Validation of a general design procedure for the transverse impact capacity of steel columns

There has been considerable interest over the past decade in the transverse impact response of steel columns and composite steel-concrete columns. While several researchers have developed analytical procedures for specific types of steel sections, a unified design approach has yet to be established. The present paper develops a generalised rigid-plastic procedure to calculate the design transverse impact capacity for a wide range of steel and composite column sections. The design procedure is specifically developed to align with current international hot-rolled steel design specifications, including those in Australia, North America, the European Union and China. A database of 320 impact experiments is collated from the literature, and used to validate the general design procedure. It is demonstrated that the procedure provides robust transverse impact capacity predictions for solid rectangular steel sections, steel I-sections, circular and rectangular steel hollow sections, concrete filled circular and rectangular steel hollow sections and concrete filled double skin steel hollow sections. In some cases stainless steel members were additionally included.