Axial impact behavior of confined concrete filled square steel tubes using fiber reinforced polymer

Existing research on confined concrete filled steel tubular (CCFT) columns has been mainly focused on static or cyclic loading. In this paper, square section CCFT and CFT columns were tested under both static and impact loading, using a 10,000 kN capacity compression test machine and a drop weight testing equipment. Research parameters included bonded and unbonded fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) wraps, with carbon, basalt and glass FRPs (or CFRP, BFRP, and GFRP), respectively. Time history curves for impact force and steel strain observed are discussed in detail. Experimental results show that the failure modes of specimens under impact testing were characterized by local buckling of the steel tube and cracking at the corners, for both CCFT and CFT columns, similar to those under static loading. For both static and impact loading, the FRP wraps could improve the behavior and increase the loading capacity. To analyze the dynamic behavior of the composite columns, a finite element, FE, model was established in LS-DYNA. A simplified method that is compared favorably with test results is also proposed to predict the impact load capacity of square CCFT columns.