by the end-caps as shown
in the deformed shape (III). In the vicinity of the
end-caps, a higher pressure is required to perpetu-

Figure  3. Finite element results showing pressure

against normalized ovality and corresponding deformed
shapes of PIP system exhibiting failure Mode II.

ate the collapse in the outer pipe. However the

increase in pressure causes a collapse in the inner
pipe at the pressure level (IV) and initiates a buckle
which is propagated through the length (V).
The distinction between these two failure modes
is of interest for safe-design of offshore pipelines,
because in mode II the collapse in the inner pipe
which carries the hydrocarbon is delayed.

4 PARAMETRIC STUDY OF
PROPAGATION PRESSURE

Previous experimental and numerical studies have

shown that the propagation pressure of PIP system
is related to parameters defined in Eq. (1):

Pp F ( Do , to , σ yo , Eo , Eo′ , Di ti , σ yi Ei Ei′). (1)

In the parametric study carried out herein, both

Figure  2. Finite element results showing pressure
against normalized ovality and corresponding deformed
shapes of PIP system exhibiting failure Mode I.
outer and inner pipes are assumed to be of the
same material i.e. aluminum (Al-6060-T5) with the
same modulus of elasticity (E) and tangent modu-
lus (E/), shown in Table 1. Gong and Li (Gong & Li
2015) reported that the strain hardening modulus
has little effect on the propagation pressure of PIP

641
systems. Therefore, the effect of difference strain
hardening modulus in the outer and inner pipe
is not considered herein. Using the dimensional
analysis Eq. 1 can be written in the following non-
dimensional format:
Pp 2 ⎛ σ yi Di ti ⎞
= f⎜ , , ⎟.
Pp ⎝ σ yo Do to ⎠
A comprehensive numerical study is conducted
to establish best estimates for effects of the three
ratios given in Eq. 2 on the propagation pressure
Pp2 of a PIP system.
Based on experimental study and finite ele-
ment analyses, Kyriakides and Vogler (Kyri-
akides & Vogler 2002) suggested an empirical
formula (Eq. 3) for buckle propagation pressure
of PIP system, Pp2. Gong and Li (Gong & Li
2015) carried out a finite element study of prop-
agation buckling of PIPs with carrier pipes hav-
ing Do/to values of 25, 20 and 15 and inner tubes
having Di/ti of 15 and 20. They came up with the
empirical expression given in Eq. 4. Although
both studies (Kyriakides & Vogler 2002; Gong &
Li 2015) covered similar Do/to range of the car-
rier pipes, the empirical expressions suggested in
Eqs 3 and 4 are different.
1.0, the previously proposed equations are incapa-
ble of predicting the correct propagation pressure.
This is due to the fact that Eqs. 3 and 4 are based
on buckling mode I only, whearas the failure mode
in Figure 5(b) is mode II.
To explore the effect of ti/to on the propagation
pressure, Figure 6 shows Pp2/Pp versus ti/to for two
(2) sets of Di/Do, which covers the geometric configu-
rations of PIP systems in the range of practical
offshore applications. The nonlinear relationship
is observed in the figure for both Di/Do ratios. The
collapse modes are indicated next to the corre-
sponding numerical data. The results show that in
PIP with Di/Do  = 0.4 when ti/to < 0.7, the collapse
propagation mode is Mode (I) while in PIP with
Di/Do  = 0.7 a distinction between modes I and II
is observed at ti/to  = 1.0.
To examine the effect of σyi/σyo ratio on the
propagation pressure, two values of ti/to with
two values of Do/to are assumed and displayed in
Figure 7. Comparison between current FE results
and those of Eqs. 3 and 4 demonstrates a good
agreement. The difference in collapse modes I
and II shown in Figure 7(a) and 7(b) respectively
seems to be mainly associated with the thickness
ratios.

0.4
⎛ σ yi ⎞
2
Pp 2 ⎛ Di ⎞ ⎛ ti ⎞
= 1 + 1.095 ⎜ ⎟ (3)
Pp ⎝ σ yo ⎠ ⎝⎜ D ⎠⎟ ⎝⎜ t ⎠⎟
o o

0.8
⎛ σ yi ⎞
0.3 2
Pp 2 ⎛ Di ⎞ ⎛ ti ⎞
= 1 0.970 ⎜ ⎟ ⎜⎝ D ⎟⎠ ⎜⎝ t ⎟⎠ (4)
Pp ⎝ σ yo ⎠ o o

In order to investigate the effect of Di/Do ratio on

the propagation pressure, the thickness ratios are
varied while the material proparties of two pipes
are assumed to be identical. Figure 4 shows Pp2/Pp
versus Di/Do for two differenat Do/to ratios of 40
and 30 in four sets of ti/to. The relationship between
Pp2/Pp and Di/Do is linear with positive slope when
ti/to ≤ 0.6, which corresponds to collapse propaga-
tion Mode I (see Fig. 2). By increasing the ti/to ratio
(ti/to > 0.6) the relationship becomes nonlinear with
a decreasing negative slope for both Do/to ratios.
This trend is associated with collapse propagation
mode II (see Fig. 3) and was not reported in previ-
ous studies.
A comparison between current results and
those predicted by Eqs. 3 and 4 are depicted in
Figure 5. For Do/to of 40 and ti/to of 0.6 the linear
trend obtained from the current results agrees well
with the previous predictions. This was expected
because all failure modes are mode I. However as Figure  4. Propagation pressure of PIP systems as a
depicted in Figure 5(b), for Do/to of 30 and ti/to of function of Di/Do.

642
 Figure  7. Propagation pressure of PIP systems as a
Figure  5. Comparison of present FE results and pre- function of σyi/σyo. The failure modes are labelled for cor-
vious expressions of Eq. 3 and Eq. 4 for various Di/Do responding data point.
ratios.

the failure modes of PIPs with large Do/to ratios are

not essentially similar to mode I predicted in pre-
vious studies. Since Eqs. 3 and 4 which are based
on mode I are incapable of predicting proper
estimates of propagation pressure of PIPs that fail
in mode II, it seems rational to propose separate
expressions for each failure mode.
Based on the results of the previous studies, the
power expressions presented in Eqs. 5 and 6 are
suggested for propagation pressure ratios of PIPs
with collapse mode I and II respectively:
1.2
⎛ σ yi ⎞ ⎛ Di ⎞
0.46
46 2.6
Pp 2 ⎛ ti ⎞
= 1 + C1 ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜⎝ t ⎟⎠ (5)
Pp ⎝ σ yo ⎠ ⎝ Do ⎠ o

1.2 −0.88
⎛ σ yi ⎞ ⎛ Di ⎞
2.6
Pp 2 ⎛ ti ⎞
= 1 + C2 ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜⎝ t ⎟⎠ (6)
Pp ⎝ σ yo ⎠ ⎝ Do ⎠ o

The power coefficients of σYi/σYo, Di/Do and

Figure 6. Comparison of present FE results and previ-
ous expressions of Eq. 3 and Eq. 4 for various for ti/to
ratios. The failure modes are labelled for corresponding
data point.
5 EMPRICIAL EXPRESSIONS
The parametric study carried out in previous sec-
tion ascertains the dependency of the propagation
pressure of PIP system on ti/to, Di/Do and σYi/σYo
parameters. However current FE results prove that
ti/to in Eqs. (5) and (6) are obtained from non-
linear square fits of sets of data taken from the
FE results. For sake of brevity the procedure of
determining the power coefficients in the expres-
sions are not given here. Based on non-linear least-
squares fit of a total 105 data points with different
material properties and geometric characteristics
and using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm the
coefficients in Eq. (5) and (6) are determined as
C1  = 1.15 and C2  = 0.541 respectively. The multi-
ple correlation factors (R2) of the fit are 0.9358 and
0.9178, respectively.

643

Figure  8. Propagation pressures of PIP systems plot-
ted against the proposed equations for (a) Mode I; and
(b) Mode II.
Figure  8  shows a comparison between the
numerical simulation results and aforementioned
expressions, the data form a nice linear band
for both expressions, and the maximum differ-
ence between numerical simulation and empirical
expressions is less than 6.0%.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The buckling propagation mechanism of subsea
pipe-in-pipe (PIP) systems under hydrostatic pres-
sure was discussed in this study. Unlike previous
studies which covered propagation pressure of
PIPs with carrier pipes of diameter-to-thickness
(Do/to) ratio smaller than 26, in this study PIPs with
Do/to of 30 and 40 were examined using nonlinear
finite element analysis. The FE model was vali-
dated against hyperbaric chamber tests conducted
on PIP system with Do/to of 40. Using the validated
FE model a parametric study was conducted and
two failure modes in PIPs were observed. The
study showed that the buckling propagation of
the PIP system is to a higher extent affected by
the wall thickness ratio ti/to and the diameter ratio
Di/Do and to a lower degree by the material yield ratio
σYi/σYo. Current results on propagation pressure
of PIPs with various Di/Do ratios showed a non-
linearly decreasing trend which is associated with
failure mode II (see Fig. 4) and was not reported
644
in the previous studies. Based on the comprehen-
sive numerical results two separate expressions
were suggested in Eqs 5 and 6 which correspond to
failure modes I and II respectively. The proposed
expressions can predict the propagation pressure
of PIPs with high accuracy.
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ling of Pipe-in-Pipe Systems, an Experimental Study.
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ics Symposium. International Society of Offshore and
Polar Engineers.
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pressure of long cylindrical shells under external pres-
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interaction in deep subsea pipelines.  Thin-Walled
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Buckling- and offshore pipelines. Gas, 49(7).
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Welding
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Behavior of overlapped CHS K/KK-joints with different

welding situations

X.Z. Zhao, S. Qiu, Y.Y. Chen, X.B. Xu, X.F. Wu, K.H. Hu & A.H. Wu
Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Y. Chen
Yangtze University, Jingzhou, China

ABSTRACT: In practice, the hidden toe of overlapped CHS K/KK-joints are normally left unwelded
due to the difficulty in the fabrication sequence. Three sets of experiments, including overlapped K-joints
under monotonic loading (8  specimens) and cyclic loading (8  specimens), and overlapped KK-joints
under monotonic loading (5 specimens) have been carried out to investigate how the unwelded hidden
seam may affect the joint behavior. Parameters including the presence/absence of the hidden weld, geo-
metric configuration, throat thickness of fillet welds and the loading hierarchy were investigated. Results
of these tests and corresponding numerical simulations show that the welding situation of hidden seam
has a noticeable effect on the stress distribution and failure mechanism, but the ultimate capacity of over-
lapped CHS K/KK-joints is not affected significantly except for a few of joints with special geometrical
parameters. Finally, recommendations on the design and construction of overlapped CHS K/KK-joints
under monotonic and cyclic loadings are presented based on the results.

1 INTRODUCTION on CHS overlapped K/KK-joints have been carried

Circular Hollow Section (CHS) K/KK-joints,
one of the most commonly used joints in tubular
structures, can be characterized as gap joints and
overlapped joints according to their geometric
configurations. Owing to the structure’s geomet-
ric requirements and the limitation of available
steel tube size, overlapped K/KK-joints are often
adopted in practice. In the fabrication of over-
lapped joints, automatic flame-cut tubes are usu-
ally tack welded together, and a final weld is carried
out in a following separate operation. This fabrica-
tion sequence makes it impossible to weld the hid-
den toe of overlapped K/KK-joints.
Different brace overlap situations lead to differ-
ent mechanical behavior and failure mechanisms
for gap and overlapped joints, due to the load trans-
mission path. Chord plastification is generally the
governing failure mode for gap K-joints under axial
loading, while brace local buckling or combined
brace local buckling and chord plastification are
the critical failure modes for overlapped K-joints
due to direct load transfer of a part of the brace
load through the overlap weld. With the complexity
in the stress distribution at the overlapped K-joint
zone, the effect of the unwelded hidden seam on
joint behavior is hard to theoretically analyze.
Overlapped joint experiments are thus necessary.
Although a considerable number of experiments
out to investigate the joint behavior, limited infor-
mation on the effect of the hidden weld presence/
absence on overlapped joints under monotonic and
cyclic loadings is available. Therefore, whether the
hidden toe of overlapped joints should be welded
or not has been a puzzle for engineers.
In this paper, three sets of experiments con-
ducted at Tongji University in the past ten years,
including overlapped K-joints under monotonic
loading (8 specimens) and cyclic loading (8 speci-
mens) and multi-planar overlapped KK-joints
under monotonic loading (5 specimens) are intro-
duced. Among the three sets of experiments,
the effects of different welding situations on the
behavior of overlapped CHS K/KK-joints with
varying geometric configurations and loading pat-
terns were investigated. According to the results of
experiments and corresponding nonlinear finite
element analysis, design and construction rec-
ommendations for hidden seam welding of over-
lapped CHS K/KK-joints are suggested.
2 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
2.1 Experiments outline
Although three sets of experiments were conducted,
adopting different forms of setup and specimens
according to the specific loading hierarchy and

647
geometric configuration, the analytical model of
these experimental specimens could be unified as
follows: one end of the chord was fixed and the
other was only free to translate in the direction of
the chord axis; two or four braces were loaded axi-
ally using a testing jig with no moment transferred
to the braces. The effect of end constraint on joint
behavior could be ignored by ensuring sufficient
length of the members. Loads in every pair of
braces were designed to have the same magnitudes
but opposite directions, so as to keep the equilib-
rium of the vertical component forces in the joint,
as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2. Specific setup
Figure 1. Configuration and geometrical parameter defi-
nition of overlapped K-joint.
* SP means saddle point; ** IP means intersection point
of two braces and chord.
Figure  2. Configuration and geometrical parameter
definition of overlapped KK-joint.
648
Figure 3. Arrangement of rosette strain gauges.
and specimen configuration are given in detail in
Xu (2010) and Zhao et al. (2006, 2016).
Rosette strain gauges were applied at the inter-
action areas of chord and braces to obtain the
actual strain distribution along the braces and the
overlap weld, and additional strain gauges were
attached on the brace surfaces apart from the
joint zone to record the forces in braces. A typi-
cal rosette strain gauge arrangement is shown in
Figure  3, while there might be slight differences
within the three sets of experiments. Wire displace-
ment gauges were also adopted to measure brace
axial deformation as well as the local deformation
of the chord wall.
2.2 Experimental parameters
A number of parameters were varied in the experi-
ments to investigate the effect on joint behavior.
In the experiment on CHS K-joints under mono-
tonic loading, five K-joints with the hidden seam
unwelded were tested, with varying parameters in
geometric configuration, throat thickness of fillet
welds as well as the loading reversal. An additional
three K-joints with the hidden seam welded were
also tested for comparison purposes. The parame-
ters of K-joints under monotonic loading are given
in Table 1, and the material properties obtained from
tensile tests, together with the corresponding tube
size adopted, are given in Table  2. All specimens
have the same chord size: φ203 × 12 (γ = 8.46), and
geometrical parameter definitions are illustrated in
Figure 1 and Figure 2. As shown in Table 1, speci-
mens JM1∼JM2, JM4∼JM5 and JM6∼JM12 have
Table  1. Parameters of K-joints under monotonic Table 3. Parameters of K-joints under cyclic loading.
loading.
Ov Hidden
Weld No. (%) γ β Τ seam
throat
θ Ov Hidden thickness Brace JC2 40 12.7 0.83 0.75 Unwelded
No. (°) (%) β τ seam (mm) load* JC3 40 8.46 0.83 0.50 Welded
JC4 40 8.46 0.83 0.50 Unwelded
JM1 60 36 0.78 0.83 Welded 1.5t TBC JC5 40 8.46 0.83 0.83 Welded
JM2 60 36 0.78 0.83 Unwelded 1.5t TBC JC6 24 12.7 0.66 0.75 Welded
JM4 60 40 0.83 0.67 Welded 1.5t TBC JC7 24 12.7 0.66 0.75 Unwelded
JM5 60 40 0.83 0.67 Unwelded 1.5t TBC JC8 24 8.46 0.66 0.50 Welded
JM6 60 40 0.83 0.50 Welded 1.5t TBC JC9 24 8.46 0.66 0.50 Unwelded
JM7 60 40 0.83 0.50 Unwelded 1.5t TBC
JM10 60 40 0.83 0.50 Unwelded 1.2t TBC
JM12 60 40 0.83 0.50 Unwelded 1.5t TBT Table  4. Material properties of K-joints under cyclic
loading.
* TBC means through brace under compression and
TBT means through brace under tension. Yield Tensile Elonga-
strength strength tion
Member (N/mm2) (N/mm2) (%)
Table  2. Measured material properties of K-joints
under monotonic loading. Chord (φ203 × 12) 318.2 499.4 26.5
Chord (φ203 × 8) 446.0 551.7 26.3
Yield Tensile Elonga-
Brace (φ168 × 10) 340.8 513.4 26.5
strength strength tion
Member (N/mm2) (N/mm2) (%) Brace (φ168 × 6) 413.9 565.0 22.3
Brace (φ133 × 6) 355.1 462.0 26.8
Chord(φ203 × 12) 277.3 476.9 34.5
Brace (φ159 × 10) 327.3 465.0 25.7
Brace (φ168 × 8) 310.5 458.4 29.5
Brace (φ168 × 6) 278.0 473.5 27.2

the same size of chord and braces, respectively. The

three specimens with hidden seam welded are JM1,
JM4 and JM6. Specimen JM10 has a smaller throat
thickness of fillet weld, while JM12 has the opposite
brace loading with the through brace under tension.
Figure 4. Details and partition of overlapped KK-joint
For K-joints under cyclic loading, two chord sizes
hidden seam.
of φ203 × 12 (γ  = 8.46) & φ203 × 8 (γ = 12.7) were
adopted in the experiments.
The varied parameters include γ, β, τ, Ov and Table  5. Geometrical parameters of KK-joints under
absence/presence of the hidden weld, as shown in monotonic loading.
Table 3. The brace inclination angle remains at 60°,
Chord Brace θ ϕ
while the throat thickness of fillet welds is generally (mm) (mm) γ β τ (°) (°) ζt ζd
2t, twice the brace wall thickness, for all specimens.
The geometry of specimens JC3 & JC4, JC6 & JC7 φ325 φ194  16.3 0.60 0.80 65 60 −0.12 −0.19
and JC8 & JC9 are identical respectively, except for  × 10 × 8
the welding situation of the hidden seam. Cyclic
ascending loads were applied to the braces by dis-
placement loading, and the basic peak deformation experiments with five KK-joints under monotonic
was Δt = 0.4 mm, determined by the first yield dis- loading, geometric parameters were not changed,
placement from experiment. The material properties while the welding situations were varied to inves-
from tensile tests, accompanied by the correspond- tigate the effect of the hidden seam situation on
ing member sizes adopted, are given in Table 4. the joint behavior. In the experiments, every brace
The hidden seam situation is much more com- compressive/tensile load applied, from brace1 to
plex during the construction of overlapped KK- brace4, is illustrated in Figure 2. The geometrical
joints. As shown in Figure  4, four hidden seam parameters of the joints are illustrated in Table 5,
areas exist on the surface of the chord. In the with varied welding details as shown in Table  6,

649
 Table  6. Welding details of KK-
joints under monotonic loading.

No. Hidden seam situation

Ov-W All welded

Ov-N All unwelded
Ov-PW1 Area 4 unwelded
Ov-PW2 Area 1 unwelded
Ov-PW3 Area 1 & 4 unwelded

Table  7. Material properties of KK-joints under Figure 5a. Failure mode of JM1.

monotonic loading

Yield Tensile Elonga-

strength strength tion
Member (N/mm2) (N/mm2) (%)

Chord (φ325 × 10) 315.0 507.0 26.3

Brace (φ194 × 8) 322.0 512.0 28.1

and material properties from tensile test given in

Table 7.
Figure 5b. Failure mode of JM4.

3 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

3.1 Observations and failure modes

For K-joints under monotonic loading, joints
with the same geometrical parameters share the
same failure mode, and the presence/absence of
hidden weld has little effect on the failure mode.
Specimens JM1&JM2 with higher τ cracked at the
intersection point (IP) of the chord and two braces
just after the peak load. The cracks then propa-
gated along the tensile overlap brace weld until Figure 6a. Failure mode of JC3.
the overlap brace was ripped apart. The typical
failure mode is shown in Figure 5a. As for speci-
mens JM4∼JM12 with relatively lower τ, brace
local buckling, including compressive brace buck-
ling and tensile brace necking, occurred before the
cracking at the IP. As brace buckling increased,
cracks also occurred around the saddle point (SP)
of the compressive brace, as shown in Figure  5b.
For specimen JM12 with the through brace under
tension, cracks initiated at the IP and extended to
the overlap brace under compression.
In the experiment on K-joints under cyclic load-
ing, brace buckling around the SP as well as cracks
initiating at the IP and propagating along the over-
Figure 6b. Failure mode of JC2.
lap brace weld could be observed in all specimens,
as shown in Figure 6a. However, for joints with the
hidden seam unwelded, the cracks tended to extend For KK-joints under monotonic loading, the
not only in the overlap brace but also in the through failure modes of the five specimens were com-
brace after the first crack at the IP, as shown in bined chord plastification, brace local buckling
Figure 6b, which might cause a degradation of joint and cracking along the weld, as shown in Figure 7a
stiffness and capacity under cyclic loading. and Figure 7b, while the occurring sequence of the

650
 Figure  8a∼Figure  8b show load-displacement
curves of the compressive and tensile braces in
K-joints under monotonic loading. From the

Figure 7a. Failure mode of Ov-W.

Figure 8a. Compressive brace load-displacement curves

of JM1 & JM2.

Figure 7b. Failure mode of Ov-PW1.

three modes varied with construction quality and

different welding situation. Specifically, for speci-
mens Ov-W and Ov-PW2, the final appearances
showed chord plastification and compressive
brace buckling; for specimens Ov-N and Ov-PW3,
excessive chord and brace deformation caused
cracking at the IP as well as crack propagation
along the weld. However, for specimen Ov-PW1, Figure  8b. Tensile brace load-displacement curves of
due to the poor welding quality, a premature crack JM6, JM7, JM10 & JM12.
at the IP before plasticity development caused a
reduction in both capacity and stiffness, as shown
in Figure 7b.

3.2 Brace load-displacement curves

Due to the limited space of this paper, only typical
brace load-displacement curves from the three sets
of experiments are shown in Figure 8a∼Figure 8f
for the subsequent discussion. In each figure, N
is the brace force obtained from the load cell in
the loading jack, and Δ is the average relative dis-
placement in the direction of brace axis, calculated
from the measured values of the wire displacement
gauges. Specimens in every figure share the same
geometrical parameters in order to show the com-
parison on the behavior of the joint with different
welding situations and loading hierarchy. Figure 8c. Through brace hysteretic curves of JC6 & JC7.

651
 Ov-PW1 failed by early cracks due to the poor
welding construction, resulting in a much lower
capacity compared with the others. Other speci-
mens with different welding situation show rather
similar joint behavior, while the Ov-W with all
hidden seams welded keeps a high capacity and
ductility after the displacement limit (= 9.75 mm),
defined in the following criterion.

3.3 Strain distribution

Taking the K-joint under monotonic loading as
an example, only a typical strain distribution is
presented in this paper. The strain circumferential
distribution near the welds, between the through
Figure 8d. Lap brace hysteretic curves of JC3 & JC4. and the overlap braces and the chord, is shown in
Figure 9a and Figure 9b, respectively, with JM6 hid-
den seam welded and JM7 hidden seam unwelded.
The abscissa is the strain gauge number along the
brace circumference, in which 15, 17, 5 & 7 represent
the SP and 4, 8, 14 & 18 represent the IP of the joint,
and the ordinate gives the equivalent strain in micro-
strain με (×106 = strain) from the experiments.

Figure  8e. Tensile brace load-displacement curves of

KK-joints.

figures, a reduction of compressive brace capac-

ity and stiffness is caused by the unwelded hid-
den seam for the joint with high τ (JM1 & JM2),
but the joints with lower τ (JM6∼JM12) are not
affected significantly. A smaller throat thickness Figure  9a. Strain circumferential distribution of
for the fillet resulted in a loss of premature stiff- through braces of JM6 & JM7.
ness and capacity, which should be noticed in
practical construction. However the situation of
the through brace under tension results in a higher
capacity but lower ductility.
Figure 8c∼Figure 8d show the hysteretic curves
of K-joints under cyclic loading. It can be seen
that the presence/absence of a hidden weld has a
noticeable effect on joints with higher τ (JC6 &
JC7)—lower capacity and distinct stiffness reduc-
tion, the same as the joints under monotonic load-
ing. Meanwhile, for the joint with lower τ (JC3 &
JC4), although the effect of the hidden weld is not
distinct in the early loops of the hysteretic curves,
the reduction of capacities and stiffness is seen as
loops increase.
Figure  8e shows the load-displacement curves Figure  9b. Strain circumferential distribution of lap
of KK-joints under monotonic loading. Specimen braces of JM6 & JM7.

652
3.4 Joint ultimate capacity between the hidden seam welded joints and the
unwelded counterpart, and R is the ratio of ulti-
Three capacity criteria were considered and
mate capacity from experiment to code prediction.
checked for each brace of the joint: (1) the brace
load-deformation curve reaches the peak load;
(2) brace reaches the deformation limit (3% of the 4 DISCUSSION
chord diameter is used here); (3) visually observ-
able crack initiates. The brace ultimate capacity Corresponding finite element analyses were
is defined as the lowest load of the three criteria conducted to simulate the above experiments.
above. For the K-joint, the joint ultimate capacity, Comparison between experimental results and
defined as the smaller of the two brace ultimate numerical simulation showed good agreement
capacities, was compared with the formulae predic- in joint mechanical behavior. The effects of geo-
tions from GB50017 (2003) and Eurocode (1993-1- metric configuration, presence/absence of hidden
8). Also, the effects of presence/absence of hidden weld, loading hierarchy and throat thickness of
weld, loading hierarchy and throat thickness of fil- welds on joint behavior were studied in this part.
let weld on the ultimate capacity of joint with the
same geometric configuration are also presented, as
shown in Table 8. For the KK-joint, the comparison 4.1 Effect of welding situation on strain
between joint ultimate capacity and the brace plas- distribution and failure mechanism
tic capacity is given in Table 9, as well as the effect For overlapped K/KK-joints, due to a part of the
of welding situation on joint capacity. In Table  8 brace load being transferred through the overlap
and Table  9, E is the ultimate capacity difference weld directly, a reduced chord load and a non-
uniform brace stiffness result in brace local buckling
Table 8. Comparison of K-joints capacities. being the governing failure mode. Stress concen-
tration is mainly focused around the SP as well
Nu * (kN) E (%) R as the IP according to experimental measurement
and numeric simulation, as shown in Figure  10.
Com. Ten. Com. Ten. As Figure 9a and Figure 9b imply, the presence of
No. brace brace brace brace GB EC3
the hidden weld can reduce the equivalent strain
JM1 1507 1373 0 0 1.47 1.49 around the SP and the IP, and relieve the stress
JM2 1407 1409 −6.6 2.6 1.51 1.52 concentration in braces. For both K and KK-joints
JM4 1330 1209 0 0 1.18 1.23 with the hidden seam welded, crack initiation and
JM5 1193 1060 −10.3 −12.3 1.05 1.11 propagation are well controlled, resulting in good
JM6 1181 1043 0 0 1.03 1.09 ductility and stiffness.
JM7 1189 1071 0.1 2.7 1.05 1.10 The hysteretic curves also demonstrate the dis-
JM10 1069 976 −9.5 −6.4 0.94 0.98 tinct capacity and stiffness degradation for joints
JM12 1290 1121 9.2 7.5 1.00 1.03 with the hidden seam unwelded, due to the serious
JC2 928 895 — — 1.12 1.20 stress concentration and varied crack propagation
JC3 1118 1170 0 0 0.89 0.95 paths, as shown in Figure 6b. Therefore, it can be
JC4 1092 1020 −2.3 −12.8 0.82 0.87 concluded that welding situation for the hidden
JC5 1779 1810 — — 1.45 1.55 seam has some effects on stress distribution and
JC6 782 810 0 0 1.32 1.30 failure mechanism.
JC7 736 729 −5.9 −10.0 1.19 1.18
JC8 806 857 0 0 0.92 0.86 4.2 Effect of geometric configuration
JC9 827 826 2.6 −3.6 0.94 0.88
According to the experiments and failure mecha-
* Com. brace means the brace under compression and nism, joints with a relatively thin brace wall (lower τ)
Ten. brace means the brace under tension.

Table 9. Comparison of KK-joints capacities.

No. Nu(kN) Nb(kN) Nu/Nb E (%)

Ov-W 1818 1545 1.18 0

Ov-N 1770 1527 1.16 −2.6
Ov-PW1 1450 1527 0.95 −20.2
Ov-PW2 1783 1527 1.17 −1.9
Ov-PW3 1815 1545 1.17 −0.2
Figure 10. Stress concentration in the braces.

653
mainly fail by brace local buckling, while crack-
ing or chord plastification are more likely to occur
before other failure modes for joints with high
τ. Chen (2006) studied the effect of geometrical
parameters on overlapped K-joint behavior, and
concluded that: parameters γ, β, Ov and τ are the
main factors determining the overlapped K-joint
capacity, in which γ & β mainly affect the chord
behavior, and brace behavior is related to τ. In
addition, the length of the hidden seam is deter-
mined by Ov. Thus the effect of the welding situ-
ation on overlapped K-joints can be studied as a
function of varied geometrical parameters in the
subsequent discussion.
4.3 Effect of welding situation on K-joint capacity
Experimental K-joint capacities for both compres-
sive and tensile braces are shown in Table  8, and
the capacity comparison between the absence/
presence of the hidden weld with varied τ is illus-
trated in Figure 11. In this figure, M/C represents
the monotonic/cyclic loading, A/P represents the
absence/presence of hidden weld, and C/T repre-
sent the brace compressive/tensile capacities. It can
be seen that the ultimate capacities under mono-
tonic and cyclic loadings are not generally affected
by the unwelded hidden seam. Also, the capacities
of most joints with the absence of hidden weld are
higher than the code predictions.
For K-joints under monotonic loading, the
reduction in compressive capacity due to an
unwelded hidden seam is related to τ, due to local
buckling being the governing failure mode, while
no distinct correlation between a reduction in ten-
sile capacity and τ exists. For K-joint under cyclic
loading, the absence of the hidden weld has a more
significant effect on tensile capacity than on com-
pressive capacity due to crack propagation acting
as the governing failure mode. A prominent reduc-
tion also showed in the joint with high Ov. Con-
sidering the undesirable hysteretic behavior and
reduced joint capacity (e.g. JC4), the hidden seam
of overlapped joints is recommended to be welded
for tubular structures in the high earthquake inten-
sity regions.
4.4 Effect of welding situation on KK-joint
capacity
Experiments on KK-joints under monotonic load-
ing show that the ultimate capacity is not signifi-
cantly affected by the different hidden seams being
unwelded, except for the specimen Ov-PW1, in
which a large reduction was seen due to prema-
ture weld fracture caused by poor welding qual-
ity. Besides, geometrical parameters γ, τ and ζt in
numerical simulations were varied to study the
effect of welding situation on KK-joint capacity
by finite element analysis, with other geometric
parameters based on the experimental specimens.
The capacity comparison of KK-joints with differ-
ent welding situations is given in Table 10.
It can be seen from the table that the capacity
is not significantly affected by the varied param-
eters except ζt. According to the experiments and
numerical simulation, for overlapped KK-joints
with ζt ≥ −0.12, the reduction in ultimate capacity
is within about 7%. As a consequence, the hidden
seam may be allowed to be unwelded for the sake of
construction convenience. However, for joints with
the ζt < −0.12, the reduction of ultimate capacity
with hidden seam unwelded is rather distinct due
to the increasing length of the hidden seam. Thus,
the hidden seam is recommended to be welded to
ensure the joint capacity.
Table  10. KK-joint capacity comparison between
different welding situations with varied geometrical
parameters.
Nu (kN)
Varied
geometrical All All
parameters Values welded unwelded E (%)

γ 10 3017 2886 −4.4

20 1176 1090 −7.3
30 625 598 −4.4
τ 0.6 913 858 −6.1
0.8 1176 1090 −7.3
1.0 1370 1279 −6.6
ζt −0.1 1176 1090 −7.3
−0.2 1102 951 −13.7
Figure 11. K-joint capacity comparison between differ- −0.3 1055 896 −15.1
ent welding situations with varied τ.

654
4.5 Effect of welding construction
Despite of the resistance of the weld being
designed to be higher than member resistance, as
required by many design codes, crack propagation
is still the main failure mode for tubular joints due
to the non-uniform stress distribution. Weld crack-
ing is the main reason for joint premature failure
and reduction of capacity and stiffness. Specimens
JM10 and Ov-PW1, as well as the experiments for
K-joints under cyclic loading, demonstrate the
importance of adequate throat thickness of the
fillet and welding quality. According to the experi-
ments, at least 1.5 times the thickness of the mem-
ber thinner wall and good construction quality for
the weld are needed to guarantee the joint capacity
and hysteretic behavior.
4.6 Effect of loading hierarchy
For specimen JM12 complying with the CIDECT
design guide, with the through brace under ten-
sion, although a higher capacity was shown in the
experiment, the sudden cracking and low ductility
made it undesirable in practice. Additional numeri-
cal simulation implied that, even though the hid-
den weld of a K-joint is present, K-joints with the
through brace under tension show lower ductility
and even lower capacity compared to the joints
with the through brace under compression, espe-
cially for joint with high Ov. Therefore, the deter-
mination of brace loading hierarchy in practical
design requires further investigation.
For joint under cyclic loading, the degradation
of stiffness and capacity from the comparison
between hysteretic loop and reduction on capacity
(e.g. JC4) as well as the final failure observation
(e.g. JC7) confirm the necessity of welded hidden
seam in high earthquake intensity region. Thus,
the presence of hidden weld is recommended for
tubular structure with high seismic requirements.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The behavior of overlapped CHS K/KK-joints
with different welding situations was studied and
presented in this paper. Effects of the presence/
absence of the hidden weld, the geometric configu-
ration, the throat thickness of fillet welds as well
as brace loading hierarchy on joint behavior were
655
investigated through three sets of experiments
and numerical simulations. Results show that the
presence/absence of the hidden seam has a notice-
able effect on the stress distribution and failure
mechanism, but the static ultimate capacity of
overlapped CHS K/KK-joints is not affected sig-
nificantly except for a few joints with special geo-
metrical parameters and loading. According to
results from both the experiments and numeri-
cal simulations, the presence of the hidden weld
is recommended for structures with high seis-
mic requirements and uniplanar KK-joints with
ζt < −0.12. Furthermore, the throat thickness of
fillet welds and welding quality in tubular joints
should be strictly guaranteed, in order to prevent
premature cracking in K/KK-joints.
REFERENCES
BS EN 1993-1-8, 2005. Eurocode3: Design of steel struc-
tures, Part 1-8: Design of joints. British Standard
Institution.
Chen, Y. 2006, Research on static behavior of unstiffened
overlapped circular hollow section K-joints. Ph.D.
dissertation, Tongji Univ., Shanghai, China.
GB50017: 2003. Code for design of steel structures.
National Standards of P.R. China.
Wardenier, J., Kurobane, Y., Packer. J.A., van der Vegte,
G.J. & Zhao, X.L. 2008. Design guide for circular hol-
low section (CHS) joints under predominantly static
loading, CIDECT Design Guide No. 1, 2nd Edition,
CIDECT, Geneva, Switzerland.
Wardenier, J., Packer, J.A., Puthli, R. & Bijlaard, F. 2016.
Re-evaluation of the shear criterion for RHS overlap
joints. Steel Construction – Design and Research 9(4):
339–348.
Wardenier, J., Packer. J.A., Zhao, X.L., van der Vegte,
G.J. 2010. Hollow Sections in Structural Applications.
CIDECT, Geneva, Switzerland.
Xu, X.B. 2010, Research on Hysteretic Behaviour
of unstiffened overlapped circular hollow section
K-joints. Master dissertation, Tongji Univ., Shanghai,
China.
Zhao, X.Z., Chen, Y.Y., Chen, Y., Wang G.N., Xu,
L.X., Zhang, R.Q. & Tang, B.C. 2006. Experimental
study on overlapped CHS K-joints with hidden seam
unwelded. 11th International Symposium on Tubular
Structures: 125–133.
Zhao, X.Z., Wu, X.F., Chen, Y.Y., Hu, K.H., Zhou, D.L.
& Wang, F.Q. 2016. Experimental study on static
behavior of multiplanar overlapped CHS KK-joints
with different construction process. Journal of Build-
ing Structures 37(8): 123–130.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Investigation of weld effective length rules for CHS X-connections

K. Tousignant & J.A. Packer

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

ABSTRACT: A laboratory-based test program was conducted to assess the performance of fillet welds
in X-connections between Circular Hollow Sections (CHS). Six full-scale, fillet-welded CHS-to-CHS
X-connections were designed to be weld-critical with varied key parameters that affect weld strength:
branch-to-chord diameter ratio, chord wall slenderness, and branch inclination angle. By means of quasi-
static tension applied to the ends of each branch, fracture of 12 test welds (two per connection) was
obtained. Strain distributions adjacent to the weld and branch loads at rupture were measured. By using
the carefully measured mechanical and geometrical properties of the fillet welds and CHS members,
the structural reliability (or safety index) of the existing AWS specification provisions for weld effective
lengths in CHS-to-CHS X-connections was determined. For the range of parameters studied, the existing
AWS formulae were found to be very conservative, hence a comprehensive parametric modelling study is
planned to develop more liberal recommendations.

1 INTRODUCTION nections have been an issue faced by code writers,

When welding to hollow structural sections (HSS),
welds can be proportioned: (a) to achieve the capac-
ity of the connected member walls, or (b) as “fit for
purpose” (ISO 2013). By designing welds as “fit for
purpose” – to resist the actual forces present in the
branch member – smaller, more appropriate weld
sizes typically result.
In order to account for the non-uniform load-
ing of the weld perimeter due to differences in the
relative flexibilities of the chord loaded normal to
its surface, and the branch(es) carrying membrane
stresses parallel to its surface, weld effective prop-
erties – including weld effective lengths and weld
effective section moduli – are used. These properties
are determined by discounting segments of the weld
which do not contribute to its overall resistance.
Over the last 30 years, much research has been
conducted at the University of Toronto to deter-
mine weld effective lengths for rectangular hol-
low section (RHS) connections, including gapped
K-connections (Frater & Packer 1992a, 1992b),
T-, Y- and X- (or Cross-) connections (Packer &
Cassidy 1995), moment-loaded T-connections
(McFadden & Packer 2014), and overlapped
K-connections (Tousignant & Packer 2015). Rec-
ommendations based on this research have been
adopted as code in North America, by the Ameri-
can Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) in Sec-
tion K5: “Welds of Plates and Branches to RHS”
of their latest (2016) specification (AISC 2016).
Since the addition of Section K5 (formerly Sec-
tion K4, in the 2010 specification), weld effective
properties for circular hollow section (CHS) con-
including AISC and the American Welding Society
(AWS), since load transfer around a welded CHS
joint can be highly non-uniform (Marshall 1992).
While AISC 360-16 is noticeably silent regard-
ing weld effective lengths for CHS connections,
AWS D1.1-15 “Structural Welding Code – Steel”
implies, in Clause 9.6.1.3(4), that the weld effec-
tive length in axially loaded CHS connections is
equal to 1/1.5 of the total weld length under fac-
tored loads, regardless of the joint geometry. While
believed to be conservative, this rule is not sup-
ported by experimental evidence.
A laboratory-based test program was hence
conducted to assess the performance of welds in
CHS connections. For the first time ever, weld-
critical tests (where failure occurs by weld fracture)
were completed on fillet welds in full-scale CHS
X-connections, and the structural reliability (safety
index) of the existing AWS and AISC specification
provisions for the design of such welds was deter-
mined. This paper reports on the findings.
2 EXPERIMENTATION
Six CHS X-connections were designed and fab-
ricated from ASTM A500 (ASTM 2013) dual-
certified Grade B and C cold-formed CHS, and
fillet welded using a semi-automatic flux-cored
arc welding process with a CO2 shielding gas. As
it was speculated that the strength of welds in
CHS X-connections depends on branch-to-chord
diameter ratio (β  = Db/D), chord wall slenderness
(D/t), and branch inclination angle (θ), the chord

657
and branch members were selected to cover a wide
range of these values (Table 1), within limits for fil-
let welds to develop the full throat thickness (given
by AWS D1.1-15 – see Section 2.1). Four connec-
tions had branches at 90° to the chord, and two
connections had branches at 60° to the chord. The
connection layout is shown in Figure 1.
2.1 Connection geometric considerations
CHS members and connection geometry had to be
carefully designed, to maintain the local dihedral
angle (Ψ) (Fig.  2) of the joints between 60°–120°,
to develop the full fillet weld throat thickness (tw).
According to Note [4] in AWS D1.1-15 Figure 9.10,
when Ψ < 60°, the Z loss values in AWS D1.1-15
Table  9.5, for PJP welds, apply. To keep Ψ within
this range, the complex effect of β and θ on Ψ, which
changes continuously around the joint, was studied
using a vector-calculus approach (Luyties & Post
1988). It was determined that β must not exceed
0.50 for 90° CHS connections, and 0.28 for 60° CHS
X-connections. While having θ less than 60°, and
thus Ψ less than 60°, would adversely affect the weld

Table 1. Measured properties of twelve CHS X- (test) connections.

CHS branch member CHS chord member

D b × tb Ab* Fyb** D×t A* Fy** θ Pa***

Test mm × mm mm2 MPa mm × mm mm2 MPa ° β D/t τ kN

102-273-90a 102.0 × 7.34 2161 373 273.5 × 11.69 9614 460 90 0.37 23.4 0.63 672
102-273-90b 102.0 × 7.34 2161 373 273.5 × 11.69 9614 460 0.37 23.4 0.63 678
102-406-90a 102.0 × 7.34 2161 373 406.5 × 12.34 15,283 355 0.25 32.9 0.59 608
102-406-90b 102.0 × 7.34 2161 373 406.5 × 12.34 15,283 355 0.25 32.9 0.59 540
127-273-90a 127.4 × 11.55 4207 431 273.5 × 11.69 9614 460 0.47 23.4 0.99 653
127-273-90b 127.4 × 11.55 4207 431 273.5 × 11.69 9614 460 0.47 23.4 0.99 >653
127-406-90a 127.4 × 11.55 4207 431 406.5 × 12.34 15,283 355 0.31 32.9 0.94 557
127-406-90b 127.4 × 11.55 4207 431 406.5 × 12.34 15,283 355 0.31 32.9 0.94 >557
102-406-60a 102.0 × 7.34 2161 373 410.0 × 12.21 15,260 373 60 0.25 33.6 0.60 721
102-406-60b 102.0 × 7.34 2161 373 410.0 × 12.21 15,260 373 0.25 33.6 0.60 >721
127-406-60a 127.4 × 11.55 4207 431 410.0 × 12.21 15,260 373 0.31 33.6 0.95 761
127-406-60b 127.4 × 11.55 4207 431 410.0 × 12.21 15,260 373 0.31 33.6 0.95 >850

*Cross-sectional areas determined by cutting a prescribed length of CHS, weighing it, and then using a density of 7850
kg/m3 to calculate its cross-sectional area.
**Yield strength of all CHS determined from tensile coupon tests performed according to ASTM A370 (2017).
***Force in branch member at weld fracture; > preceding Pa indicates that the specimen sustained a higher load in a
previous loading cycle (e.g. testing of the weld on the opposite side) without rupture.

Figure 2. 3D Solidworks model of weld profile and

Figure 1. Connection layout. weld dimensions.

658
strength by contributing to the Z loss (loss of the
weld throat) at the root of the weld, having slightly
larger β-values, and thus Ψ slightly greater than 120°
does not. It was therefore deemed necessary to keep
θ between 60° and 90°, while a minor deviation from
the stated β limits was considered acceptable.
The branches were cut to a minimum branch
length (lb) of 6Db, to avoid shear lag effects at mid-
length, from both ends (Mehrota & Govil 1972),
and profiled to saddle perfectly onto the chords,
without edge bevelling. The chords were cut to an
overall chord length (l) to avoid end effects at the
connection (van der Vegte & Makino 2010). To
economize material, they were left unrestrained
(uncapped) at each end.
2.2 Geometrical and mechanical properties
of the as-laid welds
Correct input for the geometric and mechanical
properties of the welds, which comprise a complex
saddle shape in CHS connections, is critical to the
scientific analysis of the weld strength; hence, great
lengths were taken to very accurately obtain these
measurements.
After being laid, welds were angle-ground to
have a near-uniform throat size (tw) around each
joint, and flat weld faces. Flat weld faces allowed tw
to be obtained from a 3D model of the weld’s exact
geometry, as shown in Figure 2.
Using this approach, the orientation of the weld
legs (lv and lh) must be established correctly: in the
plane of Ψ, perpendicular to the weld root, between
tangents to the outside surfaces of the branch and
the chord. The computer-aided design program
Solidworks was employed to exact this requirement.
First, components of lv and lh parallel to the
branch were measured at uniform subtended angle
(ρ) increments along the weld length. Then, the
weld profile around the entire joint was modelled
(in Solidworks) using these measurements, and
measured values of Db and D. Finally, sections
were taken through the weld, in the plane of Ψ,
and lv, lh and tw were measured (Fig. 2).
External measurement of the components of lv
and lh is also a complicated procedure that requires
the location of the weld toes to be determined rela-
tive to the root (the branch-to-chord intersection).
To verify the values of lv and lh obtained by external
measurement, post-rupture macro-etch examina-
tions of the fillet welds were performed after several
tests. The macro-etch weld leg measurements gave
credence to the external measurements, used herein.
The total weld length (lw), and the weld length
tributary to each throat size measurement (which
is necessary to determine the average throat size
for the joint), were calculated by modifying the
vector-calculus approach to determine Ψ to give
a near-perfect solution for the distance between
points along the weld root, and then summing up
these distances. A similar approach has previously
been used to determine the angle of loading of the
weld, and hence the stress components on the weld
at any point along its length (Tousignant & Packer
2016).
The weld area (Aw) was determined by summing
up: tw × tributary weld length around the entire joint
(weighted average); the tributary weld length is
shown in Figure 2. For the weighted average, 12 or
15 divisions were used for branches with Db = 102.0
or 127.4 mm, respectively. The measured fillet-weld
geometric properties are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Weld dimensions and predicted fracture load for test joints according to existing AWS D1.1-15 provisions for
weld effective lengths in CHS X-connections.

Average measured weld dimensions

lv lh tw lw Aw P n*
Test mm mm mm mm mm kN

102-273-90a 6.86 6.17 4.08 322 1312 303

102-273-90b 7.23 6.65 4.37 322 1405 324
102-406-90a 5.16 5.78 3.56 320 1139 263
102-406-90b 4.54 5.08 3.14 320 1004 232
127-273-90a 5.94 5.93 3.63 406 1475 340
127-273-90b 7.05 6.06 4.00 406 1625 375
127-406-90a 4.83 5.03 3.16 403 1273 294
127-406-90b 5.60 5.19 3.47 403 1410 323
102-406-60a 5.83 5.59 3.58 345 1235 285
102-406-60b 6.29 5.83 3.79 345 1307 302
127-406-60a 5.68 8.01 3.95 434 1716 396
127-406-60b 5.39 6.00 3.38 434 1468 339

*Nominal predicted fracture load according to the existing AWS D1.1-15 specification provisions, calculated using
Equations 1, 2, and 3, using Aw and FEXX determined from tensile coupon tests (= 577 MPa).

659
 The mechanical properties of the as-laid welds
were determined by tensile coupon testing in
accordance with AWS D1.1 (AWS 2015). The aver-
age yield stress from three coupon tests (by 0.2%
strain offset) was 517 MPa and the average ulti-
mate stress (FEXX) was 577 MPa with 28.1% elon-
gation at rupture. The measured ultimate strength
was 17.8% greater than the specified nominal
strength (490 MPa) of the E71T-1C electrode
used. The welding process specifications used for
the joints were: voltage = 25 V, amperage = 260 A,
and travel speed = 230 mm/min.
3 TESTING METHOD AND
INSTRUMENTATION
Quasi-static axial load was applied to the end of
each branch on either side of the connection, and
hence to the weld, by a 2700-kN capacity universal
testing machine (UTM). The testing arrangement
is shown in Figure 3.
Four linear strain gauges (SGs) equally spaced
around the perimeter of the branch at mid length
(≥ 3Db from the welded test joint and the end),
and oriented along its longitudinal axis, were
used to measure the uniformity of load being
applied to the branch. Seven additional SGs,
with the same orientation, were used around
half the weld perimeter (i.e. on one side of the
branch only, due to symmetry) to measure non-
uniform loading of the weld perimeter (Fig.  4).
Figure 3. Testing arrangement.
660
Figure 4. Strain gauges near weld toe and weld fracture
in test 127-273-90a.
For this purpose, SGs were centred 20 mm away
from the weld toe to avoid stress concentrations
that occur there due to the notch effect (Packer &
Cassidy 1995). A single SG in the saddle position
on the opposite side was used to verify symmetry
of the strain distribution about the plane of the
connection.
In all, 12 welds were tested to rupture (two per
connection). All welds failed in a brittle manner, by
fracture along a plane through the weld. A typical
failure is shown in Figure 4 (for a 90° connection)
and Figure 5 (for a 60° connection).
After the first test weld (e.g. Side A) ruptured
in each connection, the branch was re-positioned
within the UTM and tack-welded back in place.
The entire connection was then removed from the
UTM, and fully re-welded (nominally in the flat
position) to ensure separation of the same branch
did not occur again. The connection was re-placed
in the UTM, and tested until rupture of the second
test weld (e.g. Side B) occurred. Chord deforma-
tion (δ) was continuously monitored throughout
both tests, using Metris software and an LED
scanner, with three LED targets: one on each
branch, 50 mm above the crown; and one at the
connection work point on the chord face parallel
to the plane of the connection (Fig. 3). The value
of δ, which is the outward displacement (normal to
the chord) of a single branch from the chord cen-
treline (Packer et al. 2012), was taken as half of the
vertical displacement between the LEDs on each
branch (Fig. 6). It therefore represents the average
deformation on both sides of the connection.
The actual weld fracture loads (Pa) were
obtained from load cells in-line with the UTM
actuator, and verified by comparison with forces
computed from average SG readings of strain at
mid-length of the branch and the measured branch
cross-sectional area and elastic modulus. These are
given in Table 1.
Figure 5. Weld fracture in test 102-406-60a.

Figure 6. Typical load versus connection displacement

relationships.

4 COMMENTS ON RESULTS

Figure  6 shows the relationship between δ,

expressed as a fraction of the chord diameter (δ/D),
and the applied load (P) for several representative
tests. Despite having only small fillet welds, it can be
seen that chord plastification in excess of the 3%D
deformation limit (Lu et al. 1994) occurred in some
tests (7 out of 12 in total) prior to weld rupture.
Representative graphs of the strain distribution
around the branch adjacent to the test weld, for
various levels of applied load, are given in Figure 7.
It is shown that, for 90° connections (Figs. 7a, b),
the tensile strain (and hence tensile load) decreases Figure 7. Typical strain distributions adjacent to test weld.
as a function of distance away from the saddle (90o
point). The tensile strain is therefore smallest at
the crown (0o and 180o points), with much of the The largest tensile strains for 60° connections
weld even remaining in compression for the entire were initially measured at the saddle (Fig. 7c). As the
tension load range. This phenomenon equates to load increased, the strain adjacent to the saddle, on
a non-uniform loading of the weld perimeter – the heel side of the connection, began to increase at a
which is expectedly more pronounced for connec- faster rate than the strain adjacent to the saddle on the
tions with higher β-values, where stiff membrane toe side of the connection. This is due to second-
action dominates load transfer at the saddle. ary bending effects from connection flexibility and

661
joint rotation, which may not exist in real structures A formula for φβ+ was derived by Franchuk et al.
where the chord ends are prevented from rotating. (2002):

φβ + β + )2 − 0.131β + + 1.338 (5)

5 EVALUATION OF AWS D1.1-15
The mean actual-to-predicted weld strength
5.1 Existing provisions for weld effective lengths ratio (ρR) was taken as the average over all tests of Pa
in CHS X-connections (Table 1) divided by Pn (Table 2), with Pn calculated
According to AWS D1.1-15, the available strength using Equations 1, 2 and 3 and the measured values
of fillet welds in CHS X-connections designed as of Aw and FEXX. The reliability analysis parameters,
“fit-for-purpose” (Pn) is based on the limit state and the results of the reliability analysis, are shown
of shear rupture along the plane of the weld effec- in Table 3.
tive throat in accordance with Equations 1 and 2 The implied safety index, β +, is equal to 8.1 for the
(Clause 9.5.3): existing AWS D1.1 specification provisions, which
is much larger than the minimum target safety index
Pn Qwle (1) of 4.0 in North America. This indicates that a high
level of conservatism is present in the AWS D1.1-
Qw 0 60tw FEXXX (2) 15 formulae. Figure 8 shows the correlation of the
existing AWS D1.1-15 predicted nominal strengths
where le = weld effective length (AWS 2015). with the experimental results, where upward facing
An LRFD resistance factor for fillet welds, φ, arrows on data point are synonymous with “>” in
equal to 0.80, is then applied to determine the Table 1. On average, the experimental rupture load
design strength. is 2.13 times larger than that predicted by AWS.
In Clause 9.5.4, simplified equations are given If, instead, no effective length rules are applied,
to compute weld lengths for CHS connections and the total weld length is used to determine the
under axial load, which can be traced back to strength of the welded joint, then the correlation
Appendix C of British Standard 449 (BSI 1959).
These factors can be shown to calculate the total
Table 3. Reliability analysis parameters.
weld length, rather than the effective weld length.
A branch stress/load factor of 1.50 is specified by AWS D1.1-15 AISC 360-16
AWS, in Clause 9.6.1.3(4), for design using the
LRFD method. Thus, the weld effective length le /lw 2/3 Unity Unity
implied is the inverse of this factor:
φ 0.80 0.80 0.75
2 ρR 2.13 1.42 1.42
le lw (3) VR 0.13 0.13 0.13
3 φβ+ 0.68 0.83 0.80
β+ 8.1 5.2 5.6
5.2 Safety level inherent in AWS D1.1-15
To assess whether adequate or excessive safety
margins are inherent, the structural reliabil-
ity (or safety index) (β +) can be calculated, and
compared to the minimum target value in North
America (4.0, as currently adopted by AISC 360-
16 per Section B3.1 of the Specification Com-
mentary), using a simplified reliability analysis in
which the resistance factor, φ, is given by Equa-
tion 4 (Ravindra & Galambos 1978, Fisher et al.
1978):

φ φβ + ρR e −α R β +VR (4)

where αR = coefficient of separation taken as 0.55

(Ravindra & Galambos 1978); ρR = bias coefficient
for resistance (mean ratio of actual-to-predicted
weld strength); VR = associated coefficient of vari-
ation (COV) of ρR; and φβ+ = adjustment factor for Figure 8. Correlation of existing AWS D1.1-15 provi-
β + that is needed when β + ≠ 3.0 (Fisher et al. 1978). sions with the test results, using weld effective lengths.

662

Figure 9. Correlation of AWS D1.1-15 provisions
(excluding weld effective lengths) and AISC 360-16
provisions with test results.
Figure 10. Comparison of lw/πDb using the AWS D1.1-
15 approximation (Equation 6) and the vector-calculus
method.
in Figure 9 results. The implied safety index is then
5.2. The mean experimental-to-predicted rupture
load is 1.42. As β + > 4.0, it can be concluded that,
for the range of parameters studied, weld effective
lengths are not required in conjunction with the
AWS D1.1 code design method evaluated.
A more rigorous reliability analysis could
include typical variations in actual-to-nominal
ultimate strength of weld metals. One could also
consider variations in the actual-to-predicted weld
length, where the predicted weld length could be
calculated from the approximation given in AWS
D1.1 Clause 9.5.4:
⎛ 1 + 1 / sinθ ⎞
lw Db ⎜ ⎟⎠ (6)
⎝ 2
Figure  10 shows the relationship between lw/
πDb determined using Equation 6 and lw/πDb
determined from the vector-calculus method, as
663
used herein, for a range of β values. It is shown
that Equation 6 is conservative as a design tool (i.e.
it under-predicts the weld length). The maximum
error is only 1.9% over the range of parameters
studied (for β = 0.50 and θ = 90°).
6 COMPARISON TO AISC 360-16
AISC 360-16 gives the same equation (Equation 1)
for the available strength of fillet welds via Clause
J.2.4a with le  =  lw; however, to calculate the design
strength, a resistance factor, φ   =  0.75 (instead of
0.80), is used. The implied safety index, β+, is equal
to 5.6 for AISC 360-16 Clause J.2.4a (Table  3 and
Figure 9), which is expectedly larger than the mini-
mum target safety index of 4.0, and the implied
safety index of 5.2 when AWS D1.1 is used without
weld effective lengths. The foregoing evaluations
of both the AWS and AISC fillet weld design pro-
visions assume that the (1  + 0.50sin1.5θ) directional
strength-enhancement factor is not used (AISC 360-
16 Clause J2.4b and AWS D1.1-15 Clause 2.6.4.2),
because it has been shown to be generally unsafe for
the design of fillet welds in HSS connections (Packer
et al. 2016).
7 CONCLUSIONS
Based on 12 careful laboratory tests on fillet-
welded CHS X-connections, which all failed by
rupture along a plane through the weld, it is shown
that the existing AWS specification provisions for
weld effective lengths (in such connections), given
by Clause 9.6.1.3(4), are extremely conservative.
It is shown that both the current AWS and
AISC specification provisions provide adequate
structural reliability (β+ ≥ 4.0) without weld effec-
tive lengths (i.e. when the total weld length is used
to determine the weld strength), assuming the fillet
weld directional strength enhancement factor is
not used. This is because the analysis method con-
siders the axial force in the branch member to be
resisted only by shear stress on the weld throat,
which is a conservative assumption.
These conclusions are currently limited to the
range of connection parameters studied. A compre-
hensive parametric modelling study, using finite ele-
ment methods, and a rigorous reliability analysis are
planned, to determine if these findings are applicable
to a wider range of fillet-welded CHS X-connections.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Financial support for this project was provided by
the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada (NSERC). CHS sections were
donated by Atlas Tube, Harrow, Canada, and
in-kind fabrication was provided by Walters Inc., Franchuk, C. R., Driver, R. G. & Grondin, G. Y. 2002.
Hamilton Canada. The Authors gratefully acknowl- Block shear failure of coped steel beams. Proc. Annual
edge the laboratory assistance of Mr. Fei Wei. Conf. of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering,
Montreal, 5–8 June 2002.
Frater, G. S. & Packer, J. A. 1992a. Weldment design for
NOTATION RHS truss connections. I: Applications. Journal of
Structural Engineering, American Society of Civil Engi-
Aw weld throat area ( = tw × lw) neers 118(10): 2784–2803.
Frater, G. S. & Packer, J. A. 1992b. Weldment design for
D diameter of the chord
RHS truss connections. II: Experimentation. Journal of
Db diameter of the branch Structural Engineering, American Society of Civil Engi-
FEXX ultimate strength of weld metal neers 118(10): 2804–2820.
P applied load ISO (International Organization for Standardization).
Pa actual weld fracture load 2013. ISO 14346:2013 (E). Static design procedure
Pn nominal predicted weld fracture load for welded hollow section joints – Recommendations,
Qw shear strength of weld per unit length Geneva, Switzerland.
VR coefficient of variation of ρR Lu, L. H., de Winkel, G. D., Yu, Y. & Wardenier, J. 1994.
l length of the chord Deformation limit for the ultimate strength of hollow
section joints. In Paul Grundy, Alan Holgate and Bill
lb length of the branch
Wong (eds.), Tubular Structures VI; Proc. Intern. Symp.,
le weld effective length Melbourne 14–16 December 1994. Rotterdam: Balkema.
lh weld leg along the chord Luyties, W. H. & Post, J. W. 1988. Local dihedral angle
lv weld leg along the branch equations for tubular joints and related applications.
lw total length of weld Welding Journal 77(4): 51–60.
t thickness of the chord Marshall, P.W. 1992. Design of welded tubular connections
tb thickness of the branch – Basis and use of AWS code provisions, Amsterdam,
tw weld throat dimension The Netherlands: Elsevier.
αR coefficient of separation McFadden, M. R. & Packer, J. A. 2014. Effective weld
properties for hollow structural section T-connections
β branch-to-chord diameter ratio
under branch in-plane bending. Engineering Journal,
β+ safety index American Institute of Steel Construction 51(4): 247–266.
δ chord deformation Mehrotra, B. L. & Govil, A. K. 1972. Shear lag analaysis of
ρ subtended angle around the branch, rectangular full-width tube connections. Journal of the
measured clockwise from heel Structural Division, American Society of Civil Engineers
ρR bias coefficient for resistance 98(ST1): 287–305.
τ branch-to-chord thickness ratio Packer, J. A. & Cassidy, C. E. 1995. Effective weld length
φ LRFD resistance factor for fillet welds for HSS T, Y, and X connections. Journal of Struc-
φβ+ adjustment factor for β+ tural Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers
121(10): 1402–1408.
θ branch inclination angle
Packer, J. A., Choo, Y. S., Shen, W., Wardenier, J., van
Ψ local dihedral angle der Vegte, G. J., & Mustard, T. 2012. CIDECT Report
5BW-2/12. Axially loaded T and X joints of elliptical
hollow sections. Geneva, Switzerland: CIDECT.
REFERENCES Packer, J. A., Sun, M., & Tousignant, K. 2016. Experimen-
tal evaluation of design procedures for fillet welds to
American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) 2016. hollow structural sections. Journal of Structural Engi-
ANSI/AISC 360-16. Specification for structural steel neering, American Society of Civil Engineers 142(5):
buildings. Chicago, IL, USA. 04016007-1-04016007-12.
American Welding Society (AWS) 2015. AWS D1.1/ Ravindra, M. K. & Galambos, T. V. 1978. Load and resist-
D1.1M:2015. Structural Welding Code—Steel. Miami, ance factor design for steel. Journal of the Structural
FL, USA. Division. American Society of Civil Engineers 104(9):
ASTM International 2013. ASTM A500-13. Standard 1337–1353.
specification for cold-formed welded and seamless car- Tousignant, K. & Packer, J. A. 2015. Weld effective lengths
bon steel structural tubing in rounds and shapes. West for rectangular HSS overlapped K-connections. Engi-
Conshohocken, PA, USA. neering Journal, American Institute of Steel Construction
ASTM International 2017. ASTM A370-17. Standard test 52(4): 259–282.
methods and definitions for mechanical testing of steel Tousignant, K. & Packer, J. A. 2016. Experimental evalu-
products. West Conshohocken, PA, USA. ation of directional strength-enhancement factor for
British Standards Institution (BSI) 1959. BS 449:1959. fillet welds to CHS. Connections VIII; Proc. Intern.
Specification for the use of structural steel in building. Workshop on Connections in Steel Structures, Boston,
London, England. 24-25 May 2016.
Fisher, J. W., Galambos, T. V., Kulak, G. L. & Ravindra, van der Vegte, G.J. & Makino, Y. 2010. Further research on
M. K. (1978). Load and resistance factor design crite- chord length and boundary conditions of CHS T- and
ria for connectors. Journal of the Structural Division, X-joints. Advanced Steel Construction 6(3): 879–890.
American Society of Civil Engineers 104(9): 1427–1441.

664
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Assessment of welded transverse plate to hollow structural

section connections

M. Ammons & J. McCormick

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

ABSTRACT: Welded transverse plate to Hollow Structural Section (HSS) connections have proven to
be a viable alternative to welded longitudinal plate to HSS connections. Due to the non-uniform stress
distribution in a welded transverse plate connection, the connection design strength requires considera-
tion of an effective width. Differences in how the effective width is applied and the application of limits of
validity for the derived limit state equations introduce questions in regards to the ability to accurately pre-
dict the connection’s expected behavior. This study addresses these concerns through a detailed numerical
study and a supplemental experimental study of two connections. Detailed finite element models that have
been validated against past studies and the experimental findings are used to consider the influence of
various parameters, such as the plate width to chord width ratio and the chord slenderness ratio, on the
behavior, particularly when these parameters are outside the limits of applicability/validity.

1 INTRODUCTION and plastification of the HSS face with the intent

1.1 Background
The superior compression resistance, cost efficiency,
and aesthetic appeal offered by HSS members have
driven their adoption as columns in a variety of
structural systems, and in some cases, in place of
more traditional wide flange sections (W-Shapes).
A simple, yet effective, means to connect bracing
members and various other attachments to these
sections is through the use of welded branch plates.
The behavior of this connection with an HSS chord
as opposed to a wide flanged section is quite differ-
ent owing to the inherent flexibility of the connect-
ing HSS face. In the case of a branch plate welded
longitudinally to the center of the flange of a wide
flange section, the plate transfers load directly into
the web of the section. With an HSS chord or col-
umn, the branch plate load is transferred to the
more flexible connecting face, resulting in excessive
distortion or plastification. In an effort to address
this shortcoming, alternative connections that use
a stiffening plate, longitudinal through plate or a
plate welded transverse to the longitudinal axis of
the HSS have been employed (Kosteski et al. 1999).
The focus of this study is the latter connection.
Both theoretical and experimental programs
have been undertaken to examine the behavior of
and develop design recommendations for welded
joints formed from rectangular hollow sections
(RHS). Specifically, Davies & Packer (1982) took
a theoretical approach in developing a combined
failure mechanism that considered punching shear
of investigating the efficiency of the crosswall of
a RHS branch member welded to another RHS
member. Similarly, Wardenier et al. (1981) under-
took an experimental program to further examine
the nonlinear in-plane stress distribution in the
crosswalls of RHS joints. Their study consisted
of branch plates that were generally less than full
width and transversely welded to the face of RHS
chords. Prior to this, Rolloos (1969) carried out
a comparable study in which full width (β  =  1.0)
transverse branch plate-to-wide flange section
connections were investigated, where β is the ratio
of plate width to chord width (β = Bp/B). He was
able to formulate an empirical equation for the
weld effectiveness in terms of the web thickness,
flange thickness and working design stress of the
steel. This equation is as follows:
be tw + Ctt f (1)
where be is the effective width, tw is the web thick-
ness and tf is the flange thickness. C is a disper-
sion constant equal to 6.4 or 4.8 for branch plate
yield stresses of 235 MPa or 355 MPa, respectively.
Equation  1 was ultimately adapted for RHS sec-
tions with full width joints and modified to include
the increase in effective width that occurs due to
the presence of corner radii. To account for con-
nections with β less than unity and varying rela-
tive thicknesses (t ≠ tp) and yield stresses (Fy ≠ Fyp),
Wardenier et al. (1981) introduced f(β) and Fyt/Fyptp
to a form of Equation  1 that was normalized by

665
the chord width and adjusted to predict failure
based on yield stress instead of working stress.
Ultimately, the design strength formulas for
transverse plate-to-RHS connections were estab-
lished based on the aforementioned research and
adopted by both CIDECT (International Com-
mittee for the Development and Study of Tubular
Structures) and AISC (American Institute of Steel
Construction).
As can be seen from the literature, transverse
plate-to-RHS connections were initially used to
gain a better understanding of the behavior of
RHS joints, and in particular, were used to assess
the nonlinear distribution of stress in RHS cross-
walls and in the walls of the connecting members.
This connection is also used as a representation of
a wide flange beam to HSS moment connection,
with the capacity of the connection conserva-
tively estimated as the available strength of one
branch plate under compression multiplied by the
distances between the centers of the flanges. The
widespread use of this connection, whether as a
means to assess more complex joints or to attach
members to the face of an RHS, makes it critical to
ensure that the available resistance of the connec-
tion is properly defined, particularly outside the
current limits of applicability which many studies
have not considered.
1.2 Motivation
The AISC Specification (2010) defines two limit
state equations that make use of an effective width
factor, one for local yielding of the plate and one
for shear yielding (punching) of the chord. These
equations also have limits of applicability over
which they can be applied (B/t or H/t ≤ 35 and
0.25 ≤ β ≤ 1.0). The local plate yielding equation
is defined as:
Rn
10
FytB p ≤ Fypt p B p (2)
B
t
in which the first term represents plate yielding
with the application of an effective width fac-
tor, Be, to account for the uneven stress distribu-
tion associated with the flexible HSS face and
the second term is a general plate tensile yield-
ing equation. The HSS shear yielding equation
is defined by:
Rn 0.6 Fyt(2t p + 2 Bep ) (3)
which applies an effective width factor, Bep, in
determining the shear area and is applicable for
plate widths between 0.85B and B − 2t. The effec-
tive width factor, Bep is taken as:
666
10 B p
Bep = ≤ Bp (4)
B
t
The most recent AISC Specification (2016) no
longer explicitly includes these limit state equa-
tions or the limits of applicability for transverse
plate to HSS connections in Chapter K, but
instead requires designers to use Chapters D and
J to derive them along with the application of a
universal effective width factor, Be. As a result, Bep
seen in Equation  3 is replaced by Be, an effective
width factor that accounts for the yield strength of
the plate and chord as well as the plate thickness.
Specifically Be is defined as:
⎛ 10t ⎞ ⎛ Fyt ⎞
Be = ⎜ B Bp
⎝ B ⎟⎠ ⎜⎝ Fypt p ⎟⎠ p
(5)
where t is the thickness of the HSS chord, B is
the width of the chord, Fy is the yield strength of
the chord, Fyp is the yield strength of the plate, tp
is the thickness of the plate and Bp is the width of
the plate.
The limit state equation for local plate yielding is
equivalent between the two specifications; however,
the punching shear equation differs with the use of
Be instead of Bep for the effective width in the 2016
specification. Furthermore, a third limit state of
chord face plastification is identified in CIDECT
for cases where there are high normal compressive
stresses in the chord (Lu 1997). As such, a reduc-
tion factor, Qf, was introduced to account for these
large HSS compressive stresses. The limit state
equation for this failure mode (0.4  ≤  β ≤ 0.85) as
expressed in CIDECT is as follows:
⎡ 2 2.8β ⎤
N1 fy t 2 ⎢ ⎥Qf (6)
⎣ 1 0.9 β ⎦
Detailed numerical analyses and experimental
testing is conducted to explore the effect of apply-
ing the limit state equations outside the previous
limits of applicability (particularly β  <  0.4 for
CIDECT) and to understand the influence and
appropriateness of the two effective width factors,
Be and Bep, for capturing the resistance of trans-
verse plate to HSS connections.
2 FINITE ELEMENT MODELS
2.1 General FE modeling
To study the behavior of transverse plate-to-HSS
welded connections under branch plate axial load,
detailed finite-element (FE) models were created.
All connections were modeled using the general
purpose finite element software Abaqus (version
6.14). An 8-node solid element (C3D8R) with
reduced integration and hourglass control was
used to model the chord, branch plate and fil-
let weld regions. At least three layers of elements
were employed through the thickness of the chord
member to ensure local bending deformations
were captured and to account for any possible non-
linearity in the thickness direction (Saucedo et al.
2006). A mesh convergence study was performed to
determine a suitable level of discretization, with a
typical element size being approximately 3.81 mm
square. Care was taken to ensure that elements
remained close to square and that large aspect
ratios were avoided. A typical mesh arrangement
is shown below in Figure 1.
The exterior radii of the HSS corners were
taken as two times the design thickness of the HSS
chord. The design thickness, as defined by the
AISC Steel Construction Manual (2010), is 0.93
times the nominal HSS wall thickness. All models
utilized this design thickness. Welds were sized to
be non-critical, with care taken to ensure that the
dimensioning was realistic in order to accurately
capture the connection behavior under practical
conditions. To this end, the weld leg size for the
12.7  mm thick branch plate was 9.5  mm and the
weld leg size for the 19  mm thick branch plate
was 12.7 mm. Since connections with large β val-
ues place the fillet welds on the rounded corners
of the HSS, potentially lead to early fracture not
considered in the models, and have been studied
previously (Wardenier et  al. 1981), these con-
nections were not considered. The FE models
were loaded by a static incremental displacement
applied to the nodes at the end of the branch plate.
Figure 1. Typical mesh arrangement.
667
The subsequent reaction force at these nodes was
used to produce load-deformation curves. A sche-
matic of the FEM details is shown in Figure 2.
Nonlinear material behavior was accounted for
by using stress-strain data from previously tested
coupon specimens that were obtained from the flats
and corners of an ASTM A500 Gr. B HSS member
(Fadden & McCormick 2014). Additionally, the
branch plate stress-strain data was obtained from
coupon tests of 12.7 mm thick ASTM A36 plate
stock. This data was converted to true stress-strain
and then applied to the respective regions of the
model. The material properties of the welds were
adopted from the material properties of E70XX
electrodes as described in the American Welding
Society (AWS) Specification (2015). A  bilinear
material model was defined using a yield strength
of 390  MPa and an ultimate tensile strength of
480  MPa for the welds. The true stress-strain
values of yield strength, ultimate strength and
Young’s modulus used for the FE model are shown
in Table  1. All components of the model used a
Poisson’s ratio of 0.3. Geometric nonlinearity was
considered by toggling on the Nlgeom setting in
Abaqus, which initiates an iterative procedure
whereby the stiffness matrix is updated based on
incremental nodal displacements at each equilib-
rium iteration. A direct, full Newton-Raphson
solution was employed in solving the nonlinear
equilibrium equations.
Figure 2. FE modeling details.
Table 1. Material properties.
Material RHS RHS
property corners flats Plate
E (GPa) 193 196 181
Fy (MPa) 519 426 298
Fu (MPa) 594 555 450
 Utilizing connection symmetry with respect to
the loading, boundary conditions and geometry,
one quarter of the connection was modeled with
symmetric conditions applied to the cut planes. In
addition to these boundary conditions, the nodes at
the end of the chord were fixed from rotation and
translation in all three Cartesian planes. Because
of this assumed fixed end condition, global bend-
ing moments were applied to the HSS member. As
such, it became important to minimize the chord
length to negate its influence on the connection
behavior, while maintaining a chord length that
was sufficiently long to prevent the influence of the
boundary conditions on the connection stiffness.
To this end, the chord length was conservatively
taken as 1.5 times the chord width. This value is
further validated through its similar use by Koste-
ski and Packer (2003).

Figure 3. Branch plate tensile load versus branch plate

2.2 Verification of FE techniques
length to chord width (η) at the serviceability and ulti-
To verify the FE techniques used in the paramet- mate deformation limits.
ric analyses, a FE study conducted by Kosteski
& Packer (2003) on welded longitudinal branch
plate-to-HSS connections was reanalyzed. Their
parametric FE study consisted of seven different
connection configurations with a constant chord
thickness of 6.35 mm and chord sizes ranging from
HSS 89 × 89 to HSS 254 × 254 mm. All seven con-
nections were reanalyzed using the aforementioned
FE modeling techniques and material properties
(Section 2.1). Boundary conditions and geometric
properties were duplicated; however, plastic mate-
rial properties and mesh discretization were not.
Additionally, since the true stress-strain data was
also not known for the branch plate, true stress-
strain data from the flats of an HSS 254 × 254 ×
15.9 mm were used, as its yield strength of 435 MPa
is the same as the plate stock used by Kosteski &
Packer (2003).
The corresponding branch plate tensile load at
the 0.01B (one percent of the chord width) serv-
iceability deformation limit and 0.03B (three per-
cent of the chord width) ultimate deformation
limit (Lu et al. 1994) were obtained from the load-
deformation responses in order to compare with
the results from Kosteski & Packer (2003). As can
be seen from Figure 3, the results are similar to the Figure  4. Comparison of load-displacement behavior
original results, indicating that the FE modeling of two transverse plate connections from Kosteski et al.
techniques are valid. Minor variation between the (1999) (solid line) and the proposed finite element model
results may be attributed to different mesh sizes (dashed line). (adapted from Kosteski et al. 1999)
and arrangement. Furthermore, differences in
material properties most likely contributed to the
small discrepancy. et  al. (1999). The two specimens considered were
To further validate the FE modeling techniques, tested in a 90° T-configuration with thick flange
numerical analyses also were performed on two plates welded to either end of the member to
transverse plate-to-RHS connections from an transfer the reaction force, via shear, from the ten-
experimental program undertaken by Kosteski sile load applied to the branch plate by the testing

668
Table 2. FE analysis of (Kosteki et al. 1999) experimen- Table 3. Measured properties for the transverse plate.
tal results.
Ultimate
FE/Experimental β = 0.4 β = 0.8 Nominal Width Thickness Yield stress stress
β Bp (mm) tp (mm) Fyp (MPa) Fup (MPa)
1%B 0.88 0.94
0.625 128 12.65 327 448
3%B 0.95 0.97 0.75 154 12.77 327 448

machine. The measured dimensions of the HSS Table 4. Measured properties for the HSS 305 × 203 ×
were 178 × 127 × 4.8 mm with a length of 590 mm. 9.53.
Both branch plate cases had a 13.1  mm thick-
Yield Ultimate
ness and the widths of the plates were 71.2  mm Width Depth Thickness stress stress
(β = 0.4) and 142 mm (β = 0.8). The FE results are B (mm) D (mm) t (mm) Fy (MPa) Fu (MPa)
compared with the experimental results in Figure 4
and Table  2. The ratios of the FE to experimen- 204.8 304.8 9.37 391 483
tal results at the serviceability and ultimate defor-
mation limits are close to unity, indicating that
the FE results agree well with the experimental
results. This further confirms that the modeling
techniques previously described are valid and able
to accurately capture the behavior of transverse
plate-to-RHS connections.

3 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM

3.1 Configuration and instrumentation

To supplement the numerical finite element analy-
ses and further validate the models, two transverse
plate-to-RHS connections were tested to consider
the influence of β on the connection failure mode
and compare the findings to the design limit state
equations in CIDECT and AISC. The connec-
tions were tested in a 445 kN hydraulic load frame.
Displacements were applied to the branch plate
through a pin. The pin was connected to the actua-
tor via plates located on either side of the branch
plate and oriented parallel to the width of the Figure  5. Test setup and typical instrumentation
branch plate. The fixed connections at each end of arrangement.
the HSS chord were created by welding endplates to
the HSS and bolting these to large stiffened angles strain in the branch plate. Testing was conducted
that were subsequently bolted to the load frame. in displacement control at a quasi-static load-
Both HSS chords were 610 mm in length and were ing rate of 0.008  mm/s until connection failure.
fabricated from an HSS 305 × 203 × 9.53 mm mem- The applied displacement and resulting load were
ber (ASTM A500 Gr. B). The branch plates were measured using a load cell attached to the actua-
fabricated from ASTM A36 plate stock. Measured tor. Further displacement measurements at posi-
properties for the branch plates and HSS are pro- tions of interest were obtained using an infrared
vided in Tables  3 and 4. Each branch plate was optical tracking system. Strain gauges were placed
placed transverse to the chord and centered on the across the width of the branch plate 38 mm above
chord face. The average measured fillet weld sizes the surface of the HSS face and oriented in the
connecting the transverse plate to the chord face direction of the applied load.
were 12.7 mm (β = 0.625) and 12.54 mm (β = 0.75).
The test specimens were instrumented (Figure 5)
3.2 Experimental results
to allow for the characterization of the overall
load-deformation behavior of the connection while The experimental results provide a general under-
providing an understanding of the distribution of standing of the connection behavior and the

669

Figure  6. Comparison of experimental and FE load-
deformation behavior.
associated failure modes. Figure  6  shows the
experimental load-deformation curves for both
connections. The significant drop in load at
approximately 6  mm of connection deformation
for the connection with β equal to 0.625 can be
attributed to minor slip in the test setup momen-
tarily affecting the load. The connection with β
equal to 0.75 shows a similar behavior, but stops
at an earlier deformation level due to a failure
in the load frame. However, the experimental
results show that an increase in the width of the
transverse plate leads to an increase in the ini-
tial stiffness of the connection from 150  kN/mm
to 999  kN/mm. This increase in stiffness can be
attributed to the fact that the wider plate is able
to better engage the stiffer chord sidewalls prior to
significant deformation occurring in the less stiff
face of the HSS chord. The overall capacity of
the connection is also larger when the plate width
increases.
Figure  6 also provides the results of the finite
element analyses that employed the tested mate-
rial properties from the test specimens. The finite
element model for the connection with β equal
to 0.625 accurately predicts the behavior of the
connection. Meanwhile, for the connection with
β equal to 0.75, the finite element model slightly
under predicts the capacity and stiffness of the
connection. This discrepancy can be attributed
to how the weld geometry was modeled when the
weld extended past the flats of the HSS chord.
As a result of this discrepancy for the β equal to
0.75  specimen, only connection configurations
where the transverse plate remains on the flat of
the HSS were considered for the subsequent par-
ametric study. This approach avoids concerns of
670
fracture, which is not modeled, occurring due to
welding to the corner of the HSS.
The connection with β equal to 0.625 ultimately
failed from a strength perspective by punching
shear, but the deformation at which this occurred
was well beyond the 0.03B deformation limit
state. The load at 0.03B deformation (323 kN) is
reached prior to the maximum load of 371  kN.
Deformation in the face of the HSS chord also
was observed prior to the connection undergo-
ing punching shear, suggesting that chord face
plastification led to the deformation limit being
reached. When punching shear occurred, fracture
occurred at the toe of the weld in the HSS base
material (Figure 7a). The combination of this frac-
ture and the out of plane convexity of the HSS
face indicated that the failure mechanism could
be seen as a combination of punching shear and
chord face plastification. It should be noted that
this β value falls outside the limits of applicability
(0.85 ≤ β ≤ 1 − γ, where γ is (B/2t)) for the chord
punching shear limit state set by CIDECT (Packer
et al. 2009) and AISC (2010).
Considering the experimental properties, the
effective dimensions of the connection elements,
and taking into account the weld size (actual
β  =  0.755), the limit state equations defined by
the 2010  AISC Specifications give a governing
limit state for this connection of local plate yield-
ing with a strength of 257  kN. The 2016  AISC
Specification leads to a limit state of punching
shear due to the use of Be rather than Bep, along
with no limits of applicability being applied to
the limit state equations. The change in calculated
strength is small (235  kN), but potentially sig-
nificant. Using the limit state equations defined
in CIDECT, the governing failure mode is chord
face plastification with a connection strength of
220 kN. Consequently, these values are conserva-
Figure  7. (a) Punching shear and (b) chord face
plastification.
 a total of 48 connection configurations were con-
sidered. Chord sizes modeled ranged from HSS
152 × 152 mm, HSS 203 × 203 mm and HSS 254
× 254 mm with varying wall thicknesses. The wall
thicknesses of the HSS ranged from 3.18  mm to
15.9 mm by intervals of 3.18 mm and branch plate
thicknesses were either 12.7 mm or 19.1 mm. The
resulting chord slenderness ratios (2ϒ ) ranged
from 12.0 to 63.9 and β spanned from 0.30 to 0.80.
Chord slenderness ratios that fall outside of the
ranges of applicability specified by the AISC Spec-
ification (2010) and CIDECT (2009) were inten-
tionally chosen to evaluate the ability of the limit
state equations to be applied outside these limits.
To simplify the analysis and isolate various effects
associated with connection geometry, the mate-
rial properties of all connection configurations
were kept consistent using the properties shown in
Figure  8. Transverse plate strain distribution at peak
Table 1.
load.

4.2 Parametric study results

tive, considering that the load at the deforma-
The non-uniform stress distribution in the trans-
tion limit (0.03B) was 323  kN, approximately 25
verse plate can be considered in evaluating whether
to 45% greater than that indicated by the design
Be or Bep is more appropriate as an effective width.
equations. The discrepancy between the actual
Figure 9 provides the stress distribution for an HSS
and theoretical connection strengths and corre-
203 × 203 × 12.7  mm chord with plate widths of
sponding failure modes are reasons for concern
76 mm (β = 0.38) and 127 mm (β = 0.63) along with
leading to a need for further experimental testing
their corresponding effective widths at the 0.03B
to better understand the influence of β on the con-
deformation limit. For the connection with the
nection behavior, particularly outside the limits of
larger width ratio, there is a significant decrease in
applicability.
the stress level that delineates the effective width
The strain distribution on the surface of the
associated with Bep (280 MPa) versus Be (250 MPa)
branch plate (Figure  8) also was examined and
resulting in Be providing a larger effective width.
compared with the effective branch plate widths
Alternatively, the difference between the stress
defined by Bep and Be for the connection with β
level at the two effective width values is less for the
equal to 0.625. The experimental and FE strain
connection with a width ratio of 0.38 as the stress
distributions show good agreement in regard to
distribution is more uniform as a result of the
capturing the non-uniform stress in the branch
width being small enough to not be influenced by
plate. Additionally, the effective widths calculated
using Be and Bep show a significant difference. This
trend can be attributed to the use of the effective
plate thickness (38.1  mm) in the equation for Be.
An examination of the equations for Be and Bep
reveals that Be decreases with the branch plate
thickness while Bep remains constant, suggesting
that the chord slenderness ratio can significantly
influence the difference between the two effective
width calculations. As a result, the punching shear
capacity is dependent on which effective width cal-
culation is used.

4 PARAMETRIC STUDY

4.1 Parameters considered

Figure  9. Stress distribution across the width of the
To evaluate the behavior of transverse plate-to- transverse plate for HSS 203 × 203 × 12.7 mm connection
HSS connections under a monotonic tensile load, with plate widths of 76 mm and 127 mm.

671
the corner region. However, the stress distribution
suggests that at smaller width ratios (i.e., outside
the limits of applicability), the use of an effective
width factor may be overly conservative. The effect
of the chord slenderness ratio also was considered,
but no significant influence on the stress distri-
bution was observed when the chord slenderness
ratio was varied and the width ratio held constant.
Figure  10 provides the ratio of the strength at
the 0.03B deformation limit compared to the con-
trolling limit state for the 48 finite element analyses
with respect to either the width ratio, β, or chord
slenderness ratio, 2γ. The controlling limit state
is determined using the 2010  AISC Specification
(AISC 2010), 2016  AISC Specification (AISC
2016) and CIDECT Design Guide 3 (Packer et al.
2009) using the minimum specified strength for
the material properties. The results provide insight
in regards to the ability to apply the limit state
equations outside of the limits of applicability
(AISC) or range of validity (CIDECT) in light of
the fact that these limits have been removed in the
most recent AISC specification (2016).
The 2010  AISC Specification and CIDECT
limit the width ratio to greater than 0.25 and 0.4,
respectively, when calculating the design resist-
ance of a transverse plate connection in a T joint.
Figure 10a shows that inside this range up to a β
value of approximately 0.65, the ratio of the finite
element results to the design resistance is consist-
ent between 1.5 and 3. However at larger β values,
all three design resistance approaches tend to sig-
nificantly underestimate the strength of the con-
nection and not truly capture the shift in behavior
as the sidewalls are able to carry more load.
The chord slenderness is limited to 35  in the
2010  AISC Specification (AISC 2010) and 40  in
CIDECT Design Guide 3 (Packer et  al. 2009).
Figure  10b shows that the ratio of the finite ele-
ment results to design resistance are consistent
within this range with values typically varying
from 1.5 to 4. Outside the limits of applicability
(i.e. chord slenderness values above 40), the design
Figure 10. (a) Ratio of finite element strength at the 3%
HSS width deformation limit to controlling limit state
strength with respect to (a) plate width to chord width
ratio and (b) chord slenderness.
672
resistance predictions start to significantly under-
predict the strength of the connection. This finding
suggests that the limits of applicability are neces-
sary to prevent over conservative designs and that
care must be taken in applying limit state equations
associated with the most recent AISC Specification
(2016) where no limits of applicability are applied
to transverse plate connections in T joints.
The specific limit states predicted by each
approach also differs suggesting that a more uni-
fied approach is necessary in predicting the design
resistance of transverse plate to RHS connec-
tions. The design resistance for the 48 considered
connections all fell under the local plate yield-
ing limit state for the older AISC Specification
(2010). However, applying the most recent AISC
Specification (2016) led to many of the connec-
tions with β values greater than 0.75 to be control-
led by punching shear because of the use of Be,
rather than Bep, for the effective width. Although
the calculated design resistance using the AISC
(2016) approach was not significantly different
and was always conservative, the change in con-
trolling limit state is not necessarily backed with
data. Further, 42 of the connections had column
face plastification as the controlling limit state
when the CIDECT (Packer et al. 2009) equations
were applied. The results show the difference in
the approach taken by AISC and CIDECT in con-
sidering column face plastification. The results
suggest that a more concerted effort is needed to
consider the limit states associated with transverse
plate to RHS connections.
5 CONCLUSIONS
An experimental and numerical study of transverse
plate-to-HSS chord connections in a T configura-
tion were undertaken in order to evaluate the use of
the effective width factor in calculating the design
resistance of the connection and determine the
necessity of the limits of applicability applied to
typical limit state approaches. The finite element
model used to conduct a parametric study on 48
connections was validated against past research
and two experimental tests. The experimental find-
ings suggested that the current limit state equations
utilized by AISC (2010 and 2016) and CIDECT are
conservative and may not accurately account for
combined limit states. The parametric study clearly
showed that an effective width concept may not be
necessary as the width ratio decreases below 0.4 and
also is overly conservative as the width ratio exceeds
0.65 and the chord slenderness ratio exceeds 40. In
general, further study of the expected limit states is
needed as different design approaches often predict
different controlling limit states.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work is supported by the National Science
Foundation through Grant No. CMMI-1350605.
The views expressed herein are solely those of the
authors and do not represent the views of the sup-
porting agency.
LIST OF SYMBOLS
be = effective width
fy0 = specified minimum yield stress of the HSS
(CIDECT)
tw = web thickness
tf = flange thickness
t = design wall thickness of the HSS
t0 = wall thickness of the HSS (CIDECT)
tp = branch plate thickness
B = outside width of chord
Be = effective width factor (AISC 2010 & 2016)
Bep = effective width factor (AISC 2010)
Bp = branch plate width
C = dispersion constant in effective width
equation
Fy = specified minimum yield stress of the HSS
Fyp = specified minimum yield stress of the branch
plate
H = overall height of the HSS
N1 = nominal connection strength (CIDECT)
Qf = chord stress reduction factor
R* = design resistance based on the controlling
limit state
R3% = FEM strength at the 0.03B deformation limit
Rn = nominal connection strength
β = nominal width ratio (Bp/B)
2ϒ = chord slenderness ratio (B/t)
η = ratio of branch plate length to chord width
for longitudinal plate-to-HSS connections
REFERENCES
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(ANSI/AISC 360-10). American Institute of Steel
Construction, Chicago-Illinois.
673
AISC. (2016). Specification for Structural Steel Buildings
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& Kurobane, Y. (2009). Design Guide 3 for Rectangu-
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 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Effect of bending moment on capacity of fillet weld

N. Tuominen, T. Björk & A. Ahola

Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland

ABSTRACT: The design of fillet welds in tubular hollow section joints is based on the assumption about
the insignificant role of the secondary moment. Typically, this moment decreases stresses and strains at
the root side of the weld, enhancing the strength and deformation capacity of welds. Nevertheless, the
bending moment can also increase the stresses at the root side in some cases. This study investigates the
effect of the moment and its direction on the static strength of welds. Experimental tests, analytical cal-
culations and numerical simulations are carried out for the different types of welds. The results highlight
that the direction of the moment has an important role in the case of ultra-high strength steels. Further
investigations are still needed for the guidance of design i.e. in which cases it can be neglected. However,
in this study a proposal for the consideration of this moment is obtained.

1 INTRODUCTION

Tubular joints are typically single-sided welded

joints, which means the welds are also subjected
to a bending moment. The bending moment can
occur in the weld due to three different factors:
the weld eccentricity, external bending load and/
or deformation of the chord flange, as presented
in Figure 1.
The moment caused by the chord flange defor-
mation is typically reverse to the moment of weld
eccentricity and dominates the joint behavior as
illustrated in Figure 2. The chord flange deforma-
tion is one essential reason for the unexpectedly
high load and deformation capacity of tubular
joints found in practice as shown by Tuominen
(2013) and Tuominen & Björk (2014). This mode is
emphasized if the plastic failure of the joint occurs
by a so-called general yield line mode where the
plastic hinges of the chord face are located inside
of the brace member area (Björk & Marquis 2008).
Figure  1. Factors causing the bending moment in the
welds: a) weld eccentricity, b) external bending loading
and c) chord flange deformation.
Figure  2. Tubular joints with a fillet weld where the
deformation of chord flange dominates the eccentricity
effect.
The effective throat thickness can consist of
an external fillet weld and penetration, which can
decrease the eccentricity. However, due to the bend-
ing of the chord flange, the secondary moment can
occur in the weld even with full penetration.
In the current design codes (EN 1993-1-8:2005,
EN 1993-1-12:2010), the design of fillet welds
is based on the critical plane of the weld, which
is assumed to locate in an angle of 45  degrees in
the weld. Packer et  al. (2016) has disclosed that
Eurocode 3 gives reliable but conservative results.
Theoretical and practical results prove that the
critical plane tilts more in the direction of the load-
ing, as shown in Figure  3. This is because shear
stress is more dominating compared to normal
stress and affects the critical angle, as pointed out
by Björk et al. (2012), Penttilä (2012) and Packer
et al. (2015).
Particularly when high strength steels are used,
some other failure modes, such as fusion line and

675
Figure 3. Failure paths in the load carrying welds.

leg length failures, may also occur, as illustrated

in Figure  3. The latter is typical of mismatching Figure 4. Stress components on critical plane of weld,
joints. In both cases, the load carrying capacity of with a) linear elastic and b) fully plastic bending moment
the weld depends on the throat thickness, and the distributions. σm = membrane stress; τ = shear stress; and
issues can be overcome by a proper weld design. σnlp = non-linear stress peak.
In current design codes, the throat thickness
calculations are based on the evenly distributed
normal and shear stresses in the weld and the von
Mises yield criterion. Unambiguous rules are not
available for the calculations of bending stresses in
the weld caused by the eccentricities or other local
moments shown in Figure 2.
In tubular joints, the secondary moment is a
partly load- and partly displacement-controlled
phenomenon. Furthermore, the membrane and
secondary bending stresses of the brace member
vary along the cross-section perimeter, which com-
plicates the analyses. This study investigates the
role of the secondary bending moment as load-
controlled to obtain clear and generalized results.
For that reason, simple plate joints and geometries
are under investigation instead of tubular joints. A
similar approach was applied e.g. by Herion et al.
(2012). Figure 5. Eccentricity of weld and load components.

2 THEORETICAL CAPACITY Regardless of the additional bending stress, the

Consideration of the secondary moment means
the normal stress in the critical plane varies over
the throat thickness, but the shear stress remains
unchanged. The secondary moment decreases also
the capacity of the weld concerning the leg length
and fusion line failures. However, the decrease is
smaller for those modes because the stress due
to the moment is higher in the critical throat
thickness section than on other failure planes.
Independent of the background of the second-
ary moment, it can be assumed to be distributed
according to linear elastic or fully plastic theory
on the critical plane of the weld, as illustrated in
Figure 4.
weld and joint are assumed to have an adequate
plastic deformation capacity to sustain the effect
of a high self-balanced stress concentration (σnlp)
in the root of the weld. Consequently, the capacity
of the weld can be calculated ignoring this tertiary
level stress distribution. Figure  5  shows the local
dimensions of a welded joint.
The interaction point of stresses is either on the
root side or the outer surface of the weld, depend-
ing on the direction of the bending moment.
The bending stress on the critical plane of the
weld is
k ( nM F Fe )
σb = 2
(1)
na b

676
where k  =  6 for elastic and k  =  4 for fully plastic softening effect. For pure bending loading, the
stress distribution; M = the (constant) moment of capacity of the joint yields
an adjacent member; F  =  the applied axial load;
n  =  the number of load bearing (web) plates; bfu′
a 2 bf
e  =  the eccentricity between the plate and weld; Mw = (7)
k βw
a  =  the throat thickness on the critical plane and
can thus distinguish aeff; and b = the length of the
This study investigates the validation of these
weld (and joint).
theoretical models experimentally. FEAs are car-
The membrane stress depends on the angle α
ried out to consider the real moment distribution
between the acting force F and the normal of the
in the box section.
critical plane (Fig. 5)

F cos α
σm = (2) 3 EXPERIMENTAL TESTS
nab
3.1 Test specimens
The shear stress is
A total of 13 laboratory tests were carried out.
F sin α Specimens were manufactured from two different
τ= (3) steel grades (S355 and S960) and matching filler
nab materials. Table  1 presents the measured thick-
nesses of plates and nominal values of mechanical
The interaction of the stress components is properties for the base and filler materials.
defined by the von Mises extended yield criterion To avoid the complicated stress distribution of
as follows: tubular joints, the effect of the secondary bend-
ing moment was investigated using simple test
fu
(σ m + σ b )
2
σ red + 3τ 2 = (4) specimens. Consequently, the test series included
βW γ M 2 two types of specimens, box sections (Litmanen
2016) and X-joints. Figure  6  shows the prepar-
where fu = the ultimate strength of the base mate- ing phase of the test specimen. The extra parts
rial; βw  = the correlation coefficient (ratio between in the corners simply enable stable welding con-
ultimate strengths of base and filler materials), ditions over the final joint length – weld run-on
now βw = 1.0; and γM2 = the partial safety factor of and run-off parts were subsequently machined
the material, now γM2 = 1.0. off. This ensured a constant throat thickness and
In box type structures, the bending moment is weld penetration for the completed specimens. In
the box section specimens, only fillet welds were
M = λFL (5) tested, but the X-joint tests included both fillet
weld and single bevel weld tests. In the X-joints,
where L =  the transverse distance from force to the fillet welds were produced by using single-
weld; and λ = the frame stiffness factor for bending pass welding and the single bevel welds by using
moment in the load bearing (web) plate. The stiff- multi-pass welding.
ness of welds can be taken into account by replac- The main test parameters were the type, loca-
ing λ by λFEA which can be obtained by means of tion and eccentricity of the joint and type of the
finite element analyses (FEAs), see section 4. weld as seen in Figure 7 for the box sections and in
Consequently, the load carrying capacity of the Figure 8 for the X-joints.
welded joint is

nabffu Table  1. Material thicknesses and mechanical proper-

Fw = (6) ties of base and filler materials.
2
⎡ k ( nλ b e ) ⎤
βw ⎢ α+ ⎥⎦ + 3 sin α
2
t* fy* f u* A5*
⎣ a Material [mm] [MPa] [MPa] [%]

Depending on the failure path, fu can be replaced S355 7.97 400 483 30
by fu′, which is the ultimate strength of the critical S960 8.96 1041 1210 11
(failure) plane, and fu′ can be obtained by adjust- Ok 12.50 – 480 560 26
ing the ultimate strength of the base material by X96 – 930 980 11
the hardness ratio (see section  5.1). This simple
method considers the available strength of the *t  = plate thickness, fy  = yield strength, fu  = ultimate
critical zone, taking into account the potential strength, and A5 = uniform elongation.

677
 Table 2. Dimensions for the box section specimens (see
Figs. 6–8).

2L H t d b aeff
ID [mm] [mm] [mm] [mm] [mm] [mm]

RC01_960 169 106 6 9 70 4.8

RC02_960 177 106 6 9 70 4.2
RC03_960 50 60 9 9 60 5.5

Table  3. Dimensions for the X-joint specimens, FW =

Figure  6. Preparation of test specimens: box sections
fillet weld (with shading), SBW = single side bevel weld.
and X-joints.
t aeff Weld No. of
ID Material [mm] [mm] type passes

RC04B_355_1 S355 8 6.3 FW 1

RC04B_355_2 S355 8 6.2 FW 1
RC05B_355_1 S355 8 7.97* SBW 3
RC05B_355_2 S355 8 7.97* SBW 3
RC04B_960_1 S960 9 4.4 FW 1
RC04B_960_2 S960 9 4.4 FW 1
RC05B_960_1 S960 9 8.98* SBW 3
RC05B_960_2 S960 9 8.98* SBW 3
RC04T_960 S960 9 5.1 FW 1
RC05T_960 S960 9 8.98* SBW 3

*Plate thickness t.

Figure 7. Box section specimens.

section specimens were manufactured from steel
grade S960, but the X-joint set included also speci-
mens made from steel grade S355. Table 2 shows
the dimensions for the box section specimens and
Table 3 for the X-joints.

3.2 Test setup and results

Figure 8. X-joint specimens: a) main dimensions [mm]
and groove preparation: b) single bevel weld (SBW) and
c) fillet weld (FW).
The X-joints were prepared through robotic
gas metal arc welding (GMAW) to assure con-
stant throat thicknesses and weld penetrations, but
the box sections were manufactured by a manual
GMAW process (due to accessibility). For the fil-
let welds in the X-joint specimens, extra bevel cuts
were machined on the root side to avoid contact
in bending tests, as Figure  8c shows. The box
The main loading parameter was the degree of
bending (DOB). In the box specimens, the DOB
was controlled by box dimensions (H/L), and in
the X-joints, by the weld eccentricity and type of
loading. In the X-joints, the eccentricity consists
of joint type (FW or SBW) and loading was either
tensile (T) or bending (B) as shown in Figure  9.
The direction of bending loading was set to cause
either tension or compression on the root side of
the weld.
Table 4 summarizes the test matrix and the loca-
tion of failures. The DOB is defined as
σb
DOB = (8)
σm + σb
where σb = the bending stress; and σm = the mem-
brane stress in the weld.

678
Figure 9. Test setups: a) tensile test and b) bending test.

Table 4. Test matrix with failures, FW specimens with

shading.

Ultimate Location of Figure 10. Box section specimens by DIC images and

ID Loading* DOB test load failure** weld failures of a) RC01_960 and b) RC03_960.

RC01_960 T+B1 0.94 31 kN FLF

RC02_960 T+B2 −0.76 44 kN BMY
RC03_960 T+B1 0.86 442 kN WF
RC04B_355_1 B1 1.00 367 Nm BMY
RC04B_355_2 B2 1.00 367 Nm BMY
RC05B_355_1 B1 1.00 374 Nm BMY
RC05B_355_2 B2 1.00 389 Nm BMY Figure  11. X-joint loaded by bending caused base
material yielding (RC04B_355_1).
RC04B_960_1 B1 1.00 530 Nm WF
RC04B_960_2 B2 1.00 750 Nm FLF
RC05B_960_1 B1 1.00 1385 Nm BMY
RC05B_960_2 B2 1.00 1388 Nm BMY
RC04T_960 T 0.85 258 kN WF
RC05T_960 T 0.33 631 kN FLF

*T = tension, B1 = bending moment (root side tension),

and B2 = bending moment (root side compression).
**WF = weld failure, BMY = base material yielding, and
FLF = fusion line failure.

Figures  10–13  show the principal stresses and

typical final failure modes of the test specimens. Figure 12. Weld failure in X-joints loaded by bending
The strains are measured by the ARAMIS digital moment (RC04B_960_1).
image correlation (DIC) system.
The ligament thicknesses a were defined to rep-
resent the failure plane width of the joint. The
critical ligament plane was found by means of the
ARAMIS system and by investigating the ruptured
surface of the joint. These ligament thicknesses
were measured from the start and end sections of
the welds to define the average values. This measur-
ing could be carried out just after a completed test.
Table 5 displays the size of the fractured ligament
a and the angle α of the critical plane, and those
values were used when the theoretical capacities of
the joints were calculated for tension loaded speci- Figure 13. Fusion line failure in X-joint loaded by ten-
mens. For bending tested specimens, the angle can sion (RC05T_960).

679
Table 5. Measured failure angles (α.) and ligament sizes Table 6. Values of bi-linear material models used in FE
(a.) used in analytical calculations, FW specimens with model (E = 210 GPa and υ = 0.3).
shading.
Plastic Plastic
α a α a strain Stress strain Stress
ID [deg] [mm] ID [deg] [mm] 1st point 1st point 2nd point 2nd point
Material [mm/mm] [MPa] [mm/mm] [MPa]
RC01_960 0 5.5 RC04B_960_1 45 5.6
RC02_960 45 4.2 RC04B_960_2 45 6.6 Filler material 0 930 0.116 1093
RC03_960 52 4.9 RC05B_960_1 45 8.98* Plate 0 1041 0.11 1210
RC04B_355_1 45 6.2 RC05B_960_2 45 8.98*
RC04B_355_2 45 6.3 RC04T_960 58 7.3
RC05B_355_1 45 7.97* RC05T_960 51 14.3
RC05B_355_2 45 7.97*

*Plate thickness t.

be neglected because the loading was pure moment

and no shear stresses occurred in the critical plane
due to a four-point bending test setup. In single
bevel weld tests, the throat thickness was set to be
the measured plate thickness.

4 NUMERICAL ANALYSES

The box section and tension loaded X-joint speci-

mens were analyzed by means of the FE method
to define the real moment in the joint. Finite ele-
ment analysis was performed using the Abaqus
2016 program. Box section specimens were mod-
eled by quadratic hexahedral elements (C3D20R)
and tension loaded X-joints by quadratic quadri-
lateral elements (S8R). Hexahedral elements were
used since the frictionless contact property was set
on surfaces on the root side of weld where con-
tact would occur. The element size on the weld
area varied from 0.5 mm to 1 mm and the shape
of the welds was modeled to match the geometry
of the tested joints. Table 6 presents the true stress-
true strain material models used for the S960 base
and filler materials. Values were obtained from the
values of Table  1. Isotropic hardening was used
in analysis. Figure  14 presents an example of the
force displacement curve. The displacement was
measured from the movement of the force cylin-
der. In the plastic regime, the behavior identified in
the test distinguishes the FE result. However, the
correspondence is sufficient in the linear part of
joint behavior, which was more important for this
research.
However, the most important reason for using
FEA is to define the factor λ presented in Equa-
tions (5) and (6). The parameter λ considers
the moment in the corner of the box section, as
Figure  15a illustrates. The λ value can be calcu-
lated according to the simple frame analyses by
Figure 14. RC01 joint versus FEA.
assuming the weld is a completely rigid element.
The theoretical formula for λ is
M 1
λ= = (9)
FL ⎛ Ht 3 ⎞
8 ⎜1 +
⎝ 2 Ld 3 ⎟⎠
where M = the bending moment; F = the applied
axial load; L = the transverse distance from force
to weld; and H, t, L and d are dimensions in
Figure  15a. The theoretical model assumes the
weld is a rigid and centric element, while the FEA
takes the real location and stiffness of the weld
into account. Figure 15b displays the model for the
numerical definition of λFEA. The corrected value is
M FFEA
λFEEA = E
(10)
FFEA
E L
where MFEA  =  the bending moment obtained by
means of FEA; and FFEA = the applied axial load
(see Fig. 14b). If the base material yielded before
weld failure, L was fixed to the theoretically critical
plane of the weld.
In the FEA, the moment force pairs (Eq. 10),
represent elastic values. Table  7 presents the ana-
lytical λ values and results from the FEA.

680
Figure 15. Defining λ: a) analytically and b) from the
FE analysis, and c) obtaining stress components over the
throat thickness where σnl = the non-linear stress distri-
bution; σb = the bending stress; and σm = the membrane
stress. Figure  16. Hardness measurement areas of tension
tested RC05T_960 specimen.

Table 7. Theoretical and numerical values for λ.

Table  8. Hardness (HV5) values of the RC05T_960
MFEA M specimen.
Test [Nm] [Nm] λ λFEA
BM FM FL HAZ
RC01_960 541 40 0.105 0.0735 Zone/marker ◊ Δ Ο
RC02_960 1993 187 0.106 0.0936
HV5 393 395 344 279
RC03_960 109 0 0.001 0.0000
fu′ [MPa] 1210 980 1061 859
RC04T_960 242 11 0.063 0.0474
RC05T_960 1804 5 0.063 0.0029

5 DISCUSSION

5.1 Fracture
According to the test results, the S355 steel grade
joints performed well in the bending tests because
no failure occurred in the weld area of the joints.
Unfortunately, the throat thicknesses were larger
than originally designed, and the effect of the
moment direction on the root side failure could
not be investigated with these S355 test specimens.
Generally, the behavior was assumable with all
joints made of the S355 steel grade.
The results obtained with the S960  steel grade
are more interesting. Fully penetrated welds
seemed to fail in the base metal or the fusion line
(FL), never in the weld. FL failure can occur in
tension or bending loading. This may result from
the softening effect of the adjacent heat affected
zone (HAZ) or the decrease of ductility, or both.
Figure  16  shows hardness measurement points
for a SBW specimen made of the S960 steel grade
and the numerical hardness value, which are aver-
age values for each zone presented in Table 8. By
comparing the measured hardness values to the
values of the basic material, the ultimate strength
fu’ for each zone and failure path can be estimated
as presented by Pavlina & van Tyne (2008). The
zones are base material (BM), filler material (FM),
Figure  17. Hardness measurement areas of tension
tested RC04B_960_2 specimen.
fusion line (FL) and HAZ. Figure 17 and Table 9
present similar data for a fillet weld specimen
(S960).
In the X-joint specimens, the hardness values
were measured only if the failure occurred in the
weld, fusion line or adjacent HAZ. The values
in Table  8  show that the ultimate strength of the
HAZ is only about 71% of the strength of the BM.
The multi-pass welding causes more softening than
the single-pass welding. In the FL, the hardness
decreases less. However, the failure can occur at
least partly also in the fusion line. The reason may
be reduced ductility due to a coarse grain zone and
triaxiality due to an incoherent strength state.

681
Table  9. Hardness (HV5) values of the RC04B_960_2 Table  10. Test results versus analytical capacities, FW
specimen. specimens with shading.

BM FM FL HAZ Ftest/Fw or
Zone/marker ◊ Δ Ο Ftest Fw or Mw Mtest/Mw
or
HV5 393 398 375 304 ID Mtest P* E* Unit P* E*
fu′ [MPa] 1210 980 1155 934
RC01_960 31 38 31 kN 0.74 1.00
RC02_960 44 17 15 kN 1.87 3.00
RC03_960 442 475 397 kN 0.93 1.11
5.2 Capacities
RC04B_355_1 367 333 222 Nm 1.10 1.65
Table  10 presents the test results and calculated RC04B_355_2 367 323 215 Nm 1.14 1.71
theoretical capacities. RC05B_355_1 >374 381 254 Nm >0.98 >1.47
The test results are compared with theoretical RC05B_355_2 >389 381 254 Nm >1.01 >1.53
values, where the moment capacity is calculated RC04B_960_1 530 569 379 Nm 0.93 1.40
either by elastic (k = 6) or plastic (k = 4) bending RC04B_960_2 750 754 503 Nm 0.99 1.49
stress distribution; see Equations (6) and (7). RC05B_960_1 1385 1180 787 Nm 1.17 1.76
Because no ruptures occurred in the specimen RC05B_960_2 1388 1180 787 Nm 1.18 1.76
made of the S355  steel grade and they were not RC04T_960 258 265 231 kN 0.97 1.12
in fully plastic condition when the maximum load RC05T_960 631 615 615 kN 1.03 1.03
was reached in the test, the theoretical capacities
were calculated according to the measured yield *P = plastic and E = elastic capacity.
strength (see RC05_355B_1 and _2).
The results obtained with the S960  steel
grade prove the functionality of the idea about
the reduced strength. If the FL or the adjacent
HAZ are critical zones, the strength can be evalu-
ated based on the degree of softening. The criti-
cal plane approach (Björk et al. 2017) shows the
critical plane angle has only a minor role on the
capacity if the critical plane angle α is equal to
or less than 50  degrees. However, in pure bend-
ing loading the capacity depends on ligament
length power two while in tensile loading it has
linear dependence. This means the shortest liga-
ment is more important in bending loading than
in tensile loading, where the softening zone is
more dominating. This phenomenon can be iden-
tified by comparing the results from RC04T_960
with those from RC01_960 and RC04B_960_2 Figure 18. Joints with combined tensile loading in the
(Table 10). weld root.
The results in Table  10  show that the elastic
bending stress distribution should be used for fillet
welds if both the bending and membrane stresses loading also in tubular and box section joints, as
are causing tensile stress on the root side (RC01, Figure 18 shows.
03, 04T_960, RC04B_960_1 and 2). If the bend- Consequently, the design rules for tubular joints
ing stress is dominating and is closing the root gap, made of high- or ultra-high strength steels need
plastic interaction can be applied also to fillet welds more investigation in the future, and the role of the
(RC02-960). For fully penetrated welds, the plastic bending moment cannot be ignored.
interaction is useable, independent of the moment
direction. The bolded values in Table  10 are the
6 CONCLUSIONS
results based on the recommended approaches.
In summary, the fillet welds seem to be liable
Based on the test and calculated results, the follow-
for weld failures. The worst case is S960 with fil-
ing conclusions can be drawn:
let welds and subjected to combined tensile and
bending loading in the weld root. Fortunately, − The bending moment should be considered
this is not the case in typical tubular joints, as when the capacity of the weld is defined with
Figure  2 illustrates. However, this can be the high strength steels.

682
− Tensile stresses on the root side of the weld due
to bending and tension loads is the most critical
combination, and the interaction should be cal-
culated according to the theory of elasticity.
− Otherwise, the interaction of stress components
can take place according to the hypothesis of
fully plastic bending stress distribution.
− The criticality of the fusion line and HAZ can be
estimated based on strength decreasing in HAZ,
which can be defined based on hardness values.
− The shortest ligament of the weld is more critical in
bending than in tensile loading (a2/a- resistance).
− Additional bending due to eccentricity and the
fillet weld should be avoided in the weld root.
− Welds with full penetration seem to be safer.
− High and ultra-high strength steels require more
investigation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to thank SSAB, FIMECC Ltd.
and the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation
(TEKES) for their funding in the Breakthrough
Steels and Applications (BSA) program, enabling
the completion of this research. Additionally, the
authors express their gratitude to the IT Center for
Science (CSC) for providing software licenses.
REFERENCES
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design approach for ultimate capacity of welded RHS
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tion and economy of welded structures, Miskolc, Hungary,
24–26 April 2008. Chichester: Horwood Publishing.
Björk, T., Nykänen, T. & Valkonen, I. 2017. On the criti-
cal plane of axially loaded plate structures made of
ultra-high strength steel. Welding in the world 61(1):
139–150.
Björk, T., Toivonen, J. & Nykänen, T. 2012. Capacity of
fillet welded joints made of ultra high-strength steel.
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EN 1993-1−8. 2005. Eurocode 3: Design of steel struc-
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© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Non-uniform stress distribution at weld of CHS-CHS joint and its

effect on failure mode

Y.Y. Chen
Tongji University, Shanghai, China

X. Ma
Tongji University, Shanghai, China
China Construction Eighth Engineering Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China

W. Wang
Tongji University, Shanghai, China

ABSTRACT: Weld fracture of a CHS-CHS joint would occur even though the predicted capacity of
the weld by design codes was not reached. However, such a failure mode was often accompanied by other
failure modes, thus it is not easy to identify the failure mode. By theoretical analysis, on the other hand,
it is found that the local chord wall stiffness adjacent to the brace-to-chord weld is quite different along
its interface, thus the stress induced in the weld is non-uniform when the brace is subjected to tension or
compression. Such a Non-Uniform Stress Distribution (NUSD) may induce the premature fracture at a
local critical spot. X-type CHS-CHS joint specimens, focused on weld fracture failure mode, are designed
and tested. The test results are reported and the failure mechanism is investigated. The test results imply
that the assumption of uniform stress distribution on the weld of CHS-CHS joints may be unsafe.

1 INTRODUCTION 2 SPECIMEN DESIGN AND

Fracture failure modes may emerge in unstiffened
welded tubular joints. Usually, ductile fracture of
the chord wall after excessive plastic deformation
is not critical because the joint ultimate state is
reached before the fracture occurs. On the other
hand, fracture in the weld is unfavorable as a pre-
dominant mode.
In previous laboratory tests, fracture failure of
the weld in joint has been observed (Bolt 1994,
Wang et al. 2000, Qian & Zhang 2015) but usually
accompanied with other failure modes. If other
failure modes happen early, weld fracture fail-
ure may not be considered critical. But it should
be noted that in some cases the predicted weld
strength of circular hollow section (CHS) joint is
beyond the load on the weld when fracture begins
(Wang 2005). So, it is necessary to investigate the
weld failure mechanism, and a proper design pro-
cedure should be forward followed.
This paper reports an experimental study
recently carried out on weld fracture in CHS-CHS
joints. Firstly, the specimen design by which the
weld fracture failure mode could be demonstrated
in tests is explained. Secondly the main test results
are given. Finally, the mechanism of the weld frac-
ture failure is briefly discussed.
PRE-TEST ANALYSIS
In order to make weld fracture the predominant
failure mode and to identify its mechanism eas-
ily, the configuration of joint specimens, load-
ing pattern, restraint condition of the specimens,
and the geometry parameters of the specimens as
well as detailing of the welds should be carefully
determined.
For the configuration of joint specimens, the
X-type joint with braces perpendicular to the
chord member was selected. Though the T-type
joint can be another option, the weld may be
influenced by the moment and shear force on the
chord. The weld connecting the brace and chord in
X-type joint only transfers the axial load applied
on the brace end, which makes the stress analysis
relatively easy.
Monotonic tension on the brace ends is adopted
for the loading pattern. Active load is applied on
the end of the upper brace by an actuator, and the
lower brace is fixed within the loading reaction
frame, thus an inactive tension load is exerted on
the lower brace (Figure 1). The chord ends, how-
ever, are free as shown in Figure  1, therefore no
axial force along the chord axis would exist, to
make the weld stress produced only by brace load.

685
 The key issue is to realize weld fracture as the
predominant failure mode of the specimen for the
purpose of this study. In previous experimental
studies, the existence of several failure modes is
common situation (Makino et  al. 1996). In those
cases, multi-failure modes make it difficult to
clearly identify the mechanism of weld fracture.
Furthermore, when the specimens are with small
scale in the tests, the disproportionately enlarged
weld size would conceal the potential fracture fail-
ure. Thus pre-analysis is carried out in this study
by a so-called D-VGM model developed by the
authors (Ma et  al. 2015). This mechanical model
introduces micro-mechanism related fracture cri-
terion into the damage model proposed by Xue
(Xue 2007, Xue 2009), while considers the effect of
Lode angle to enable both tensile and shear frac-
ture to be simulated. The developed model is coded
as subroutine of software package ABACUS. The
numerical analysis on CHS-CHS joint indicates
Figure 1. The loading pattern and constraint condition
of specimen.
the following phenomena: (1) The happening of
multi-failure modes in certain sequence is common
in most of joint cases, while the uncertainness of
material strength including chord, brace and weld
shall affect the sequence; (2) With the increase of
the diameter to thickness ratio of chord, γ, and
the increase of the brace diameter to chord diam-
eter ratio, β, the weld fracture failure mode tends
to be prioritized, which implies the fact that the
local chord wall stiffness and its distribution on the
chord shall affect the weld resistance.
According to the numerical analysis, the deter-
mined test specimens are with the geometric sizes
and construction details as shown in Table 1 and
Figure 2.
The outer diameters of chord for all joint speci-
mens are the same, so do the out diameters of
braces. Thus parameter β is equal to 0.615 for all
specimens and their perimeter shape and the length
of the weld keep same, which makes the specimens
comparable. There are three thicknesses of the
chord, which affords different values of γ. By the
change of parameter γ, the effect of local chord
wall stiffness can be analyzed. Two specimens are
stiffened. One of them is specimen F-1-2 in which a
round type internal diaphragm is welded inside the
chord corresponding to the center of braces. The
other is specimen FR for which a half pipe is cut
as chord, and a pair of brace members are welded
against in the two sides of the half chord wall. Of
course this specimen is not a ‘normal’ tubular joint,
but can be taken as a fully rigid joint model.
The weld form and its size are also critical for
the specimen design. Current structural design and
fabrication codes and guides specify the weld as a
combination from fillet weld to butt weld along the
interface of the brace to chord wall, according to
the weld location where the angle between brace
and chord wall is changing. However, the weld
form strongly depends on the manufacturers in
engineering practice. Among the eight specimens
listed in Table 1, five adopt fillet weld (FW), two
are butt weld (BW), and one is combined weld

Table 1. Test specimen parameters.

Failure mode Fracture mode

Code Chord Brace γ Weld form Stiffener by code by FEM

F-1-1 Φ273 × 9 Φ168 × 8 15.2 FW No A B

F-1-2 Φ273 × 9 Φ168 × 8 15.2 BW No A C
F-1-3 Φ273 × 9 Φ168 × 8 15.2 FW Inner diaphragm A B
F-2-1 Φ273 × 12 Φ168 × 8 11.4 FW No B B
F-2-2 Φ273 × 12 Φ168 × 8 11.4 BW No B C
F-3-1 Φ273 × 16 Φ168 × 8 8.5 FW No B B
F-3-2 Φ273 × 16 Φ168 × 8 8.5 CW No B Uncertain
FR Φ273 × 16 Φ168 × 8 8.5 FW Fully stiffened B B

686
 Table 2. Mechanical properties measured.

Yield Tensile
Base strength strength
material σy0 (MPa) fu (MPa) σy0/fu Elongation

Φ168 × 8 427.93 626.73 0.68 0.202

Φ273 × 9 413.91 626.53 0.66 0.310
Φ273 × 12 372.21 545.56 0.68 0.312
Φ273 × 16 326.30 537.49 0.61 0.309
Deposit metal 545.70 641.10 0.85 0.245

Figure 3. Fillet weld size.

Table 3. Measured weld size.

Figure 2. The configuration of test specimens. Weld Average Standard

Code form (mm) deviation (mm)

F-1-1 FW 8.34 1.23

(CW). A special case is specimen FR in which FW F-1-2 BW 7.13 1.53
is for upper brace connection while butt weld for F-1-3 FW 7.55 1.17
its lower brace. To guarantee the weld fracture F-2-1 FW 7.71 1.15
being the predominant failure mode, the fillet weld F-2-2 BW 7.37 1.56
size is set as 7  mm, and butt weld is designed to F-3-1 FW 7.50 1.24
have the same outline size as fillet weld. F-3-2 CW 7.04 1.44
There are three potential failure modes for these FR FW 7.08 1.45
specimens: chord wall plastic deformation (Mode
A), weld failure (Mode B), and punch shear fail-
ure (Mode C). The former two can be predicted
The data of each group are the average value by
by current Chinese Steel Structural Design Code
three standard coupons.
(2003) in which however there is no equation for
computation of punch shear failure. While by pre-
analysis, two fracture modes, Mode B and C can be 3.2 Actual weld size
predicted. The predicted failure modes are shown
GC silicone rubber (Putty) was used to make mould
in Table 1. Though the mechanical property data
of weld shape. For each joint specimen, the mould
of previous test were used in pre-analysis, the pre-
was divided into 12 pieces, and the fillet weld sizes,
dicted fracture modes match test results quite well
hf, as shown in Figure 3, were measured by digital
as reported in the following sections.
photos of these pieces. Butt weld and combined
weld were also measured in the same way as refer-
ence. The measured data are listed in Table 3.
3 TEST RESULTS

3.1 Mechanical properties of steel and weld metal
of specimen
The measured mechanical properties of steel pipes
and deposit metal for weld are listed in Table  2.
3.3 Loading procedure and observed phenomena
In the test, the same loading procedure is car-
ried out for all specimens: at first, loading con-
trol pattern is adopted before the one-third of

687
the estimated ultimate load, after then it shifts
to displacement control pattern by drawing
the upper brace till to the failure of the joint
specimen.
By their final failure modes, the specimens
exhibits three typical patterns. One pattern is the
development of chord plastic deformation first
and followed with weld fracture, such as specimen
F-1-1. Second pattern is also the preceded chord
plastic deformation but then punch shear fracture
on the chord wall, such as specimen F-1-2 and
F-2-2, noticing that these two specimen are with
the butt weld along the whole interface perimeter
between brace and chord. The third pattern is weld
fracture without remarkable chord wall deforma-
tion, and the rest five specimens which are with
fillet or combined weld demonstrate this failure
mode.
The specimens F-1-3, F-2-1, F-3-1 and F-3-2 in
which weld fracture is the predominant failure
mode show similar failure process in tests. A slight
click sound was heard when load reached near
to its ultimate, then fine flaw could be visible at
the surface of the saddle point of the weld, and
the cracking extended towards the two side crown
points with continuous pulling of the brace.
Finally the brace where fractured weld broke from
the chord partly or entirely, and the applied load
suddenly dropped. For specimen FR, however,
the broken brace is beneath the half circle chord,
so it was hard to observe the failure process.
Figure 4 shows examples of weld fracture observed
in the test.
Figure  5 through Figure  7 present the load
versus deformation curves of the specimens. In
the figures, the vertical axis is load applied on the
brace, and the horizontal axis is the relative defor-
mation referring to the extension between saddle
point and the center of chord section in the direc-
tion of brace axis. The deformation were measured Figure 4. Failure of specimen.
by four transducers. In the figures, the start of
fracture observed in the test is marked by triangle
symbols. Figure 5 and Figure 6 show the charac-
ters of chord plastic deformation fully developed,
while Figure 7 indicates limited deformation of the
joint where weld fracture is the predominant fail-
ure mode.

3.4 Strain and stress distribution features

The strain of brace, chord wall and weld were
measured in the test. Though strain gauges were
arranged on the weld, it is difficult to obtain pre-
cise data because the weld surface is not flat and
smooth. On the other hand, with the increas-
ing load, the trend of εsaddle  / εaverage and εsaddle –
εcrown between the strains on brace and on weld
surface are absolutely the same as shown in Figure 5. Load-deformation curve of specimen F-1-1.

688
Figure  6. Load-deformation curve of specimen F-1-2
and F-2-2.
Figure 7. Load-deformation curve of other specimens.
Figure 8, before obvious asymmetrical deforma-
tion occurs. In the figure, εsaddle, εcrown and εaverage
represent the average strain of two saddle points,
the average strain of two crown points and the
average strain of all points on brace or weld
respectively.
It can be seen that the strains on brace near
the weld have the similar distribution feature as
that on weld, so we can use the brace strain data
to judge the non-uniform strain distribution of
weld. Figure 9 shows the axial strain around the
brace perimeter. We can see the maximum strain
appears around saddle point while the minimum
around crown point. This strain distribution
feature is accordance with the stress distribu-
tion. Therefore, it can be confirmed that there is
non-uniform stress distribution (NUSD) in the
joint including the weld. The test data and both
the pre- and post-analysis reveal that in weld the
maximum stress occurs at saddle point which is
happened to be the location the weld fracture
initiates.
689
Figure 8. Comparison of distribution of weld strain
and brace strain in the case of specimen F-3-1.
3.5 Ultimate capacity of specimens
Table 4 summarizes the ultimate capacity of speci-
mens by test and by code. In the table, NT refers
the ultimate load by test. However, specimen FR
broke in the weld of low brace most probably due
to the welding quality problem, while fillet weld
connecting the upper brace did not fracture, so it is
deduced the load capacity of fillet weld in this case
should be greater than the specimen ultimate in
test. In the ta-ble, the predicted ultimate by design
code is denoted as NC, NS, and NW, corresponding
to chord plastic failure, punch shear failure and
weld failure respectively.
Here, NC and NW are computed according to the
equations of current Chinese Steel Structural Design
Code (2003), and NS according to CIDECT design
guide (Wardenier et  al. 2008). The measured yield
strength of steel pipe and tensile strength of weld
deposit metal as listed in Table 2 are used when com-
puting the predicted ultimate by design code, and the
measured weld size shown in Table 3 is also adopted.
While the designed resistance of weld, NWD, consid-
ering the strength factor of 0.41, according to Chi-
nese code capacity, is also listed as reference.
 It should be noticed that the equation predicting
weld strength in current Chinese code adopts the
product of whole geometric length and the throat
size of weld as its area. It means that the equation
follows the assumption that the stress uniformly
distributes in the weld.
The average weld stress corresponding to speci-
men ultimate is denoted as fW,T. By the table, it can
be found that fW,T is generally lower than the tensile
strength of deposit metal fu,W. In some cases, the
capacity is even lower by factored design strength
which is equal to 0.41 times tensile strength of
deposit metal according to Chinese code, such as
specimen F-2-1 and F-3-1. Therefore, there is the
risk to estimate the weld strength of CHS-CHS
joint based on the assumption of uniform stress
distribution.

4 MECHANISM OF WELD
FRACTURE FAILURE

4.1 Weld strength and NUSD index

As mentioned in above two sections, weld fracture
failure and its low strength apparently relate to
NUSD. In order to evaluate the degree of NUSD,
an index Tr is introduced in this experimental study.
Tr is computed by Equation (1) in which σcrown and
σsaddle are the stress measured at brace foot against
crown and saddle point respectively, however, the
data corresponding to load level of 100  kN are
taken. If the index is greater than 1, it means that
σcrown is negative. The larger the Tr is, the more dis-
tinguished the NUSD is. Table  4 lists the NUSD
index Tr, and Figure  10 demonstrates the relation
of weld strength with the index. It reveals a clear
tendency that the weld strength shall go down with
the increase of index Tr. For the joint with severe
NUSD, the concentrated stress at saddle point of
weld makes the cracking occur prematurely when
the average stress of the whole weld is keeping in a
low level.
Tr = 1 − σ crown
crown / σ saddle (1)
Figure 9. Non-uniform strain distribution.

Table 4. Ultimate load of specimens and the failure modes.

Failure NT NC NS NW NWD fW,T/

Code Weld form mode (kN) (kN) (kN) (kN) (kN) f u,W Tr

F-1-1 FW A→B 570 562 1135 2017 827 0.28 1.503

F-1-2 BW A→C 863 562 1135 1724 707 – –
F-1-3 FW B 1043 – – 1827 794 0.57 0.911
F-2-1 FW B 684 849 1361 1866 765 0.37 1.361
F-2-2 BW A→C 1575 849 1361 1783 731 – –
F-3-1 FW B 684 1249 1591 1815 744 0.38 1.270
F-3-2 CW B 798 1249 1591 1702 698 0.47 1.230
FR FW+BW B >1200 – – 1712 702 >0.70 0.150

690
Figure 10. The weld strength versus NUSD index.

Figure  11. The conceptual explanation of the chord

wall stiffness change.
4.2 Local chord wall stiffness and NUSD
By studying the relation of geometry and stiffness
details of CHS-CHS joint specimens and their fea-
5 BRIEF DISCUSSION FOR CURRENT
tures of NUSD, it can be found that local chord
DESIGN PROVISIONS
wall stiffness is the key factor affecting the stress
distribution. The local chord wall stiffness here is
NUSD in weld of tubular joint has been well
defined as the capacity to resist the deformation
known for long time. AIJ recommendation (1990)
along the brace axis. The chord with larger diam-
has indicated that NUSD is distinguished in the
eter to thickness ratio γ, needless to say, possesses
weld of tubular joint. Eurocode (2005) requires
less wall stiffness for the unstiffened joint. More
that the weld shall be designed to have sufficient
important thing is that the local chord wall stiff-
resistance to allow for NUSD. For rectangular
ness varies along the interface perimeter of weld
hollow section (RHS) joint, the design guide of
connecting brace and chord. The chord wall has
CIDECT (Packer et al. 2010) suggests to use par-
the biggest stiffness at and near the spot of sad-
tially effective length of weld when computing
dle point, while the weakest at and near the
the weld resistance, which is actually consider the
crown point. The mechanism can be conceptu-
influence of NUSD. However, for CHS joint, the
ally explained by Figure 11. The figure shows the
concept that the entire length of weld is not fully
local deformation of chord wall under unit forces.
effective has not been adopted. Some literatures
The deformation induced by unit forces on crown
only take the chord wall failure, punching failure
point is distinguished larger than that on saddle
and brace local failure as predominant failure
point, indicating the wall stiffness at crown point is
modes for CHS joint (AIJ 1990), and even deem
smaller than that at saddle point.
that no need to compute the weld resistance so
By Table 4 and Figure 10, we can observe that
long as the recognized predominant failure modes
the change of NUSD indexes of specimens reflects
are checked. On the other hand, current Chinese
this characters. Two stiffened joint specimens,
design code (2003) specifies an equation using the
F-1-3 and FR, have relatively less NUSD indexes,
entire length of welds to compute its resistance,
because their chord wall is effectively stiffened by
actually ignoring the influence of NUSD.
inner diaphragm or steel pipe. It proves that the
large and uniform chord wall stiffness make the
stress in weld uniform and the strength of whole
6 CONCLUSIONS
weld towards the material strength.
One thing should be paid attention is that speci-
men F-3-1 with fillet weld (FW) and F-3-2 with 1. Loading test demonstrating the weld fracture
combined fillet and butt weld (CW) exhibit almost failure of CHS-CHS joint was carefully designed
same NUSD in elastic stage and near ultimate and carried out. Predominant weld fracture
capacities. This fact reveals that the weld form mode is able to be observed and analyzed.
does not significantly change the NUSD if the 2. The test results show NUSD shall make prema-
chord wall stiffness is the same, and though CW ture fracture of weld at or near its saddle point,
can obtain somewhat big resistance compared with and lead to lower resistance of the weld. The
FW, premature weld fracture is also possible so uneven local chord wall stiffness is the main
long as the weld size is not big enough. cause of NUSD in unstiffened CHS-CHS joint.

691
3. Equations adopted by current codes to predict
weld strength based on uniform stress assump-
tion shall overestimate the real strength due to
NUSD. The proper design provision need to be
put forwards.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The research presented in this paper was sup-
ported by the Natural Science Foundation of
China (NSFC) through Grant No. 51378380. Any
opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommenda-
tions expressed in this paper are those of the writ-
ers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
sponsors.
REFERENCES
Architecture Institute of Japan. 1990. Recommendations
for the Design and Fabrication of Tubular Structures in
Steel. (in Japanese)
Bolt, H. 1994. Results from large scale ultimate strength
tests of K-braced jacket frame structures. In: Offshore
technology conference. Houston, Texas, USA.
CEN. 2005. Eurocode 1993-1-8: Design of steel struc-
tures-Part 1-8: Design of joints.
Ma, X., Wang, W., Chen, Y., & Qian, X. 2015. Simula-
tion of ductile fracture in welded tubular connections
using a simplified damage plasticity model consider-
ing the effect of stress triaxiality and Lode angle. Jour-
nal of Constructional Steel Research 114:217–236.
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Makino, Y., Kurobane, Y., Ochi, K., Vegte van der, G.J.
& Wilmshurst S. 1996. Database of test and numeri-
cal analysis results for unstiffened tubular joints,
IIW Doc. XV-E-96-220, Kumamoto University,
Kumamoto, Japan.
Ministry of Construction of China. 2003. Code for
design of steel structures. Beijing: GB50017−2003. (in
Chinese)
Packer, J.A., Wardenier, J., Zhao, X.L, van der Vegte, G.J.
& Kurobane, Y. 2010. Design Guide for Rectangular
Hollow Section (RHS) Joints under Predominantly
Static Loading, 2nd Edition.
Qian, X. & Zhang, Y. 2015. Translating the material frac-
ture resistance into representations in welded tubu-
lar structures. Engineering Fracture Mechanics 147:
278–292.
Wang, B., Hu N., Kurobane, Y, Makino Y. & Lie S. 2000.
Damage criterion and safety assessment approach to
tubular joints. Engineering Structures 22(5):424–34.
Wang, W. 2005. Non-rigid behavior of unstiffened circular
tubular joints and their effects on global performance of
steel tubular structures. Tongji University, Shanghai,
China. Doctoral dissertation. (in Chinese)
Wardenier, J., Kurobane, Y., Packer, J. A., et  al. 2008.
Design guide for circular hollow section (CHS) joints
under predominantly static loading. CIDECT series:
Construction with hollow steel section No.1. LSS
Verlag.
Xue, L. 2007. Damage accumulation and fracture ini-
tiation in uncracked ductile solids subject to triaxial
loading. International Journal of Solids and Structures
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Xue, L. 2009. Stress based fracture envelope for damage
plastic solids. Engineering Fracture Mechanics 76(3):
419–438.
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Milling of intersecting contours on tubular structures to avoid

structural changes of the material and meet the requirements for
automated welding

J. Müglitz
ZIS Industrietechnik GmbH, Meerane, Germany

S. Keitel & J. Schuster

SLV Halle GmbH, Halle/Saale, Germany

ABSTRACT: Thermal cutting technologies are the standard for cutting struts of tubular structures.
They are economic, flexible and provide sufficient accuracy. The thermal treatment while cutting produces
changes of the mechanical properties of the material at the cutting flanks and within the heat affected
zone regarding its hardness, toughness and stability. For lower steel grades (S235, S355) these changes
are tolerable and will be eliminated after proper welding. The situation is different for parts made of fine
grained steel. Fine grained steel is widely used for cranes and increasingly used for mobile constructions
and provides high toughness at high stability. Thermal influences of the cutting process can lead to micro-
cracks caused by local softening and grain growth. So the material will lose its defining properties. The
article describes alternatives for cutting using non-thermal processes.

1 INTRODUCTION with very small particle size. The amount of car-

Tubular structures are also used for applications,
where dynamic forces are dominant. Three typical
application fields include:
− Mobile cranes with typical tube diameters from
3 to 400 mm
− Railway, road and pedestrian bridges in diam-
eter range from 100 to 1000 mm
− Offshore applications with typical diameters
greater than 800 mm.
Here fine grained steel grades are often in use.
Reasons therefore:
− High strength, it offers the possibility of tall and
light weight structures,
− High toughness, also at lower temperatures, very
good weldability.
The advantages of fine grained steel grades has
to be paid with higher costs for procurement and
processing. Compared to normal mild steel grades
fine grained steel are lower good-natured. Dur-
ing the welding process a lot of aspects have to be
taken into consideration. The most important will
be emphasized in the following text.
2 MATERIAL PROPERTIES
The high strength and toughness of fine grained
steels is realized by special structural conditions
693
bon is lower than 0.2%. The loss of strength, which
is in correlation to the lower carbon content, is
compensated by other alloying elements, like V, Al,
Nb and Ti, which are in a small percentage within
the heat and called microalloy elements. The result
is a material, where the yield strength is increased
at the expense of the elongation at rupture [Merk-
blatt DVS 0916].
The reserve of plastification is decreasing. This
explains, that the use of fine grained steel makes
only sense and has only advantages at static loads or
at dynamic loads with a very low number of cycles.
At higher number of cycles the high yield
strength of fine grained steels has rarely advan-
tages, also seen at the S-N-curves.
Three types of fine grained steel are in practi-
cal use:
− normalized fine grained steel grades,
− thermomechanical rolled steel grades and
− heat treated steel grades.
The lower the grain size the higher the tough-
ness, so fine grained steel grades have a high tough-
ness, also at low temperatures.
There is another reason for using fine grained
steels: the excellent weldability. One fundamental
reason is the small amount of carbon in the material.
Fine grained steel grades are sensitive to thermal
influences, but, according to tests and experiences,
less than commonly communicated. Thermal
influences means the impact of temperatures
higher than 600oC. Especially thermomechanical
rolled grades, which get their properties on accu-
rate combination of heat treatment and defor-
mation degree are sensitive and can lose these
properties irreversibly by influence of temperature.
For all types of fine grained steel grades there is
the risk of grain growth with a decrease of strength
and toughness. To determine this risk the param-
eter t8/5 is used, which describes the time span for
cooling down from 800 to 500°C.
So it is important to have this situation in mind
and to use manufacturing processes with no or
only a low amount of heat treatment.

3 PROCESSING OF FINE GRAINED

STEEL GRADES

3.1 Cutting the hollow sections

Thermal cutting processes, the industry stand-
ard, are fast, cost-efficient and easy to use at
automatic machines and robots and cover a high
range of metallic materials and geometries. Two
examples: Figure 1 shows a so called stent, a lit-
tle piece to expand and support blood vessels in
the human body. It is a laser cut tube, made from
NiTi-alloy, well known as “memory metal”, with
1.8 mm diameter and cutting kerf only 0,02 mm.
In Figure 2 in contrast there is an oxyfuel cut with
a thickness of 3200  mm and a kerf of around
80 mm.
The thermal cutting processes, like oxyfuel,
plasma and laser cutting, stress the material with
thermal treatment, the material gets a “thermal Figure 2. Oxyfuel cut sample.
history”. The value is different, oxyfuel cutting
passes the most heat and a large area in the mate-
Two opposing trends appear: the more heat
rial, the laser cutting process however passes a
introduced the higher is t8/5 and the danger of
low heat amount and point-shaped into the
grain growth. Slow cooling decreases the danger
material.
of hardening. This can be observed with oxyfuel
cutting.
In reverse with point-shaped heat treatment the
cutting flank cool down very fast, a narrow hard-
ening zone at the flanks is the result and a grain
growth does not occure.
The described effects do not always have volatile
influences. At least with butt weld seams the cut-
ting flanks are melted again and so the hardened
zone is recasted. Therefore generally the welding
creates more heat energy than the cutting process.
There is also a subjective aspect: The temper-
ing colors, generated by thermal cutting are eye-
catching especially at shot blasted parts (Fig.  3)
and unsettle customers and quality inspectors,
although the color indicates only temperatures of
Figure 1. A stent. maximal 500°C.

694
Figure 3. Temper colors.
Figure 4. Plasma marking sample (6A).
3.2 Marking the parts
Parts in the metalworking industry need to be
marked. Printed color markings and labels, read-
able via barcode, are a common way to lead infor-
mation through the manufacturing and assembling
process. After shot blasting, zinc coating and/or
painting the information is lost.
Sometimes it is necessary to mark the part per-
manently in a way, that the marking survives shot
blasting, zinc and color layering. Marking means
here plain-text, letters and numbers (Fig.  4). The
material surface needs to be furrowed or scored,
where normally the plasma process is used.
The plasma current is reduced down to a few
amperes (around 5 to 15A) and the plasma gas is
695
Figure 5. Cross section of plasma marked surface with
different current.
changed to an inert one, like Ar. The result is a
weak but concentrated arc which – at lowest power
– tempers the material or – at higher power –
furrows or scores the material (Fig. 5).
The cross section of the part is hardly influence
so at static loads no influences are to be feared.
This is different for dynamic loads, at mobile
constructions, at cranes, at bridges, at windmill
structures. Metallurgical and geometric notches
arise, which can have significant influences on the
fatigue strength of the part [Kranz 2010].
3.3 Welding
Fine grained steel grades need to be welded “cold”,
so that the heat impact of the material is as low
as possible. In practice this is done by welding in
string bead technique. To get a small pool crater
it is forbidden to oscillate the welding torch. The
welding connection will be generated by many
small (width < 12 mm), smooth welding seams, sit-
uated side by side and above each other generated.
The temperature control while welding is essential
for the quality of the weld.
 The interpass temperature influences the struc-
tural conditions and so the toughness of the weld-
ing connection, should not extend 200°C and
should be at a constant level during the complete
welding process.
The cooling time t8/5 is a measure for the time
dependent progress of the cooling down process
after the weld in the welding seam and in the heat
affected zone. The cooling time describes the time
span between a temperature of 800 and 500°C. If
the cooling time t8/5 is small, i.e. the cooling down
is fast, the hardness increases, especially in the
heat affected zone. At high values of t8/5 the tough-
ness and strength is decreasing because of grain
growth. Typical values for fine grained steel grades
are between around 5 and 15 seconds. Figure 7. Sample 2.
Preheating of the material takes place at temper-
atures of around 100°C, far away of temperatures
which effect structural changes. Preheating costs
time and money and leads to thermally influenced
stress and deformations of the material. But pre-
heated parts help to generate a high quality weld
and avoid the lack of fusion. Preheating guaran-
tees, that the part is dry, so no hydrogen diffusion
and no cold cracks can happen occur.

4 MATERIAL TESTS AND

METALLOGRAPHY

From three sample parts

1. Laser cut, t = 15 mm, S355 J2H (Fig. 6)
2. Plasma cut, t = 12.5 mm, S770 QL (Fig. 7)
3. Oxyfuel cut, propane, t  =  120  mm, S355+AR Figure 8. Sample 3.
(Fig. 8)
macrosections were fabricated. Along the heat
affected zone (HAZ) at each sample the micro hard-
ness was measured. Results are shown in Fig. 9.
As expected the HAZ is smallest at the laser cut
and has a width of around 0.3  mm. The highest
width is seen at the oxyfuel cut part. Here the HAZ

Figure 9. Hardness (measured from the shoulder to the

cut).

is around 2  mm in width. At all macrosections

outside the HAZ the material structure shows no
changes.
At all three samples the increase of the hardness
in direction to the cutting shoulder is comparably
low. Its dimension is in correlation to the width of
the heat affected zone. The significant higher hard-
ness of sample 2 is explained by its high strength
Figure 6. Sample 1. material grade.

696
5 ALTERNATIVE CUTTING TECHNIQUES
Cutting should happen without any thermal
treatment and without a measurable temperature
increase.
The customers internal standard rules also
demand a welding preparation at low wall thick-
nesses (2 to 4 mm). So the flanks of the cut need
to be beveled up to 50  degrees. But higher bevel
angles often create problems during laser cutting
because of grooves at the cutting surface (Fig. 10).
The escaped laser beam inside the tube shape is
defocused, but strong enough to damage the oppo-
site side of the tube.
Even though the amount of thermal energy
with laser cutting is low, this process is not an
alternative.
The obvious solution is water jet cutting. Con-
sidering the accuracy, the kerf dimensions and
the surface of the cut (Fig.  11) it is comparable
or superior to laser cutting. The technique has a
Figure 10. Laser cut flank, d = 12 mm, bevel 45°.
Figure 11. Waterjet flank, d = 5 mm, bevel 45°.
697
mechanical principle, based on an abrasive mate-
rial, like grinding. The costs are high because of
high end equipment, low degree of efficiency and
very low cutting speed. At least at the bottom side
of the plate a water level is necessary, so the tube
needs to be dipped into a water pool. After cutting
the part has to be cleaned and dried. The corrosive
effect of the technique by wetness and humidity
makes it unsuitable for metal working of mild steel.
Milling does not have these disadvantages, espe-
cially, if milling is done dry, i.e. without any cool-
ing or lubrication fluid.
Otherwise the part needs to be washed to
remove all oddments of the fluids before welding.
On the other hand the lower endurance because
of no cooling and greasing of the milling tools are
tolerable.
Machined methods only make sense if there
are technical and/or economic advantages. The
manufacturing of intersecting contours based on
milling, observed as an isolated process, is always
more expensive than with conventional thermal
processes. This is different, if all the manufactur-
ing costs are included. Very often an economical
profit is seen because of:
− Discontinuation of refinishing work, i.e. clean-
ing and grinding the parts (Fig. 12),
− fitting accuracy increased, tolerances of around
0.2 mm,
− higher process safety while welding,
− succeed the requirements of automatic welding.
A microsection through a milled part, CHS 44.5
× 2.9, made by S770QL (Fig. 13), shows that there
is no change of the microstructure on one hand,
the very fine grained struture of the material on
the other hand (Fig. 13).
Figure 12. Plasma cut (left- CHS 48,3 × 2,9) and milled
part (CHS 33,8 × 2,9).
Figure 13. Microsection of a milled part.

6 TWO APPLICATION EXAMPLES

6.1 Braces for mobile crane beams Figure 14. Tube milling machine.

The beams on the top of big crawler cranes, made

by tubular frameworks, are, in spite of high load
capacity, light-weight and delicately designed.
Generally they consist of tubes with low diameter
(30 … 60  mm) and low wall thickness (<5  mm).
Typical steel grades are S460  NH and S770 QL,
geometrical precision and welding quality have
utmost importance.
From the principle point of view each standard
five axis milling machine with a HSC (high speed
cutting) spindle can be used to cut the intersecting
(often also described as figural) shapes. The asset
costs of around 500 000 $ are greatly elected the
economical possibilities within the industry sector
on one hand, on the other hand the properties of
such a machine surpass the needs.
The obvious solution use an—offline pro-
grammed- industrial robot. Tests with a heavy load
robot type (KUKA KR150, 150 kg payload) deliv-
ered the proof of the principal function, but the
cutting accuracy was not as expected and required
to be.
The break-through succeeded with a tailored
machine. A comparably small milling head with
low power (<5 kW) and high revolution speed (up
to 15000/min) is moved by rods, like a marionette, Figure 15. Serial parts produced by milling.
within a small workspace with the dimensions XYZ
50 × 50 × 200 mm. The machine structure itself is
also a framework, a so-called VGT (variable geom- the human skin and eyes. The parts are cut auto-
etry truss) and because of that only normal forces matically from a 12 m tube with an automatic bar
appear inside with an amazing stiffness. The mov- feeder (Fig. 14).
ing masses are low (<50 kg), the motor drives can At the end there is a machine at an island posi-
be installed far away from the milling head and the tion, regarding costs, accuracy and foundation
workspace can be completely covered. This is nec- (there is none) ideal for the demands of metal-
essary, because at each shift around 3  kg of very working branches. The practical effects by switch-
small chips are generated that are dangerous for ing from plasma cutting to milling:

698
− at least identical costs of production, A possible idea is an oxyfuel based prefabrica-
− five times higher accuracy, this saves welding tion with an offset of some millimeters. Oxyfuel
time, cutting is, regarding the wall thickness and the nec-
− no refinishing work, essary bevel angles, the only available technique.
− high process safety enabled operator-free Subsequently the welding preparation is fin-
manufacturing. ished by milling. This line of action will also avoid
the limitation of thermal cutting procedures, where
the cutting shape always needs to be ruled surfaces
6.2 Jacket nozzles (Fig. 16). The U-groove seam, widely used at sub-
merged welding, can make also sense in connec-
Another demands come from the wind energy. tion with the MAG welding process to improve the
Support structures of the type “Jacket” are built reachability of the root (Fig. 16).
like a stool and consist of tube nodes with typi-
cal K-, X- and Y-shape and nozzle diameters of
around 1000 mm [Mueglitz 2015]. As an example 7 CONCLUSIONS
the properties of a typical K-node:
− Main tube diameter : 1422 mm At fine grained steel grades the thermal treatment
− Nozzle diameter : 813 mm in the cutting and welding process should be as low
− Nozzle wall thickness : 34.5 mm as possible to avoid changes of the material prop-
− Intersection angle : 53 deg. erties. Thermal cutting and marking influences
− Seam length : 2940 mm only a small area, at maximum 2  mm away from
− Seam opening angle : 45 deg. the cutting shoulder.
− theoretical seam volume : 1575 cm3 Non-thermal cutting and marking techniques
− practical seam volume : 2400 cm3 can guarantee, that the material has no “thermal
− mass of the welding seam : 18.8 kg history” before welding.
− Average deposition rate : 800 g/h HSC-milling is the preferred technology.
− manual welding time : ∼25 h Hollow sections with small diameter can be
pre-fabricated with much higher geometric accu-
To make the weld economical a robot based pro- racy. So milling became the standard for prefabri-
cedure, based on the MAG welding process, is nec- cation of tubes with a diameter lower than 50 mm.
essary. For an automatic welding process the root For hollow sections with big diameter and wall
gap needs to be—according to our experiences thicknesses milling can, in combination with oxy-
and tests- within a tolerance field of +/−0.5  mm. fuel cutting, increase the fitting accuracy and offer
This is impossible to achieve with thermal cutting new possibilities in welding preparation design,
processes. which both is highly important for automatic,
robot based welding.

REFERENCES

Merkblatt DVS 0916, Metall-Schutzgasschweißen von

Feinkorn-Baustählen, DVS Media GmbH, D-Düssel-
dorf, 2012.
Kranz, B.; Wolski, U.; Müglitz, J.; Krink, V.: Influence of
plasma marking static fatique strength of construction
steels. 63rd Annual assembly & internat.conference
of the International Institute of Welding, Istanbul,
Turkey, 11.-17.07.2010.
Müglitz, J.; Weise, S.; Hermann, J.; Mückenheim, U.;
Büscher, K.A.: Tubular based support structures for
offshore wind turbines. Tubular Structures XV, Pro-
ceedings of the 15th International Symposium and
on Tubular Structures, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 27.-
29.05.2015, CRC Press/Balkema 2301 EH Leiden, The
Figure 16. Tube with U-groove type welding preparation. Netherlands, 2015.

699
 Tubular Structures XVI – Heidarpour & Zhao (Eds)
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-8153-8134-1

Author index

Abu, A. 323 da Silva, A.T. 153, 523 Hua, Y.-X. 45

Ahola, A. 675
Ajamyan, A.N. 467
Alam, M.I. 409
Albareda-Valls, A. 255
Albermani, F. 639
Albero, V. 311, 317
Al-Mahaidi, R. 89, 193, 401
Alrsai, M. 639
Ammons, M. 665
An, K. 263
An, L.H. 583
Asada, H. 271, 279
Ataei, A. 127
Attiah, W. 487
Azhari, F. 305
Azuma, K. 373
Bai, Y. 285
Batuwitage, C. 401
Björk, T. 675
Bononi, E. 215
Bouras, Y. 101
Bradford, M.A. 127
Brugnolli, M. 631
Buchanan, C. 503
Camotim, D. 557
Castiglioni, C.A. 631
Castro, J.M. 51
Chan, T.M. 51, 475, 567
Chang, H.F. 295
Chen, J. 67
Chen, J.B. 51
Chen, M.T. 549
Chen, Y. 647
Chen, Y.Y. 145, 647, 685
Cheng, B. 201, 481
Chiew, S.P. 531, 575
Chowdhury, S. 639
Chu, J.-L. 45
Clifton, G.C. 323
Costa-Neves, L.F. 153
de Lima, L.R.O. 153, 523 Hutchinson, C.R. 625
Dong, Y. 381
Duarte, H.P.C.S.G. 523 Iwashita, T. 373
Elchalakani, M. 77, 83, 401 Javidan, F. 349
Espinós, A. 311, 317 Ji, X.D. 341
Jia, L.J. 381
Fallahi, H. 349 Jian, X.G. 145
Fan, Y. 175 Jiang, J. 531
Farahi, M. 89 Jiang, R. 625
Fawzia, S. 401, 409 Jiao, H. 61
Fehling, E. 583 Jin, Y.F. 575
Ferrarotti, A. 459
Fleischer, O. 185, 215, 595 Kang, L. 539
Kanyilmaz, A. 631
Gad, E.F. 357 Karampour, H. 639
Galazzi, A. 631 Keays, R.H. 17
Gao, F. 415 Keitel, S. 693
Gao, K. 415 Kodikara, J. 625
Gardner, L. 117, 467, 503
Garifullin, M. 165 Lan, X.Y. 475
Ge, H.B. 539 Lang, P. 595
Ghanbari Ghazijahani, T. 61 Lee, C.K. 531, 575
Gilbert, B.P. 639 Lefranc, M. 425
Gladsø, R. 425 Li, C. 201, 481
Goldsworthy, H.M. 357 Li, H.T. 137, 513
Gonçalves, R. 557 Li, M.X. 145
Guerrieiro, L.C.B. 153 Li, W. 439
Lim, J.B.P. 323
Han, L.-H. 45, 341, 439 Lipp, A. 431
Heidarpour, A. 89, 193, 305, Liu, Y.Q. 449
349, 395, 467 Long, R. 539
Heinisuo, M. 165 López-Colina, C. 231
Herion, S. 3, 215, 431, 595 Lou, Y. 201, 481
Hicks, S.J. 323 Lozano, M. 231
Hirano, K. 279
Hojda, R. 631 Ma, D.Y. 341
Hospitaler, A. 311, 317 Ma, X. 685
Hosseini, A. 77, 83 Maristany Carreras, J. 255
Hou, C.-C. 45 Marshall, C. 83
Hrabowski, J. 215 Martins, A.D. 557
Hu, K.H. 647 Mashiri, F.R. 443

701
Mastropasqua, A. 215 Serrano-López, M.A. 231 Wei, Y. 285
McCormick, J. 365, 665 Shaat, A. 487 Wilkinson, T. 605, 615
Mela, K. 165 Sharma, U.K. 323 Wu, A.H. 647
Mirmomeni, M. 395 Singh, K.D. 495 Wu, C. 387
Mohan, M. 605, 615 Stroetmann, R. 27 Wu, X.F. 647
Müglitz, J. 693 Sui, W.N. 263
Musa, I.A. 443 Sun, H.L. 285 Xia, J.W. 295
Suzuki, M. 539 Xing, B. 95
Narendra, P.V.R. 495 Swaddiwudhipong, S. 247 Xu, F. 67
Nassirnia, M. 467 Xu, G.W. 449
Tafsirojjaman, T. 401, 409 Xu, W. 295
Ochi, K. 35 Tanaka, T. 271, 279 Xu, W. 415
Okamoto, M. 271 Tateno, A. 373 Xu, X.B. 647
Ozyurt, E. 333 Thai, H.T. 239
Thambiratnam, D.P. 401 Yamanaka, T. 35
Packer, J.A. 175, 395, 657 Tian, G.H. 295 Yan, D.Q. 449
Pajunen, S. 165 Tong, L.W. 449 Yang, K. 285
Pandey, M. 223 Torres-Don, E. 101 Ye, Y. 45
Pascual, A.M. 317 Tousignant, K. 657 Yi, S. 109
Peter, O.C. 263 Tuominen, N. 675 Young, B. 95, 109, 117, 137,
Piccardo, G. 459 223, 475, 513, 549, 567
Pokharel, T. 357 Ukanwa, K. 323 Yu, J.L. 207
Pradana, M.R. 247 Ummenhofer, T. 431
Zaribaf, S.S. 255
Qian, Q. 201 Valipour, H.R. 127 Zhang, C. 625
Qian, X. 247 Valli, A. 215, 631 Zhao, O. 503
Qian, Y.L. 295 Vellasco, P.C.G. da S. 153, 523 Zhao, X.L. 61, 89, 193, 201,
Qiu, S. 647 Vrcelj, Z. 101 305, 341, 349, 395, 409, 439,
449, 467, 481, 625
Ranzi, G. 459 Wang, D. 439 Zhao, X.Z. 647
Raso, S. 215, 631 Wang, F. 117 Zhu, A.Z. 415
Real, E. 503 Wang, J. 67 Zhu, H.P. 415
Renaud, C. 311 Wang, W. 145, 685 Zhu, J.Y. 567
Romero, M.L. 311, 317 Wang, W. 387 Zhu, L. 285
Wang, Y.C. 207, 231, 311, 333 Zhu, X. 443
Sadeghi, S.N. 193 Wang, Z.F. 263
Sayed-Ahmed, E. 487 Wardenier, J. 185
Scherf, S. 595 Weerasinghe, D. 625
Schuster, J. 693 Wei, D. 365

702