Behavior of concrete filled aluminum square and rectangular hollow section columns under axial loads : experimental and analytical study

Abstract EN

The research presents experimental results square and rectangular aluminum tube columns filled with concrete and analyze these results by finite element method.

The studied parameters included the depth to wall thickness ratio (D/t), slenderness ratio of the aluminum tube and concrete core compressive strength.

The experimental work included testing of twenty five composite concrete-filled aluminum columns subject to axial load.

The depth to thickness ratio of the square and rectangle hollow columns ranged from 25 to 62.5.

The column length to depth ratio ranged from 3 to 10.

Different filled concrete strengths of 25, 40 and 60 MPa were used.

The column strengths, load-axial shortening relationship, load-lateral deformation relationship and failure modes of columns were presented and discussed.

The experimental results showed that; the ultimate load of hollow and filled columns increases with the decrease of the depth/ thickness ratio.

The compressive strength exhibited very clear effect on the strength of columns filled with concrete.

Three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis has been used to conduct the analytical investigation; ANSYS (version 12.0) computer program was used in this study.

This model was validated by comparison of the experimental and numerical results of ultimate load, load-deformation curves and their corresponding modes of collapse.

The analytical results from modeling in ANASYS program exhibited a good agreement with experimental results.