Nonlinear Buckling Analysis of H-Type Honeycombed Composite Column with Rectangular Concrete-Filled Steel Tube Flanges

This paper was concerned with the nonlinear analysis on the overall stability of H-type honeycombed composite column with rectangular concrete-filled steel tube flanges (STHCC). The nonlinear analysis was performed using ABAQUS, a commercially available finite element (FE) program. Nonlinear buckling analysis was carried out by inducing the first buckling mode shape of the hinged column to the model as the initial imperfection with imperfection amplitude value of L/1000 and importing the simplified constitutive model of steel and nonlinear constitutive model of concrete considering hoop effect. Close agreement was shown between the experimental results of 17 concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) specimens and 4 I-beams with top flanges of rectangular concrete-filled steel tube (CFSFB) specimens conducted by former researchers and the predicted results, verifying the correctness of the method of FE analysis. Then, the FE models of 30 STHCC columns were established to investigate the influences of the concrete strength grade, the nominal slenderness ratio, the hoop coefficient and the flange width on the nonlinear stability capacity of SHTCC column. It was found that the hoop coefficient and the nominal slenderness ratio affected the nonlinear stability capacity more significantly. Based on the results of parameter analysis, a formula was proposed to predict the nonlinear stability capacity of STHCC column which laid the foundation of the application of STHCC column in practical engineering.