Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082

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Journal of Constructional Steel Research

Numerical modelling of engineered cementitious composites-concrete

encased steel composite columns
M.K.I. Khan a,⁎, C.K. Lee a, Y.X. Zhang b
a
School of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of New South Wales, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
b
School of Engineering, Western Sydney University, NSW 2751, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Recently, a new section form of concrete encased steel composite columns with Engineered Cementitious Com-
Received 21 February 2020 posites (ECC) confinement (ECC-CES), which outperforms conventional CES columns in terms of failure behav-
Received in revised form 24 March 2020 iour, ductility and toughness has been introduced. Numerical modelling of the post-peak behaviours of such
Accepted 3 April 2020
encased composite columns is a challenging task due to brittle failure of concrete, interface bond failure and
Available online xxxx
buckling of steel section. This study presents a finite element modelling procedure for the ECC-CES columns.
Keywords:
Both material and geometric nonlinearities are incorporated in the model and inelastic behaviour of ECC, con-
Finite element modelling crete and steel were described by using appropriate material constitutive laws. Moreover, effects of initial geo-
Steel-PVA hybrid fibre ECC metric imperfections, contact interactions and confinement by steel and ECC encasement on concrete core
Concrete damaged plasticity were considered. Concrete damaged plasticity model was employed to describe the failure of ECC and concrete.
ECC-CES columns The FE model was validated against experimental results and found to give good predictions of compressive be-
Axial compression haviour of ECC-CES columns compared with the test results. Finally, a small scale parametric study was con-
High strength concrete ducted using the validated numerical model to study the effect of the materials' strength on the column
compressive behaviour.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Concrete encased steel composite columns (CES) are commonly
used for high strength and heavy loading applications such as high
rise buildings, bridges and infrastructure. They offer higher strength,
stiffness and ductility with smaller and lightweight cross-section
when compared with reinforced concrete (RC) columns. When com-
pared with steel and concrete filled steel tube columns, concrete en-
casement provides fire and corrosion protection and delays the local
buckling of steel [1–6]. Typically, there are two configurations of CES
columns including fully encased steel columns (C1, Fig. 1a), in which
the steel section is embedded in the concrete and partially encased
steel columns (C2, Fig. 1b), in which concrete is infilled between the
steel flanges [1,7,8].
Conventionally, CES columns are constructed with normal strength
concrete (NSC, f'c b 50 MPa). Using high strength concrete (HSC) in
CES columns can lead to many benefits like higher strength and stiffness
and a smaller cross-section size. Therefore, focus of recent researches
have been gradually shifting towards increasing the strength of CES col-
umns using HSC [1–4,9,10]. Several experimental [1–4,10,11],
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: khubaib.khan@student.adfa.edu.au (M.K.I. Khan).
numerical [1,9,12,13] and analytical [13–15] studies have been con-
ducted to investigate the compressive behaviour CES columns with
HSC. It was reported that CES columns with HSC could not develop plas-
tic section capacity due to premature concrete spalling and suffered ex-
plosive brittle failure. Consequently, it reduced the column's bearing
capacity and long-term durability by exposing the embedded steel
[5,8,16].
Recently a new method to confine CES columns with engineered ce-
mentitious composites (ECC) skin has been introduced to control the
early crushing, explosive spalling and brittle failure of HSC under com-
pression [8,16,17]. ECC is a ductile cementitious composite which pos-
sesses higher tensile (ε ≈ 0.4–3%) and compressive (ε ≈ 0.38–0.6%)
ductility than conventional concrete [8,16,18,19]. In order to simplify
the cross-section design and detailing process, no steel reinforcement
was used. It was reported that the use of ECC could effectively control
explosive spalling of HSC and improve the compressive response of
ECC-concrete encased steel (ECC-CES) composite columns. Moreover,
with sufficient ECC confinement, plastic section strength could be
achieved [8,17].
Since ECC-CES column is a newly introduced section design (Fig. 2),
no detailed numerical models are available in the literature. Numerical
methods such as finite element analysis, are powerful and effective al-
ternative to costly experiments and a handy tool for predicting the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcsr.2020.106082
0143-974X/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082

Fig. 1. Typical configurations of CES columns (a) concrete fully encased steel (C1),
(b) concrete partially encased steel (C2).

Fig. 2. Division of ECC-CES cross-section (a) C1, (b) C2 ECC: Engineered cementitious
composites; PCC: Partially confined concrete; HCC: Highly confined concrete.

response and behaviour of structural elements under different loadings.

The main aim of this study is to develop a reliable numerical model to
predict the compressive response of ECC-CES columns with compact
steel sections. Modelling of high strength encased composite columns
is a relatively complex task. One of the challenges is the modelling of
the post-peak behaviours which include sudden failure and expansion
of HSC, concrete-steel interface bond failure and local buckling of steel
Fig. 4. Equivalent lateral pressure by ECC and steel due to crushed concrete dilation.

120
(ε'c, f'c) UCC
100
PCC
Stres s (MPa)

80 HCC
60
Stres s

(εc, 0.45f'c)
40

20

(εcu, fcu) 0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015
Strain Strain, mm/mm
(a) Compressive (b) *90 MPa UCC, PCC and HCC

(ε'tc, f'tc)
Stres s

(εtu, ftu)

Strain
(c) Tensile

Fig. 3. Stress-strain graphs of concrete *Lateral pressure by 20 mm thick cover of 90 MPa ECC and universal column 100-UC-14.8 (tf = 7 mm, l = 47 mm, fy = 377 MPa).
 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082 3

1.3 section. Therefore, inelastic behaviour of all components must be con-

ECC-HSC [17] Mander [24]
1.25 sidered using appropriate material models. The effects of different
Légeron [25] Richart [26]
1.2 boundary conditions, mesh sizes and contact interface formulation
1.15 were evaluated to select most appropriate solutions. Moreover, effects
of initial geometric imperfection of the steel section and confinement
kσ,p

1.1
effects of ECC and steel on core concrete were also included. The finite
1.05
element (FE) modelling software ABAQUS [20] was employed.
1 The proposed FE model was validated against the experimental
0.95 results on ECC-CES columns [17] in terms of initial stiffness, failure
0.9 mode, ultimate strength and load-deformation responses. By using
0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 the validated model, individual contributions of different compo-
f'l/f'c nents were extracted from FE analysis results. A study was also con-
ducted to investigate the variation of confinement factors with
Fig. 5. Comparison of kσ,p for ECC confined concrete calculated from different models ECC: different strength of materials. Finally, a small scale parametric
90 MPa; HSC: 90 MPa; Column width (B) to ECC cover thickness (t) ratio: 5.5 to 11. study was conducted by using the validated FE model to investigate
the effects of an extended range of material strengths on the column
compressive behaviours.

(εEtu, f'Et)
(ε' Ec, f'Ec)

(εcr, fcr)
Stres s (σ)
Stres s

(εEc,
0.45f'Ec) (εEcu, fEcu)
(εEcf, fEcf)

(εE, fE)

Strain Strain (ε)

(a) Compressive (b) Tensile

Fig. 6. Stress-strain graphs of ECC.

(εy, fy) (εu, fy) (εyp, fyp) (εu, fu)

(εel, 0.8fy)
Stres s

Stress

Strain Strain
(a) EPP model (b) Tri-linear model

(εp, fy)

(εu, f u) (εy, fy) (εu, fu)

(εy, fy)
(εp, f p)
Stres s

Stress

Strain Strain
(c) Tri-linear model with yield plateau (d) Non-linear model

Fig. 7. Stress-strain graphs for steel.

4 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082

900 2.1. Concrete under uniaxial compression

750 In this study, the compressive stress-strain model proposed by

Carreira and Chu [21] was adopted as given by Eq. (1).
Compres s ive Load (kN)

600

0 εc
fc β
ε0c
450 fc ¼
 ð1Þ
εc β
Test Result β−1 þ
300 εc0
Tri-linear model
EPP Model
where f'c and ε'c are peak compressive stress and corresponding strain of
150 Tri-linear (yield plateau) model unconfined concrete (UCC), respectively. Factor β controls shape of the
Non-Linear model curve and is given by Eq. (2).
0
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 β ¼ 0:115f c þ 1 ð2Þ
Axial Shortening (mm)
Wee et al. [22] reported that Eq. (1) does not adequately represents
Fig. 8. Comparison of numerical analysis results for different steel models. the post-peak behaviour of HSC and suggested two correction factors k1
and k2 to describe the post-peak response such that:


0 εc
2. Constitutive laws k1 f c β
ε0c
fc ¼
 ð3Þ
Using correct materials properties is critical to accurately predict the ε c k2 β
k1 β−1 þ
response of structural members [9]. In ECC-CES columns, confinement ε0c
provided by ECC and steel affects the stress-strain response of partially !3
confined concrete (PCC) and highly confined concrete (HCC) under 50
k1 ¼ 0 ð4Þ
compression (Fig. 2). fc

Fig. 9. Geometric modelling of ECC-CES columns.

 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082 5

900
(τn, τs, τt)

750

Compres s ive Load (kN)

Traction (T)
600

450
k
300
(δn, δs, δt) Test Result No Imp L/1000

Separaon (δ) 150

L/2000 L/5000 L/10000

Fig. 10. Traction-separation law for cohesive model. 0

0 5 10 15 20 25
Axial Shortening (mm)
!1:3
50
k2 ¼ 0 ð5Þ Fig. 12. Comparison of numerical analysis results for different imperfection factors.
fc

For any given value of f'c and ε'c, complete stress-strain curve
(Fig. 3a) can be developed using Eqs. (1)~(5).
In ECC-CES columns, the core concrete is confined by ECC cover and
steel section and was divided into PCC and HCC (Fig. 2). Although the
ECC's confinement has insignificant effect on strength enhancement,
ductility of confined concrete is improved [16]. Thus, the confined prop-
erties are required to be incorporated in the numerical model [1,12,14].
The peak compressive stress and corresponding strain for PCC and HCC
are given by Eqs. (6)~(9).
0 0
f c;p ¼ kσ ;p f c
0 0
f c;h ¼ kσ ;h f c
ε 0c;p ¼ kε;p ε0c
Fig. 4b) was used for highly confinement factors. Khan et al. [17]
reported that the average lateral strain of compact steel flanges at
peak load was between 0.37–0.4εy which was comparable to re-
ported values [14]. It was assumed that increased Poisson's ratio
of crushed concrete activated confinement near the peak load
[23]. The lateral pressure by ECC skin (f'l,E, Eq. (10)) was calculated
using the equilibrium of forces as shown Fig. 4a. Similarly, lateral
pressure by steel section (f'l,s, Eq. (11)) was computed by equating
the applied moment at the flange-web connection due to concrete
dilation pressure and the moment generated by bending stresses in
ð6Þ
the flanges [14]. The lateral stress level of steel flanges was as-
sumed at 0.375fy [14,17].
ð7Þ
0 0
f l;E ¼ 2f Et =ðB=t Þ ð10Þ
ð8Þ

0 2
ε 0c;h ¼ kε;h ε0c ð9Þ f l;s ¼ t 2f f y =6l ð11Þ

where kσ and kε are confinement factors to increase the peak stress and
strain of confined concrete and the subscripts “p” and “h” denote the
PCC and HCC, respectively.
The partial confinement factors are calculated using lateral
pressure by ECC skin only (Eq. (10), Fig. 4a) whereas the total lat-
eral pressure by ECC skin (Eq. (10)) and steel section (Eq. (11),
where B is larger width of column section, t is ECC cover thickness, tf is
flange thickness, l is half of flange width minus web thickness, f'Et is
ECC's tensile strength and fy is steel's yield strength.
The confinement efficiency on concrete core is influenced by several
factors such as confining material, configuration, concrete grade, section
size, shape and scaling effects. Different models had been proposed to

Fig. 11. Deformed shapes of bare steel column from (a) experiment [17], (b) first buckling mode (Scale = 1:20), (c) FEA with imperfection (imperfection factor = L/2000), (d) FEA without
imperfection.
6 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082

3000 2.2. Concrete under uniaxial tension

E90S350-Test 10 mm

2500 15 mm 20 mm Although the behaviour of short ECC-CES composite columns under

25 mm 30 mm predominant concentric compression is not very much affected by the
Compres s ive Load (kN)

2000 tensile properties of concrete, they are required for complete material
definition in concrete damaged plasticity (CDP) model. Several models
1500 are available for defining tensile behaviour of concrete based on crack
width, strain and fracture energy criteria [9,12,28]. This study adopted
1000 the strain-based model reported by Hassan [28]. The model assumes
linear behaviour up to cracking of concrete at tensile strength whereas
500
post-cracking softening behaviour is represented by an exponential
function as shown in Fig. 3c and Eq. (14).
0
8
0 3 6 9 12 15
< εEc
> "
0bε ≤ε0tc
 #
Axial Shortening (mm)
ft ¼ 0 ε−ε0tc β1 ð14Þ
>
: f tc exp − ε0tc bε ≤εtu
α1
Fig. 13. Mesh sensitivity analysis.

In Eq. (14), f'tc is the tensile strength of concrete which can be taken
calculate the confinement factors kσ and kε for different materials as 0.504√(f'c) [29] and ε'tc = f'tc/Ec is the corresponding strain. ε'tu =
[24–27]. In order to choose an appropriate model for ECC confined con- 25ε'tc is the ultimate tensile strain. The factors α1 = 0.00035 and β1 =
crete in short columns, kσ values from different models were compared 0.85 control the shape of post-cracking curve [28]. Ec is the modulus of
with the ECC-HSC test results reported in [17]. Fig. 5 shows that the elasticity of concrete given by Eq. (15) [30].
model developed by Richart et al. [26] for active hydraulic confinement
to concrete cylinders gave the closest prediction. Its kσ and kε values
are given by:
3000
E90S350-Test
!
0 2500 Fix End Condion
fl
kσ ¼ 1 þ k3 0 ð12Þ
fc
Compres s ive Load (kN)

Pin End Condion

2000

!
0 1500
fl
kε ¼ 1 þ k4 0 ð13Þ
fc
1000

The factors k3 and k4 depend on the mix design of concrete and lat- 500
eral pressure and their values are taken as k3 = 4.1 and k4 = 3 k3 so
that it will provide a best match to the test results [26]. 0
For confined concretes, the values of f'c,p, f'c,h, ε'c,p and ε'c,h calculated 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
by using Eqs. (6)~(9) were used in Eqs. (1)~(5) to develop complete Axial Shortening (mm)
stress-strain curves. Fig. 3b shows typical curves for UCC, PCC and HCC (a)
for a 90 MPa concrete.
δ1= δ2=0

3000
E90S350-Test
2500 No Element Deleon
Compres s ive Load (kN)

Default Criteria (100% Degradaon)

2000
75% Degradaon

1500

1000

500
δ1= δ2= δ3=0
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 (b)
Axial Shortening (mm)
Fig. 15. (a) Effect of end support conditions on FE analysis results, (b) Support conditions
Fig. 14. Effect of element deletion criteria on FE analysis results. used in this study.
 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082 7

Fig. 16. Cross-sections of tested columns in reference study [17] (a) bare steel (in mm), (b) controls ECC/HSC-steel, (c) ECC-CES (C1), (d) ECC-CES (C2), (e) ECC-HSC.

qffiffiffiffiffi 8  
 
0 >
> 0 ε ε
Ec ¼ 3320 f c þ 6900 ð15Þ >
> f α 2 1− þ 1 0bε ≤ε0Ec
>
>
Ec
ε0Ec ε0Ec
>
<

0 0
ε−ε0Ec
f Ec ¼ f Ec þ f Ecu −f Ec 0 ε0Ec bε ≤εEcu ð16Þ
>
> ε −ε

ε−ε 
Ecu
>
>  Ec
2.3. ECC under uniaxial compression >
>
>
: f cu þ f Ecf − f Ecu
Ecu
εEcu bε ≤ε Ecf
εEcf −εEcu
The hybrid fibre ECC with blend of low modulus fibres such as poly-
vinyl alcohol (PVA) and high modulus fibres such as steel has been used where f'Ec, fEcu and fEcf are the peak, ultimate and failure strengths of ECC
by researchers to achieve a balanced strength and ductility enhance- and ε'Ec, εEcu and εEcf are their corresponding strains, respectively
ment in high strength matrix [16,17,31]. Addition of steel fibres im- (Fig. 6a). The factor α2 controls the shape of ascending branch [31]
proves the fire performance of ECC material and significantly reduces and is given by:
the crack width, decreasing the permeability and improving the ECC's 0

EiE ε0Ec =f Ec −1
long term durability. Consequently, the steel-PVA hybrid fibre ECC has α2 ¼ 0
ð17Þ
better crack resistance, better damage control, tighter micro-cracks, 1− 0:35f Ec =EiE ε0Ec
higher compressive toughness and better energy dissipation capacity
where EiE is the initial tangent modulus of ECC. In the absence of test re-
than conventional concrete. The compressive stress-strain curve for
sults, the values of fEcu and fEcf can be assumed as 0.25f'Ec and 0.15f'Ec, re-
steel-PVA hybrid fibre ECC can be described by a non-linear function
spectively. Similarly, the values of ε'Ec, εEcu and εEcf can be taken as 0.5%,
for pre-peak ascending part [31] and a bilinear relation for post-peak
1.5ε'Ec and 5ε'Ec, respectively.
descending part of curve [32,33].

Table 1
Details of reference columns.

Description X-Section Dimensions (mm) Material Strength (MPa) Area (cm2)

A B t1 t2 fy f'c f'ECC Steel HSC ECC

E90C90–15 160 160 15 – – 90.44 90.85 – 169.00 87.00

E90C90–20 160 160 20 – – 90.44 90.85 – 144.00 112.00
E90C90–25 160 160 25 – – 90.44 90.85 – 121.00 135.00
S350 (Bare) – – – – 454 – – 18.01 – –
C90S350 160 160 31 31 377 90.44 – 18.01 237.99 –
E90S350 160 160 31 31 377 – 90.85 18.01 – 237.99
E90C90S350-C1 160 160 20 11 377 90.44 90.85 18.01 125.99 112.00
E70C50S350-C1 160 160 20 11 377 50.32 71.75 18.01 125.99 112.00
E90C50S350-C1 160 160 20 11 377 50.32 90.85 18.01 125.99 112.00
E70C90S350-C1 160 160 20 11 377 90.44 71.75 18.01 125.99 112.00
E90C90S350-C2 160 160 31 – 454 90.44 90.85 18.01 78.02 159.97
E70C50S350-C2 160 160 31 – 377 50.32 71.75 18.01 78.02 159.97
E90C50S350-C2 160 160 31 – 377 50.32 90.85 18.01 78.02 159.97
E70C90S350-C2 160 160 31 – 377 90.44 71.75 18.01 78.02 159.97
8 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082

900 2500
S350 (Bare) E90C90-15
FEM

Compres s ive Load (kN)

750 2000 FEM
600

Load, kN
1500
450
1000
300

150 500

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 2 4 6 8
Deformaon, mm Axial Shortening (mm)
(a) S350 (Bare) (b) E90C90-15
2500 2500
E90C90-20 E90C90-25

Compres s ive Load (kN)

Compres s ive Load (kN)

2000 FEM 2000 FEM

1500 1500

1000 1000

500 500

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 0 2 4 6 8
Axial Shortening (mm) Axial Shortening (mm)

(c) E90C90-20 (d) E90C90-25

Fig. 17. Comparison of numerical analysis results with bare steel and ECC confined concrete short columns test results.

2.4. ECC under uniaxial tension shows that material models actually influenced the response of columns
and the general tri-linear model (Fig. 7b; Eq. (19)) gave the closest pre-
In this study, tensile behaviour of ECC is described by a trilinear dictions and therefore was adopted in present study.
model (Eq. (18)) which has been adopted by several researchers 8
> Es ε 0 ≤ε ≤εel
[32,34,35]. According to this model, the stress varies linearly with strain >
>
>  
ε−ε 
up to first cracking and then followed by pseudo strain hardening up to < f þ f −f el
εel ≤ε ≤εyp
el yp el
the ultimate point and finally drops to failure point. fs ¼
>  
εyp −εel  ð19Þ
>
> ε−εyp
>
: f yp þ f u −f yp εyp ≤ε ≤εu
8 εu −εyp
>
> EiE ε
 0bε ≤εcr
>
< f þ f 0 − f
ε−ε cr
>
ε
cr Et cr cr ≤ε ≤ε Etu
f Et ¼ εEtu −εcr  ð18Þ In Eq. (19), fel = 0.8fy, fyp = fy and fu = 1.15fy are the stresses at elas-
>
>  
ε−ε
>
> 0 0 Etu tic limit, yield point and ultimate point, respectively. fy is the apparent
: f Et þ f Etf −f Et εEtu bε ≤εEtf
εEtf −εEtu yield strength of steel. εel = 0.8fy/Es, εyp = fy/0.95Es and εu = 35 εyp are

where f'Et, fcr and fEtf are the maximum, first cracking and failure tensile
strengths of ECC and εEtu, εcr and εEtf are their corresponding strains, re- Table 2
spectively (Fig. 6b). When no actual data is available, the value of EiE can Comparison of FE analysis results with experimental results.

be assumed as 1.5(f'Ec)0.638 and f'Et can be taken as 0.07 f'Ec [33]. The Specimen Test Results FEM Results Test/FEM Ratios
values of εEtu, εcr and εEtf can be assumed between 0.6– 0.9%, 0.022–
PExp δExp PFEM δFEM PExp/PFEM δExp/δFEM
0.026% and 50εcr respectively, with lower values for lower strength (kN) (mm) (kN) (mm)
ECC [8,16,17].
E90C90–15 2012.80 2.27 2148.68 2.21 0.94 1.03
E90C90–20 2205.07 2.45 2214.00 2.31 1.00 1.06
2.5. Steel constitutive laws E90C90–25 2252.66 2.49 2253.07 2.46 1.00 1.01
S350 (Bare) 798.66 2.23 794.12 1.77 1.01 1.26
Compact sections can develop plastic strength with stable yield pla- C90S350 2742.48 1.84 2746.2 1.86 1.00 0.99
E90S350 2801.19 2.75 2820.58 2.68 0.99 1.03
teau and provide confinement to core concrete [36]. Researchers have
E90C90S350-C1 2819.35 2.37 2798.58 2.29 1.01 1.04
used different stress-strain models for steel including elastic perfectly E70C50S350-C1 2045.55 2.14 2036.56 2.16 1.00 0.99
plastic (EPP, Fig. 7a), tri-linear elastic-plastic with strain hardening E90C50S350-C1 2294.78 2.20 2293.94 2.29 1.00 0.96
(Fig. 7b), tri-linear elastic-plastic with yield plateau and strain harden- E70C90S350-C1 2639.92 2.41 2636.36 2.23 1.00 1.08
E90C90S350-C2 3020.10 2.82 2987.31 2.60 1.01 1.08
ing (Fig. 7c) and non-linear models (Fig. 7d) [1,6,9,12,34,35,37]. It is re-
E70C50S350-C2 2229.58 2.46 2261.25 2.57 0.99 0.96
ported that the different steel models have little impact on numerical E90C50S350-C2 2570.12 2.58 2568.73 2.65 1.00 0.97
analysis results as steel does not show significant hardening within E70C90S350-C2 2520.69 2.50 2539.79 2.33 0.99 1.07
the range of strain of general structural interest (generally b5%) [37]. a
Mean – – – – 1.00 1.02
a
However, in order to select the best model to produce accurate predic- St. Deviation – – – – 0.01 0.06

tions, the performances of all described models were assessed. Fig. 8 a

Mean and standard deviation are calculated for ECC-CES columns only.
 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082 9

Fig. 18. Typical failure mode of ECC-HSC columns with an example of E90C90–20.

strains corresponding to fel, fyp and fu, respectively. Es = 200GPa is the
Young's modulus of steel. Note that although steel is assumed to behave
linear elastic up to yield point, non-linear transition is started at around
0.8–0.9fy [38–40]. Therefore, in this study 0.8fy was taken as elastic limit
for accurate modelling results.
3. Finite element modelling
A 3D non-linear FE model is developed in this research to simulate
the compressive behaviours of ECC-CES columns with compact steel
sections. In order to obtain reliable predictions, the proposed FE model
incorporated material and geometric nonlinearities, contact interac-
tions and geometric imperfections.
3.1. Overall modelling approach
The ECC-CES cross-section was divided into four parts namely, ECC
encasement, partially confined concrete (PCC), highly confined concrete
(HCC) and steel section (Figs. 2 and 9). Although the confinement pres-
sure varies continuously within the cross-section [14], for modelling
convenience, the HCC was taken as the total concrete area between
steel flanges, otherwise it was considered as PCC. The eight-node solid
linear brick element with reduced integration C3D8R from ABAQUS el-
ement library was used for modelling of all components. C3D8R
elements have three translational degrees of freedom per node and
commonly used for non-linear problems involving contact between dif-
ferent deformable bodies (steel, ECC, PCC and HCC in the ECC-CES col-
umn model) and plasticity with excessive distortions
[12–14,20,28,34,35]. The top loading plate was modelled as rigid body
with an associated reference point which are excluded from the analy-
sis. Different ECC-CES column components including ECC, PCC, HCC
and steel were assembled together to form full composite column
(Fig. 9). Static general solution strategy was adopted to simulate the
FE model.
3.2. Material models
For ECC and concrete, the standard *ELASTC option from ABAQUS
was used and the concrete damaged plasticity (CDP) model was
adopted to define the damage of the materials under loading. The CDP
model is a continuum-plasticity based damage model which is capable
of simulating both tensile and compressive behaviours of concrete
under low confinement pressures [8,12–14,20,28,32,34,35,39]. The
CDP model requires input of five key parameters including the dilation
angle (ψ), the flow potential eccentricity (e), the ratio of the compres-
sive strength under biaxial loading to uniaxial compressive strength
(fb0/fc0), the ratio of the second stress invariant on the tensile meridian
to that on the compressive meridian (Kc) and the viscosity parameter

3000 3000
C90S350 E90S350
2500 2500 FEM
FEM
2000 2000
Load, LkN

Load, kN

1500 1500

1000 1000

500 500

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm
(a) C90S350 (b) E90S350

Fig. 19. Comparison of numerical analysis results for control columns with test results.
10 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082
Fig. 20. Typical failure mode of C1 columns with an example of E90C90S350-C1.
(v). For concrete, values of 35o, 0.1, 1.16 and 0.667 were used for ψ, e, fb0/
fc0, and Kc, respectively. For ECC, their corresponding values were 30o,
0.1, 1.17 and 0.7. Although the viscosity parameter (v) has insignificant
influence on numerical results, a small value of 0.001 was defined to im-
prove analysis stability and convergence [28,32,37].
The stress-strain properties for ECC, PCC and HCC were defined using
constitutive laws described in Sections 2.1 to 2.4. Since this study deals
with behaviour of columns under monotonic loading, the damage vari-
ables were not required [37]. Moreover, as the initial stiffness of ECC
confined concrete is intermediate between ECC and concrete materials,
the secant modulus at peak compressive strength was used for concrete
in ECC-CES columns. This is similar to reducing the concrete stiffness in
calculation of effective stiffness for composite structural members
[1,7,36]. The Poisson's ratio for both ECC and concrete was taken as 0.2.
Steel material was defined using the *ELASTIC and *PLASTIC options
from the ABAQUS material library to cater for its elastic and plastic be-
haviours defined by the trilinear stress-strain model as discussed in
Section 2.5. The Poisson's ratio for steel was assumed as 0.3.
3.3. Contact interactions
Definition of correct contact interactions between different compo-
nents is one of the most challenging part of modelling [9]. A surface to
surface interaction formulation using the *CONTACT PAIR option from
ABAQUS was used which required definitions of master and slave sur-
faces. This formulation permits transfer of shear and normal forces
across the contact interface while only the master surface can penetrate
into the slave surface [6,9,12,20].
Since no significant de-bonding was reported between ECC and con-
crete [8,16–18], a perfect bond was assumed between their surfaces in
the model. For interaction between steel and ECC/concrete, a cohesive
formulation [34,35] was adopted with steel surface was defined as the
master surface whereas ECC/concrete was taken as the slave surface.
This cohesive formulation was defined using a traction-separation
model which assumes linear elastic behaviour up to onset of damage
followed by a linear progressive evolution up to the maximum separa-
tion (Fig. 10). The linear elastic traction-separation relation is given by:
 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082 11

8 9 2 38 9 columns, the imperfection was assigned using lowest buckling shape

< τn = knn 0 0 < δn = of the bare steel column (Fig. 11b) [12,23]. Since the eigenvalues are
T ¼ τs ¼ 4 0 kss 0 5 δs ¼ Kδ ð20Þ
: ; : ; normalised, they are factored by magnitude of initial imperfection
τt 0 0 ktt δt
[12]. A sensitivity analysis was performed to select an appropriate mag-
nitude of the imperfection factor. Different cases of imperfection factors
where τn, τs and τt are traction (T) components in normal, shear and
including zero imperfection, L/1000, L/2000, L/5000 and L/10000 were
tangent directions, respectively. δn, δs and δt are their corresponding de-
considered. Fig. 12 showed that although the column without any im-
formations. Note that shear and tangent directions are coplanar but mu-
perfection produced a reasonable load-deformation curve, it could not
tually perpendicular. K is an uncoupled stiffness matrix and its value is
accurately predict the buckling shape (Fig. 11d). Therefore, an imperfec-
taken from literature as [34,35].
tion factor of L/2000 suggested in [12] was adopted as it gave good re-
τmax sults in terms of both L-D response (Fig. 12) as well as failure mode
kss ¼ ktt ¼ ð21Þ (Fig. 11c).
smax

knn ¼ 100ktt ¼ 100kss ð22Þ 3.5. Mesh convergence study

In Eq. (21), τmax and smax are the maximum bond strength and corre-
sponding slip, respectively. Their values can be obtained from simple
push tests. In this study, the values of τmax = τs = τt and smax were
taken as 1.45 MPa and 0.5 mm, respectively based on push test results
[25,36,37]. In trial simulations, the column's behaviour was found to
be insensitive to τn so it was taken as 3τmax. The value of maximum fail-
ure slip was taken as 15 mm [34].
3.4. Modelling of geometric imperfections
ABAQUS allows users to assign the imperfection to steel columns
using critical eigenvalue buckling modes [12,23,28,39]. For composite
A sensitivity analysis was performed to select the optimal mesh size
to reduce the computational cost without compromising the analysis
accuracy. Different mesh sizes from 10 mm to 30 mm were tried for
composite column. Although larger mesh sizes (25 mm or 30 mm)
which were computationally less expensive and gave good results
(Fig. 13), 20 mm nominal mesh size was preferred to ensure proper rep-
resentation of failure mode and smooth stress-strain contours. More-
over, partitioning of different components of ECC-CES columns was
carefully done to match their mesh nodes. In addition, element deletion
criteria based on stiffness degradation was enabled to exclude exten-
sively distorted elements from the analysis [20]. Although this has min-
imal impact on analysis results (Fig. 14), it improves the convergence

Fig. 21. Typical failure mode of C2 columns with an example of E90C90S350-C2.

12 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082

conditions of the models. Consequently, a stiffness degradation factor of between the columns was observed, all translational degrees of freedom
0.75 was selected in this study. were fixed (Fig. 15b).

3.6. Support conditions 4. Verification of finite element model

During analysis, axial load was applied using displacement con-
trolled through a rigid body reference point. Since in the actual tests,
the columns were restrained by thick steel plates at both ends, the sup-
port condition was in between the pinned and fixed. For that reason, the
effect of both support conditions was evaluated. From Fig. 15a, no signif-
icant effect of end conditions on the load-deformation behaviour of col-
umn was observed. Therefore, at the top support of the column both
lateral translational degrees of freedom were restrained and only the
axial deformation in loading direction was allowed to replicate the dis-
placement constraints applied during the tests. At the bottom support,
since the bottom thick steel plate was completely fixed and no slip
4.1. Reference experimental studies
FE model was validated against test results reported in [17]. Four-
teen 500 mm long columns were tested under axial compression
which were classified into four groups. Group one included one bare
NSS (S350) column (Fig. 16a) which was employed to validate the
steel material model. The second group comprised of three ECC encased
concrete (ECC-HSC) columns without any steel sections (E90C90–15,
E90C90–20 and E90C90–25) (Fig. 16e) and they were used to confirm
the accuracy of ECC and concrete material models with confinement ef-
fect and the interaction model between ECC and concrete surfaces. The

3000 2500 2500

E90C90S350-C1 E70C50S350-C1 E90C50S350-C1
2500 FEM 2000 2000
FEM FEM
2000
Load, kN

Load, kN

Load, kN
1500 1500
1500
1000 1000
1000

500 500 500

0 0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm

(a) E90C90S350-C1 (b) E70C50S350-C1 (c) E90C50S350-C1

3000 3500 2500
E70C90S350-C1 E90C90S350-C2 E70C50S350-C2
2500 3000
FEM FEM 2000 FEM
2500
2000
Laod, kN
Load, kN
Load, kN

2000 1500
1500
1500 1000
1000
1000
500 500
500
0 0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm

(d) E70C90S350-C1 (e) E90C90S350-C2 (f) E70C50S350-C2

3000 3000
E90C50S350-C2 E70C90S350-C2
2500 2500
FEM FEM
2000 2000
Laod, kN

Laod, kN

1500 1500

1000 1000

500 500

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm

(g) E90C50S350-C2 (h) E70C90S350-C2

Fig. 22. Comparison of load-deformation (L-D) response between experimental and numerical results.
 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082 13

3000 3500
E90C90S350-C1 E90C90S350-C2
2500 FEM 3000 FEM
Steel Secon Steel Secon
2500
2000 PCC HCC

Load, kN

Load, kN
HCC 2000 ECC
1500 ECC
1500
1000
1000
500 500
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm

(a) E90C90S350-C1 (b) E90C90S350-C2

Fig. 23. Individual contributions of different components in ECC-CES columns.

third group consisted of one ECC encased NSS steel (Fig. 16b) and one
concrete encased NSS steel (Fig. 16b) columns to validate the contact in-
teraction formulation between steel and ECC/concrete surfaces. Once all
material and interaction models were validated, they were then used
for modelling of ECC-CES columns. ECC-CES columns in the last group
contained four fully encased ECC-CES columns (C1, Fig. 16c) and four
partially encased ECC-CES columns (C2, Fig. 16d). Test parameters for
ECC-CES columns included material strengths, columns' configuration
and ECC cover thickness. The nomenclature and details of different col-
umns tested [17] are shown in Table 1.
4.4. The ECC-steel and concrete-steel columns
Fig. 19 shows the comparison of L-D curves for C90S350 and
E90S350 columns. In both cases, the model was able to give accurate
predictions for the stiffness, peak-load and deformation (Table 2), and
post-peak behaviour of the columns. This confirmed the accuracy of co-
hesive contact interaction model adopted in this study. Fig. 19 also indi-
cated that C90S350 showed more brittle failure when compared with
the E90S350 column.
4.5. The ECC-CES columns

4.2. The bare steel column
Fig. 17a compares the load-deformation (L-D) curve from FE analysis
with test curve for the bare steel column and a close matching can be
observed which confirms the accuracy the steel model used. Moreover,
the correct failure mode of bare steel column with flange local buckling
in the middle (Fig. 11c) was predicted by the model.
4.3. The ECC-HSC columns
The accuracy of CDP model in predicting the compressive behaviour
of ECC confined concrete was evaluated by comparing the numerical re-
sults for the E90C90–15, E90C90–20 and E90C90–25 columns with test
results. Fig. 17 (b~d) show that close predictions were obtained. Notice
that the accuracy of the FE model was increased when larger confine-
ment pressure using thicker ECC cover (25 mm) was provided. How-
ever, in all cases the predicted strengths and deformations were well
within ±10% (Table 2). Similar to test results, the failure mode, espe-
cially the bulging of ECC with more damage in the middle and at corners
was also captured by the model (Fig. 18).
The results of ECC-CES columns from the FE model were compared
with the test results in terms of failure modes, load-deformation re-
sponses and contribution of individual components.
4.5.1. Failure modes
Figs. 20 and 21 compare the typical final stage failure modes from
the FE analysis with experimental results for C1 and C2 columns.
The FE model successfully predicted the failure modes of the col-
umns as well as a reasonable final damage patterns in terms of plas-
tic strains. The outward bulging of ECC cover (Figs. 20a and 21a) at
mid-height of columns due to lateral dilation of concrete (Figs. 20b
and 21b) and transverse pushing by steel (Figs. 20c and 21c) can be
observed.
For the E90C90S350-C1 column, the maximum plastic strain oc-
curred where ECC cover was damaged most on both flange and
web sides and at corners (Fig. 20a). Moreover, plastic strains were
concentrated in the middle at regions of concrete crushing
(Fig. 20b) and inelastic buckling of the steel section (Fig. 20c). Simi-
larly, for the E90C90S350-C2 column plastic damage in shearing di-
rections was predicted correctly by the model at peak load
(Fig. 21a). At the final stage, damage was localised at corners that

Table 3
Load and area sharing of different ECC-CES components as percentage of column capacity and cross-sectional area.

Components E90C90S350-C1 E90C90S350-C2

P/PFEM A/Ag RP/RA P/PFEM A/Ag RP/RA

(RP, %) (RA, %) – (RP, %) (RA, %) –

Steel 24.90 7.04 3.54 26.86 7.04 3.81

HCC 28.48 30.48 0.93 29.33 30.48 0.96
PCC 26.49 18.74 1.41 – – –
ECC 20.13 43.75 0.46 43.81 62.49 0.70

Note: P is load shared by individual component and PFEM is column peak load from FE model. A is area of individual component and Ag is total column area. RP load contribution ratio of
individual components as a percentage of column capacity and RA is area ratio of individual components as a percentage of total column area.
14 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082

suffered shearing under compression. Fig. 21b and c also show that
concrete was crushed more on the side of concave buckling which
was similar to experimental result.
4.5.2. Load-deformation (L-D) behaviour
The comparison of load-deformation response between experi-
mental and numerical results for all C1 and C2 columns is shown
in Fig. 22. It shows that the FE model gave good predictions
which agreed well with test results in terms of initial stiffness,
peak-load and deformation and post-peak behaviour. All composite
columns showed linear response up to 70% of peak-load with a
sudden post-peak load drop before reaching the stable residual
strength. The strength drop was higher and more sudden for
higher strength materials representing more brittle failure of high
strength concrete.
Table 2 compares calculated peak-load and corresponding deforma-
tion of all columns from numerical analysis with experimental results.
An accurate prediction of column's strength with average experimental
to FEM ratio of 1.0 and standard deviation of 0.01 were achieved. This
shows the reliability of the developed numerical model in predicting
the ultimate strength of ECC-CES columns with compact NSS sections.
Similarly, for peak-deformation, although it showed some variations
from experimental results, all predictions were well within ±10% of
test results. A mean ratio of 1.02 with a small standard deviation of
0.06 were achieved.
4.5.3. Individual contributions of different components
ABAQUS also possesses the capability to calculate the individual con-
tributions of ECC-CES components. Fig. 23 shows the typical load-
deformation curves for different ECC-CES components (steel, PCC,
HCC and ECC) for E90C90S350-C1 and E90C90S350-C2 columns. It
was observed that steel yielding occurred when applied load
reached ~70% of column capacity. Moreover, immediately after the
failure of concrete and ECC at their respective peaks, a small load

1.7
1.2 50 1.6 50
70 1.5 70
1.15
90 1.4 90
kσ

kε
1.1 110 1.3 110
1.2 130
1.05 130
1.1
150 150
1 1
40 70 100 130 160 40 70 100 130 160
ECC-Strength (MPa) ECC Strength (MPa)

(a) Partial confinement factors for ECC-CES C1 columns

1.4 2
1.35 50 50
1.8
1.3 70 70
1.25 90 1.6 90
1.2
kσ

kε

110 110
1.15 1.4
130 130
1.1
150 1.2 150
1.05
1 1
250 450 650 850 1050 250 450 650 850 1050
Yield Strength of Steel (MPa) Yield Strength of Steel (MPa)

(b) Highly confinement factors for ECC-CES C1 columns

1.6 2.4

1.5 50 2.2
50
70 2
1.4 70
90 1.8
1.3 90
kσ

kε

110 1.6 110

1.2 130 1.4 130
1.1 150 1.2 150
1 1
250 450 650 850 1050 250 450 650 850 1050
Yield Strength of Steel (MPa) Yield Stregth of Steel (MPa)

(c) Highly confinement factors for ECC-CES C2 columns

Fig. 24. Variation of confinement factors (kσ and kε) for different grades of concrete with increasing strengths of ECC and steel materials. Base Cases: 90 MPa Concrete, 90 MPa Steel and
S350 steel materials; Geometric properties from ‘Table 1’ for C1 and C2 columns.
 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082 15

1.25 1.6
130-C1
1.2 130-C1 1.5 (20mm)
(20mm)
130-C2
1.15 130-C2 1.4 (31mm)
(31mm)

kσ

kε
150-C1 150-C1
1.1 1.3
(20mm) (20mm)
150-C2 150-C2
1.05 1.2
(31mm) (31mm)
1 1.1
250 450 650 850 1050 250 450 650 850 1050
Yield Strength of Steel (MPa) Yield Strength of Steel (MPa)

Fig. 25. Comparison of highly confinement factors (kσ and kε) between C1 and C2 columns.

drop in steel curve was observed which was due to loss of compos-
ite action with bond failure. The post-peak residual strength of col-
umns was equal to the sum of residual strengths of individual
components.
Table 3 shows the load share for individual components as
percentage of peak load and their area as percentage of column
area for the E90C90S350-C1 and E90C90S350-C2 columns. For
the C1 column, PCC (~26.5%) and HCC (~28.5%) individually con-
tributed more than ECC (~20%) despite ECC comprising the larg-
est percentage of total column's area (~44%). For the C2 column,
ECC comprised of ~63% of gross area and contributed most
(~44%) of column capacity. This is because thicker ECC cover
resisted transverse bending and contributed more to the com-
pressive capacity. Contrarily, thin ECC cover had less bending re-
sistance, thus attracted less compressive load and failed under
combined compression and shear [17]. The steel section had
the highest load to area contribution ratio (N3.5) while external
ECC cover had the lowest value (0.46–0.7) due to biaxial state of
stresses under axial compression and transverse bending
(Table 3).
5. Parametric study
5.1. Effect of ECC and steel strengths on concrete confinement factors
This section investigates the effects of different strengths of
materials on confinement factors kσ and kε for PCC and HCC in C1 and
C2 columns using models presented in Section 2.1. The columns
E90C90S350-C1 and E90C90S350-C2 (Table 1) were selected as the
base cases to conduct this study and the geometric parameters such as

3500 3500
C1-E90 C1-C90
3000 C1-E100 3000 C1-C100
2500 C1-E110 2500 C1-C110
Load, kN

Load, kN

2000 C1-E120 2000 C1-C120

1500 1500
1000 1000
500 500
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm
(a) Variation of ECC strength (b) Variation of concrete strength
4000
C1-S350
3500
C1-S550
3000 C1-S690
2500
Load, kN

C1-S800
2000
1500
1000
500
0
0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm
(c) Variation of steel strength

Fig. 26. Results of parametric study for ECC-CES C1 columns.

16 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082

section dimensions and scaling etc., were unchanged. Since, it was re-
ported that yielding of compact normal strength steel (NSS) sections oc-
curred before but near the peak load [17], the same assumption was
adopted for higher strength steels for confinement pressure calcula-
tions. Note that this assumption may not be true for non-compact sec-
tions which can neither achieve plastic capacity nor provide sufficient
confinement to the encased concrete especially when high strength
steel (HSS) is used [36].
Fig. 24 shows variation of confinement factors (kσ and kε) for differ-
ent grades of concrete from 50 MPa to 150 MPa with increasing ECC and
steel strengths. It can be seen that confinement efficiency of steel and
ECC was decreased with increase in concrete strength which conformed
to the findings of previous published literature [6,24–26]. For a given
grade of steel and ECC, confinement factors decreased with increasing
concrete strength. Hence, larger ECC and flange thicknesses are required
for HSC to achieve the similar level of confinement as NSC. Fig. 25
showed that increasing ECC cover thickness from 20 to 31 mm on aver-
age increased the values of kσ and kε about 5.2% and 11.7% for 130 MPa
concrete and 4.6% and 10.1% for 150 MPa concrete, respectively. More-
over, for PCC confinement effectiveness was found to be the same
when matching strength ECC was used to confine a particular grade of
concrete as shown by black dotted circles in Fig. 24a. However, this
might not be practical as higher strength would generally reduce the
ductility of concrete and ECC materials and thus reduce the ECC confine-
ment efficiency.
5.2. Performance of ECC-CES columns
A small scale parametric study was conducted using the validated
numerical model to investigate the effects of increasing material
strengths on performance of ECC-CES columns with compact steel sec-
tions. Three grades of ECC and HSC with nominal compressive strengths
of 100 MPa, 110 MPa and 120 MPa were included. Similarly, three
grades of high strength steel (HSS) with yield strengths of 550 MPa,
690 MPa and 800 MPa were considered for analysis. It was assumed
that behaviour (especially the ductility) of ECC and HSC materials will
not be affected much by higher strength grades. Therefore, same
stress-strain constitutive models were used as described previously.
Similarly, stress-strain properties of HSS material were also described
by using the tri-linear model described in Section 2.5. The
E90C90S350-C1 and E90C90S350-C2 columns were used as base
models for conducting the parametric study and from here onwards
are simply referred as C1 and C2, respectively. Again, as described in
last section, yielding of steel was assumed in all strength and confine-
ment calculations for the parametric study as well.
Figs. 26 and 27 show the load-deformation curves with different
ECC, concrete and steel strengths for C1 and C2 columns, respectively.
It can be observed that despite ECC comprising largest portion of gross
cross-sectional area, effect of increasing ECC strength in improving
column's capacity was insignificant. Increasing ECC's compressive
strength from 90 MPa to 120 MPa improved column capacity only
by 2.15% and 2.82% for C1 and C2 columns, respectively. On the
other hand, for similar increase in concrete's strength, the columns
capacity was enhanced about 14.63% and 10.56%, respectively. The
higher increase for concrete is caused by the combined effects of
concrete strength increase and confinement by steel and ECC encase-
ments. This suggested that improving ECC-CES column capacity by
increasing the compressive strength of ECC might not be the most
feasible solution.
Although steel constituted smallest percentage of gross area (~7%),
increasing yield strength of steel significantly increased column's
peak-load. A strength enhancement of 28.19% and 23.46% were
achieved for C1 and C2 columns when S800 was used. Moreover, since
steel component is mainly responsible for providing post-failure resid-
ual strength, increasing steel grade from NSS to HSS also increased the
residual strength significantly. For S800, the post-peak residual
strengths at the end of analysis increased by 61.8% and 59.3% for C1
and C2 columns, respectively.

3500 3500
C2-E90 C2-C90
3000 C2-E100 3000 C2-C100
2500 C2-E110 2500 C2-C110
C2-E120 C2-C120
Load, kN

Load, kN

2000 2000
1500 1500
1000 1000
500 500
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm Deformaon, mm
(a) Variation of ECC strength (b) Variation of concrete strength
4000
C2-S350
3500
C2-S550
3000 C2-S690
2500 C2-S800
Load, kN

2000
1500
1000
500
0
0 5 10 15 20
Deformaon, mm

(c) Variation of steel strength

Fig. 27. Results of parametric study for ECC-CES C2 columns.

 M.K.I. Khan et al. / Journal of Constructional Steel Research 170 (2020) 106082
6. Conclusions
This study presented the details of a 3D nonlinear finite element
model for the analysis of the ECC-CES columns with compact steel
sections. Both material and geometric nonlinearities were included
in the model. Concrete and ECC materials were defined using con-
crete damaged plasticity model and stress-strain properties of par-
tially (PCC) and highly (HCC) confined concrete were obtained
using analytical models described in this study. From theoretical in-
vestigation it was found that confinement efficiency of ECC and
steel on core concrete was decreased with increasing concrete
strength. The model also considered the effects of initial geometric
imperfections, contact interactions between steel and ECC/concrete
and confinement provided by steel section and ECC encasement on
the core concrete. The FE model was validated against the test results
in terms of initial stiffness, failure modes, peak-load and correspond-
ing deformation and post-peak responses. Comparisons of FE analysis
predictions against experimental results confirmed the accuracy and
efficiency of developed model. The study of contribution of individual
components suggested that load to area contribution ratio was
highest for steel section while lowest for ECC. Moreover, results of
parametric study suggested that despite ECC comprising significant
portion of gross column area, the effect of increasing ECC strength
in improving the column's capacity was less prominent as compared
to confined concrete. In terms of strength enhancement, the para-
metric study results suggested that the most effective way could be
to increase the yield strength of the steel section. However, it is sug-
gested that further experimental studies should be conducted to con-
firm this as the actual performance of the ECC-CES columns might be
affected by local buckling of steel section before yielding of HSS due
to early concrete crushing. Consequently, higher ductility concrete
and ECC encasement with deformation capacity compatible with
HSS would be required to ensure that the HSS steel section will be
yielded near the column peak-load.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
Commonwealth's support for this research received through
Australian Government RTP and UNSW Canberra's support through
UIPA Scholarship are gratefully acknowledged.
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