Flexural behaviour of optimised steel tubular beams partially filled with concrete

A partially concrete-filled steel tubular beam (PCFST) is proposed in this study to optimise the design and construction of the concrete-filled steel tubular beams (CFST). Concrete filling prevents the local buckling of the slender tubes. However, it is not needed in the beam's tension zone. Therefore, in PCFST, concrete is filled in the compression zone while the tension zone is kept empty. In this paper, the flexural behaviour of the PCFST beam is studied experimentally and numerically. The ultimate moment resistance and flexural stiffness of PCFST are the same as CFST beams, while the weight reduction in PCFST is up to 60%. A finite element (FE) model is developed using ABAQUS software to investigate the effect of geometric and material properties of the PCFST beam on flexural behaviour. The FE model is validated by the present test results and the literature reports on CFST beams. Next, a parametric study is conducted to study the effect of concrete wall thickness in the web region, length-to-depth ratio, steel yield strength, concrete compressive strength, and beam shear span-to-depth ratio. The results show that the concrete filling is useful for slender steel tubular cross-sections rather than compact ones. A higher grade of concrete increases the beam ductility, while high-strength steel reduces the ductility. The results also show that the PCFST beam is more suitable for beam lengths where flexure is predominant than shear. Further, a flexural capacity equation is proposed for PCFST beams, and it agrees well with the test and numerical results. The reliability of the proposed equation is checked as per the recommendation in EN:1994-2004 and AISC 360-2016 code provisions.