Hysteretic behaviour of steel-reinforced concrete-filled rectangular stainless steel tubular specimens

To investigate the hysteretic behaviour of (carbon) steel-reinforced concrete-filled (rectangular) stainless steel tubular (SRCFSST) specimens, lateral cyclic tests were performed on nine SRCFSST or concrete-filled (rectangular) stainless steel tubular (CFSST) specimens. The tests revealed that the rectangular SRCFSST columns suffered slight concrete damage due to the confinement of the carbon profiled steel (CPS). The use of CPS made the hysteretic loops of the composite columns plumper. The lateral carrying capacity, ductility index, energy dissipation coefficient, cumulative dissipated energy, and flexural stiffness of the composite specimens increased by an average of 25.3 %, 13.4 %, 16.1 %, 71.8 %, and 88.4 %, respectively. A finite element (FE) model of the rectangular SRCFSST specimen was constructed to analyse the influence of the CPS and the parametric effects on its hysteretic performance. The FE parametric analysis reveals that increasing the stainless steel ratio, carbon steel ratio, material strength, or rotation radius significantly increases the bearing capacity of the SRCFSST specimen. Finally, the lateral load versus displacement hysteretic models of the rectangular SRCFSST specimen were refined.