Confinement effects and slenderness limits for square concrete-filled steel columns using high strength steel

High strength quenched and tempered structural steel whilst having quite significant benefits for strength is essentially only economical for niche applications to solve uniquely specific structural problems. More importantly, whilst the term high strength is used, high performance steels is the term becoming more widely utilised and accepted as a method of identifying the material. High performance includes improved strength, durability, fire resistance as well as other improved physical and chemical properties. This paper presents an extensive study on the interaction between slenderness limits and confinement effects for high strength steel square concrete filled steel columns. High strength structural steel is an attractive material which can provide significant benefits when applied to the design of concrete filled columns in multi-storey buildings. In order to optimise the use of high strength structural steel it is important to understand the local buckling and confinement effects of this type of material. This paper provides both an extensive set of experiments and a numerical model which has also allowed the development of simplified design procedures to be developed.