Experimental behaviour of recycled aggregate concrete filled steel tubular columns

This paper describes a series of tests on steel tubular columns of circular and square section filled with normal concrete and recycled aggregate concrete. Thirty specimens, including 24 recycled aggregate concrete filled steel tubular (RACFST) columns and 6 normal concrete filled steel tubular (CFST) columns, were tested to investigate the influence of variations in the tube shape, circular or square, concrete type, normal concrete and recycled aggregate concrete, and load eccentricity ratio, from 0 to 0.53 on the performance of such composite columns. The test results show that both types of filled columns failed due to overall buckling. Comparisons are made with predicted ultimate strengths of RACFST columns using the existing codes, such as ACI 318-1999, AIJ-1997, AISC-LRFD-1999, BS5400-1979, DBJ13-51-2003 and EC4-1994. A theoretical model for normal CFST columns is adopted in this paper for RACFST columns. The predicted load versus deformation relationships are in good agreement with test results.