Connection and flexural behaviour of steel RHS filled with high strength concrete

Steel hollow section members filled with concrete have been frequently used in recent construction industry as columns and beams and beam-columns because of their superior performance and constructability. Previous research demonstrated that such system has large energy absorption capacity which is critical in the event of an earthquake. By filling steel RHS with concrete, the failure of the steel shell due to local buckling can be delayed and the ductility of the concrete core can be improved as a result of the confinement of the steel shell. This type of composite section may be used in various structures including frames of high rise buildings, bridges, offshore structures, cast-in-situ piles in foundation etc. Design methods for concrete-filled steel tubular sections are recommended in a number of code of practices. Due to the significant differences in the material properties between normal strength concrete and high strength concrete, there is a need to study the behaviour of composite sections with higher strength concretes. The study emphasises ultimate strength, ductility, post-failure strength reserve and interface bond. It also emphasises ductility and post-failure strength of the composite beams due to the brittle behaviour of higher strength concretes when compared to normal strength concrete. Spreadsheet graph were used to present the results such as load versus strains, load versus deflections etc. In this thesis analytical study is presented on the calculation of ultimate moment of resistance of the concrete-filled RHS beams. Among the main considerations of the derivation, the steel portion was assumed either elastic-perfectly plastic or perfectly plastic and concrete carries no strength in the tensile zone. At the interface both full bond and partial bond were assumed for comparison. Efforts were also made to calculate the midspan deflections of the composite beams. Simple analytical expressions derived from this study can be coded to a prgrammable calculator or in a small spreadsheet program for design use. Finite element studies were carried out by using a proprietorship software package ANSYS. In the analysis of concrete-filled, three types of elements with large deformation and nonlinear capabilities were used. A plastic shell element, a solid concrete element with cracking and crushing capabilities, and a nonlinear spring contact element were used to model the steel shell, the concrete core and the interface respectively