The structural performance of axially loaded CFST columns under various loading conditions

Concrete filled steel tube (CFST) structures have been used widely in high-rise buildings and bridges due to the efficiency of structurally favourable interaction between the steel tube and the concrete core. In the current design codes only one loading condition in the column members is considered, i.e., the load is applied on the steel tube and concrete core at the same time. However, in engineering practice the tube structures may be subjected to various loading conditions such as loading on the concrete core only, preloading on the steel tube skeleton before filling of concrete core, and so on. In this research, a series of comparative experiments were carried out to study the structural performance of concrete filled circular steel tube columns subject to four concentric loading schemes. Then, a generalized prediction method is developed to evaluate the ultimate load capacity of CFST columns subject to various loading conditions. It is shown that the predictions by the proposed method agree well with test results.