International Conference on

Seismic Design of Industrial Facilities

2013, RWTH Aachen University

Seismic Performance of Concrete-Filled Steel

Tubular (CFST) Structures

Lin-Hai Han*, Wei Li

Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University
Beijing, 100084, China
*
lhhan@tsinghua.edu.cn

ABSTRACT:
Concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) consists of outer steel tube and concrete in-filled,
which combines the merits of steel and concrete. This kind of composite member
has various advantages, i.e., high strength and high ductility, favorable cyclic
behaviour, high fire resistance and excellent constructability, have been recognized
all over the world. Nowadays CFST has been widely used in construction,
including many industrial facilities. This paper gives a brief review on the
investigations of seismic behaviour of CFST members, joints, planar frames,
hybrid walls and high-rise buildings, especially in China. The development of
concrete-filled steel tubular members' family is introduced. Some industrial
projects utilizing CFST members are also presented.

Keywords: Concrete-filled steel tube, Members, Joints, Structural systems,

Seismic behaviour

1 Introduction
In concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) members, steel and concrete are used such
that their natural and most prominent characteristics are taken advantage of. The
behaviour of the composite member will be better than the simple combination of
two materials. In addition, there is no need for the use of shuttering during concrete
construction, and the construction cost and time are therefore reduced. These
advantages have been widely recognized and have led to the extensive use of CFST
structures [1].
Fig. 1(a) shows a typical CFST cross-section, where the concrete is filled in a
circular hollow section (CHS). The square hollow section (SHS) and the
rectangular hollow section (RHS) are also widely used in construction. Other cross-
sectional shapes have also been used for esthetical purposes, such as polygon,
round-ended rectangular and elliptical shapes. Besides the common concrete-filled
steel tubes, there are other types of "general" member designation in the CFST
family. Some of them are shown in Fig. 1 as follows: concrete-filled double skin

S. Klinkel et al. (Eds.), Seismic Design of Industrial Facilities, 361

DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-02810-7_30, © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2014
362 L.-H. Han, W. Li

steel tube (CFDST) (Fig. 1 (b)) [2], concrete-encased concrete-filled steel tube
(Fig. 1 (c)) [3], reinforced concrete-filled steel tube (Fig. 1 (d)). Besides being used
as single elements in construction, various combinations of concrete-filled steel
tubular members are also used. For instance, the hollow steel tubes can be used to
form a latticed member, as shown in Fig. 1 (e) [4]. Moreover, due to architectural
or structural requirements, inclined, tapered or non-prismatic members have been
used [5]. Research results for these columns have shown that the steel tube and the
concrete can work together well, despite the inclined angle, the tapered angle or the
curvature of the member.

Steel tube Steel tubes Steel tube Steel tube

Concrete Steel Hollow steel tube
Concrete

Reinforcement Concrete CFST

Concrete
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Figure 1: General CFST cross sections

Some recent research work on the seismic performance of CFST structures in

China is summarized in this paper. The investigations on members, joints, planar
frames, hybrid walls and high-rise buildings are reviewed. Some examples of
industrial facilities using CFST structures are also presented.

2 Seismic performance of CFST structures

M
2.1 Members B
My D 4 C
Numerous investigations have been 3 1 Kp
conducted for concrete-filled steel Ms A
tubes under cyclic loading, and several 5′ 2′
K
state of the art reports or papers were O φy φ
also published on CFST structures [1]. 2 5
It has been demonstrated that this kind A′
of composite member has excellent 3′
ductility and energy dissipating C′ 4′ B 1′ D
capacity.
Figure 2: Moment versus curvature
For the moment versus curvature relationship for circular CFST [7]
response and the lateral load versus
lateral displacement relationship, hysteretic models were proposed for the cyclic
response based on parametric studies, as shown in Fig. 2. Key parameters such as