Experimental behaviour of pre-compressed concrete-filled stainless steel tubular columns subjected to transverse impact loads

This paper presents the analysis and design of concrete filled stainless steel tubular column under impact load with pre-compressive condition. A comprehensive test program has been carried out recently at the University of Western Sydney and University of Wollongong to investigate the performance of pre-compressive stainless steel concrete filled steel tube (CFST) columns subjected to impact loading. At the same time, material tests using Split Hopkinson's Bar apparatus were also conducted at Hunan University, China. These test results are reported in this paper, where the performance of pre-compressive stainless steel CFST columns is compared with that of mild steel CFST columns. The main objective of this paper is to compare the performance of stainless steel CFST column with mild steel CFST column. Moreover, the behaviour of in-filled tubes under impact loading with pre-compressive load is also compared with that of hollow sections. Generally, the stainless steel specimens showed improved energy-dissipating behaviour compared with mild steel counterparts, especially when concrete was used to fill the hollow tubes.