Eccentric strength and design of RC columns strengthened with SCC filled steel tubes

Self-compacting Concrete Filled steel Tubes (SCFT), which combines the advantages of steel and concrete materials, can be applied to strengthen the RC columns. In order to investigate the eccentric loading behavior of the strengthened columns, this paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation on them. The experimental results showed that the use of SCFT is interesting since the ductility and the bearing capacity of the RC columns are greatly improved. And the performance of strengthened columns is significantly affected by four parameters: column section type (circular and square), wall thickness of the steel tube, designed strength grade of strengthening concrete and initial eccentricity. In the numerical program, a generic fiber element model which takes in account the effect of confinement is developed to predict the behavior of the strengthened columns subjected to eccentric loading. After the fiber element analysis was verified against experimental results, a simple design formula based on the model is proposed to calculate the ultimate eccentric strength. Calibration of the calculated results against the test results shows that the design formula closely estimates the ultimate capacities of the eccentrically compressed strengthened columns by 5%.