Engineering Structures 171 (2018) 1–9

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Behavior of ECC-encased CFST columns under axial compression T

a,b a,⁎ b
Jingming Cai , Jinlong Pan , Xiaopeng Li
a
Key laboratory of concrete and prestressed concrete structures of Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper presents an experimental study on the mechanical behaviors of engineered cementitious composite
Engineered cementitious composite (ECC)-encased concrete filled steel tube (CFST) columns under axial loading. Six specimens, including four ECC-
Concrete filled steel tube encased CFST columns and two concrete-encased CFST columns were tested. According to the test results, ECC-
Composite columns encased CFST columns showed both higher loading carrying capacity and more ductile behavior. The influence
Compressive load
of longitudinal reinforcement ratio, stirrup ratio and the thickness of steel tube were discussed in this paper.
Furthermore, a new method to calculate the carrying capacity of ECC-encased CFST columns was proposed and
verified with experimental results.

1. Introduction reinforcements of RC beams can be anchored into the outer RC com-

Concrete filled steel tube (CFST) columns have gained increasing
attention over the last decades since CFST columns have both high
strength and large deformability. A number of studies have been carried
out on the performance of CFST structures under static loading [1–3],
dynamic loading [4–5], and fire or high temperature [6–7] previously.
Although the CFST columns have relatively higher carrying capacity
and ductility than normal steel reinforced concrete (RC) columns, the
outer steel tube is easily corroded especially in the severe environment,
such as ocean environment or saline area. It has been found that cor-
rosion has a significant influence on the ultimate strength and ductility
of CFST columns [8]. The fire resistance of the CFST is another concern
as the outer steel tube, without protection, almost loses its strength at
600 °C. Previous studies found that post-fire load-bearing capacity of
CFST columns is much lower than those at ambient temperature
without fire exposure [9].
Therefore, recently, a new composite column (concrete-encased
CFST column) attracted the attention of structural engineers and re-
searchers. Fig. 1 shows a typical cross-section of concrete-encased CFST
column. The concrete-encased CFST columns can be regarded as a
conjunction of inner CFST component and outer RC component. The
concrete-encased CFST column has better durability under corrosive
environment and higher fire resistance due to the protection from the
outer reinforced concrete. Also, the outward buckling of the inner steel
tube could be restrained due to the existence of outer RC. The external
RC components of concrete-encased CFST columns also facilitate the
connections between column and RC beam, as the longitudinal
ponents.
To date, there are plenty of researches conducted to investigate the
mechanical behaviors of the concrete-encased CFST columns under
different loading conditions, including compression [10], bending [11],
tension [12], and seismic loading [13–14]. Generally, it was found that
the concrete-encased CFST columns have the higher bearing capacity
and ductility than conventional RC columns. However, it was also no-
ticed that the outer concrete crushed first while the inner CFST was still
in the elastic-plastic stage, indicating a poor composite effect between
the two components. This is due to the lack of deformation compat-
ibility between the external concrete and the inner CFST. The typical
compression stress-strain relation of steel and concrete can be seen in
Fig. 2. It can be seen that peak strain of concrete (εc ) is lower than the
yield strain of the steel, then early concrete crushing occurs before the
yielding of steel. Thus, the steel cannot fully develop its strength, which
degrades the capacity and economy of steel composite structure,
especially when high strength steel was applied. Moreover, since the
outer concrete is brittle and easily-crushed, the long-term durability of
concrete-encased CFST columns become a major concern especially for
those exposed to severe environment such as marine or freezing-
thawing environments.
To address above problems, it is proposed to substitute the outer
concrete with engineered cementitious composite (ECC) in this paper
and to form ECC-encased CFST columns. ECC material is designed
based on the theory of micromechanics and fracture mechanics, and it
shows a metal-like strain-hardening behavior after the first cracking.
The ultimate tensile strain for ECC is in the range of 2–7% which is

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: cejlpan@seu.edu.cn (J. Pan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2018.05.090
Received 22 February 2018; Received in revised form 18 May 2018; Accepted 23 May 2018
0141-0296/ © 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
J. Cai et al.
Nomenclature
θ confinement index
δu axial displacement corresponding to ultimate load
δ85 axial displacement when the load falls to 85% of the ul-
timate load
Ac cross-sectional area of concrete
Aco cross-sectional area of external concrete
Acc cross-sectional area of internal concrete
AE cross-sectional area of external ECC
Ast cross-sectional area of steel tube
Astl cross-sectional area of steel longitudinal reinforcement
200–700 times that of conventional concrete, and the crack width can
be controlled as low as 60 μm [15]. Also, the ultimate compressive
strain for ECC is nearly twice that of conventional concrete [16], which
is also shown in Fig. 2. Due to its unique properties, this material has
been successfully applied to structural members such as beams [17],
walls [18] beam-column connections [19], and so on. According to the
experimental results, ECC structural members have a higher deform-
ability and energy absorption capacity under monotonic and reverse
cyclic loading. Moreover, ECC’s crack control and self-healing ability
leads to its superior durability under various mechanical and environ-
mental loading conditions such as fatigue [20] and chloride exposure
[21,22].
In this study, four ECC-encased CFST columns, as well as two con-
crete-encased CFST columns, were tested under axial compression. The
mechanical behaviors of ECC-encased CFST columns and concrete-en-
cased CFST columns were analyzed and compared. The influence of
longitudinal reinforcement ratio, the stirrup ratio as well as the thick-
ness of steel tube were also studied in this paper. Furthermore, since the
current design codes significantly underestimated the carrying capacity
of ECC-encased CFST column, a new model was proposed and verified
with experimental results.
2. Experimental program
2.1. Test specimens
Six composite columns, including two concrete-encased CFST col-
umns and four ECC-encased CFST columns, were prepared before the
test. Specimens C1-C and C1-ECC are typical concrete-encased CFST
and ECC-encased CFST columns, respectively. Specimens C2-C and C2-
ECC were designed to investigate the influence of stirrup ratio for both
concrete and ECC-encased columns. Specimens C3-ECC and C4-ECC
were designed to investigate the influence of steel tube ratio and
longitudinal reinforcement ratio for ECC-encased columns. The col-
umns had a total height of 900 mm, with a square cross-section of
300 mm × 300 mm. A typical composite column is shown in Fig. 3. For
all specimens, steel bars with a diameter of 8 mm and 10 mm were used
as stirrup and longitudinal reinforcements respectively. The protective
concrete cover for all specimens is 20 mm thick. The experimental
Outside concrete
Stirrup
Longitudinal reinforcement
Steel tube
Core concrete
Fig. 1. Typical cross section of concrete-encased CFST column.
2
Engineering Structures 171 (2018) 1–9
(bars and steel tube)
Asr cross-sectional area of longitudinal bars
fc′ compressive strength of concrete
fcc compressive strength of internal concrete
fco compressive strength of external concrete
fE compressive strength of external ECC
fy yield strength of steel tube
f ysr yield strength of longitudinal bars
Nu ultimate compressive strength
NRE load carrying capacity of outer reinforced ECC
NCFST load carrying capacity of inner CFST
program was mainly designed to investigate the influence of different
parameters on the mechanical behaviors of ECC-encased CFST columns,
i.e., encased materials (ECC or concrete), reinforcement ratio, and steel
tube ratio. The details of all specimens are summarized in Table 1.
2.2. Material properties
ECC material system contained Ordinary Portland cement, silica
sand, fly ash, water, and PVA fiber. The PVA fiber content is 2% of total
volume, and the water-binder (cement and fly ash) ratio and the sand-
binder ratio were 0.28 and 0.2, respectively. The mixture proportions of
ECC is listed in Table 2. In order to ensure that ECC mixtures main-
tained proper flowability during mixing, a water reducing agent
(polycarboxylic acid type, water-reducing ratio 24.1%) was used with
the amount 1.5% of binder content by weight. The physical properties
of raw materials for ECC are listed in Table 3.
Concrete was prepared with Ordinary Portland cement, river sand,
and granite stone. The mixture proportions of concrete are also listed in
Table 2. The concrete was deliberately designed to have a similar
compressive strength as ECC. Six cylinder specimens were prepared
with concrete and ECC, respectively, and tested following ASTM com-
pression standards. The average compressive strengths at 28 days for
concrete and ECC were 35.4 MPa and 32.5 MPa, respectively. The
uniaxial tensile test for ECC material was also conducted with dog-bone
specimens, which is shown in Fig. 4(a). The tension test stress-strain
relation for three dog-bone specimens (in Fig. 4(b)) showed that the
tensile strength of ECC exceeded 5 MPa and the strain-hardening tensile
strain capacity approached about 3.5%. The uniaxial tensile test was
also conducted for steel material, and the material properties are shown
in Table.4.
σ
fy Steel
f CE
f CC
ECC
Concrete
εC εE ε
Fig. 2. Compressive stress-strain curves of steel, concrete and ECC.
J. Cai et al. Engineering Structures 171 (2018) 1–9

(a) Cross section (b) Schematic view

Fig. 3. ECC/Concrete-encased CFST column.

Table 1 Table 3
Summary of test specimens. Physical properties of raw materials for ECC.
Specimen Material Stirrup spacing (mm) αl αs t (mm) Materials Density (g/ Mechanical property Size
cm3)
C1-C Concrete 100 1% 0.4% 6
C1-ECC ECC 100 1% 0.4% 6 Cement 3.2 – 45 sieve residue
C2-C Concrete 200 1% 0.2% 6 14.28%
C2-ECC ECC 200 1% 0.2% 6 Fine sand 2.2 Moh’s hardness: 7 Fineness modulus 2.03
C3-ECC ECC 100 1% 0.4% 10 Fly ash 2.6 – 45 sieve residue 9.27%
C4-ECC ECC 100 0.5% 0.4% 6 PVA fiber 1.3 Tensile strength: Length: 12 mm
1620 MPa
elastic modulus: 43 GPa
2.3. Specimen preparation

Before casting concrete into the steel tube, one end of the steel tube
was welded to a steel plate with a dimension of
350 mm × 350 mm × 50 mm. The concrete was uniformly mixed in a
mechanical mixer and was cast into the steel tube with the concrete
vibrator. Then the CFST column was set in the reinforcement cage, and
the top end of the CFST column, as well as the reinforcement cage, were
welded to another steel plate. After that, the reinforcement cage along
with the inner CFST and steel plates were placed into the mold, and
ECC or concrete was cast afterward. All the specimens were demolded
after two days and then cured in the natural atmosphere for 28 days.
2.4. Test set-up and instrumentation
A universal testing machine with a capacity of 10,000 kN was
adopted in this study. The compression load was applied with an in-
crement of 50 kN for each step before the peak load. After the peak
load, the compression load was applied with displacement control in
order to record the post-peak behavior of the specimen. Four linear
variable differential transducers (LVDTs) were installed vertically to
measure the axial displacement of the specimens under uniaxial com-
pression, and the force sensors with a capacity of 10,000 kN were ap-
plied to record the uniaxial load automatically. The test set-up is shown
in Fig. 5(a) and (b). Eight strain gauges were applied to measure the
strains of steel tube and reinforcement for each column (Fig. 5(c)).
Strain gauges 1 and Strain gauges 2 were applied to measure the strain
of stirrup and longitudinal reinforcement, respectively. Strain gauges 3
and Strain gauges 4 were applied to measure the strains of the steel tube
along the longitudinal direction and circumferential direction, respec-
tively. All the strain gauges are located at the midsection of the col-
umns.
3. Test results and discussions
3.1. Failure modes and test observations
The typical failure modes for concrete-encased CFST column are
shown in Fig. 6(a). For specimen C1-C, which is a typical concrete-
encased CFST column, main cracks suddenly appeared and then the
specimen failed with serious concrete spalling and crushing. At the end
of the test, when the outer loose concrete was removed, significant out-
of-plane local buckling of steel tube, as well as local buckling of steel
reinforcement, were observed, as shown in Fig. 6(b). A similar failure
mode can be found for specimen C2-C.
ECC-encased CFST columns, however, had a quite different failure
mode compared with concrete-encased CFST columns. Generally, the
failure processes can be divided into three stages. The first stage began
with the occurrence of the initial tiny cracks. As axial loading increased,
microcracks continued to appear and propagate. These cracks are so
tiny and it is difficult to be directly visually observed. The second stage
was accompanied with the developing and widening of existing cracks.
At the end of the second stage, the main cracks formed but they were
diffused into multiple fine cracks as they propagated, as shown in

Table 2
Mixture proportions of ECC and concrete.
Materials Cement Fly ash Silica sand River sand Granite stone Water Vf (%)

ECC 0.2 0.8 0.2 – – 0.28 2

Concrete 1 – – 1.18 2.31 0.4 –

3
J. Cai et al. Engineering Structures 171 (2018) 1–9

7
6
5

Stress (MPa)
4
3
2 Specimen 1
Specimen 2
1 Specimen 3
0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
Strain ε (%)

(a) (b)
Fig. 4. (a) Dog-bone specimen for uniaxial tensile test; (b) Tensile stress-strain curves of ECC.

Table 4
Material properties.
Parameter Average value

Average compressive strength of concrete, fc 35.4 MPa

Average compressive strength of ECC, fE 32.5 MPa
Yield strength of the longitudinal bar, f ysr 358 MPa
Yield strength of the stirrup, f yst 362 MPa
Yield strength of the steel tube, f y 342 MPa

(a) C1-C (b) local buckling

Fig. 7(a). During the last stage, the outer ECC reached its ultimate
compressive strength and began to split. Even though main cracks can
be found in C1-ECC at the end of the final stage, ECC did not spall and
the specimen kept its good integrity. The final crack pattern of C1-ECC
is shown in Fig. 7(b). The similar failure modes were also found for
other ECC-encased CFST columns.
3.2. Ultimate load
The maximum load recorded by the force sensor is defined as the
ultimate load. The ultimate loads of all specimens are shown in Fig. 8.
Even though the outer ECC and concrete have similar compressive
strength, the ultimate load for specimen C1-ECC is 27% higher than
that of specimen C1-C. The ultimate load for C3-ECC is 20 percent
Fig. 6. Typical failure modes for concrete-encased CFST.
higher than that of C1-ECC, indicating the thickness of steel tube has a
great effect on the ultimate load of specimens. The influence of steel
tube thickness can be classified in two ways. Firstly, the increase of steel
tube thickness directly cause a higher load carrying capacity of steel
tube. The load carrying capacity for steel tube be expressed as
Nst = (πt 2 + 2πtr ) f y , where Nst is the load carrying capacity of steel
tube, t is the thickness of steel tube, r is the inner radius of steel tube
and f y is the yield strength of steel tube. It can be seen that the load
carrying capacity for steel tube increases with the increase of steel tube
thickness. Secondly, the thicker steel tube could provide a higher con-
finement stress to the core concrete, which also increased the strength

Fig. 5. Test setup (a) photograph; (b) diagrammatic view; (c) arrangement of strain gauges.

4
J. Cai et al. Engineering Structures 171 (2018) 1–9

into four stages, i.e., elastic stage, elastic-plastic stage, descending stage
and softening stage. During the elastic stage, the axial displacement of
the concrete-encased CFST column increases linearly with the increase
of axial load. Once the applied load reaches approximately 50% of the
peak load, the outer concrete begins to crack and thus the curve shows
nonlinear behavior. At the peak load, the outer reinforced concrete
reaches its ultimate strength. Thereafter, the loading drops quickly due
to the severe damage of the outer reinforced concrete. At the softening
stage, the load is mainly undertaken by the inner CFST and thus the
load drops gradually due to the buckling of the inner CFST.
For ECC-encased CFST columns, the curves could be divided into
four stages as well. The first stage is similar to concrete-encased CFST
columns, but the initial stiffness of ECC-encased CFST columns is lower
than that of concrete-encased CFST columns due to the lower elastic
modulus of the ECC material. During the second stage, the curves de-
viated from linear elastic behavior to nonlinear behavior which is at-
tributed to the emergence and development of internal defects and
micro cracks in ECC. Then the inner CFST and outer reinforced ECC
reach their ultimate strength at the end of the second stage. The third
stage is accompanied with the cracking and crush of ECC as well as the
yielding of longitudinal reinforcements and steel tube. It should be
noted that ECC material has a superior bond with steel reinforcement,
(a) Cracking diffusion (b) C1-ECC leading to a high deformation capability between ECC and steel re-
Fig. 7. Typical failure mode for ECC-encased CFST columns.
inforcement, and this compatibility also results in a more efficient load
transfer between each component [23]. At the last stage, the load was
undertaken by the inner CFST and outer ECC, thus the load drops
6257 gradually.
6000
By comparing C3-ECC with C1-ECC, it was also observed that the
5197 5148 thickness of the steel tube influenced the compressive behavior of ECC-
Ultimate axial load(kN)

5069
5000 CFST significantly. It is shown that the C3-ECC exhibited strain-hard-
4095 ening behavior after the peak load, while C1-ECC displayed a strain-
4000 3815 softening behavior in the post-peak stage. This is because, for C3-ECC,
the bulking of the steel tube was delayed due to the increase in thick-
3000 ness compared with C1-ECC.

2000
3.4. Ductility index

1000
Ductility index is commonly used to quantify the post-peak behavior
of RC and CFST specimens. Several definitions of ductility index have
0 been used by various researchers based on the load versus axial strain
C1-C C1-ECC C2-C C2-ECC C3-ECC C4-ECC
Specimens curves. The ductility index is defined in various ways based on load vs.
axial strain curves [24], or load vs. axial displacement curves [25]. The
Fig. 8. Ultimate load for all specimens. definition of ductility index given by Lu et al. [26] was adopted in this
paper, which is expressed as follows:
of core concrete. Specimen C2-ECC has a similar ultimate load with C1-
δ85
ECC, indicating the stirrup ratio has little effect on the ultimate load of DI =
δu (1)
the specimens when the stirrup ratio is relatively low. Also, compar-
isons between C1-ECC and C4-ECC indicate that ultimate load of the
7000
specimens decreased with the decrease of the longitudinal reinforce-
ment ratio.
6000

3.3. Axial load-axial displacement curves 5000

Load(kN)

The axial load-axial displacement curves for all columns are shown 4000
in Fig. 9. The axial displacement is the average value measured from
the four LVDTs, while the axial load is recorded by the force sensor. For 3000
concrete-encased CFST columns, the displacement corresponding to the
peak load is about 3.8 mm, while the displacement corresponding to the 2000
peak load for ECC-encased CFST columns is about 6.7 mm. This is C1-C C2-C
reasonable because ECC has a lower elastic stiffness and a larger strain 1000 C1-ECC C2-ECC
corresponding to peak compressive strength, which is caused by the C3-ECC C4-ECC
lack of large aggregates. Although ECC has similar compression 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
strength as concrete, the ECC-encased CFST columns showed higher Displacement(mm)
loading capacity compared with concrete-encased CFST columns.
For each concrete-encased CFST column, the curve could be divided Fig. 9. Axial load-axial displacement curves for all specimens.

5
J. Cai et al.
where δu is the axial displacement at Nu , and δ85 is the axial displace-
ment when the load falls to 85% of the ultimate load.
The ductility indexes for all specimens are depicted in Fig. 10. The
ductility index for specimen C1-C is 1.32 while the ductility index for
specimen C1-ECC is 1.45, indicating that ECC can effectively increase
the ductility of the composite columns. The same conclusion can be
drawn when comparing C2-C with C2-ECC. It was also be found that the
ductility index increased with the increase of stirrup ratio when com-
paring C1-ECC with C2-ECC, indicating that the stirrup has a positive
effect on the ductility of ECC encased CFST column. This is attributed to
the confinement effect of the stirrup. During the initial stage, as there is
not much horizontal deformation, ECC is not confined. Once the stress
of ECC reaches its uniaxial compression strength, progressive internal
cracking occurs and ECC begins to expand transversely. After peak load,
with increasing axial load, the transverse expansion of the ECC pro-
gressively increases and hence the confinement of the stirrup becomes
more and more significant. Therefore, the stirrup provides a so-called
“passive confinement”, which increases the ductility of ECC, especially
after the ultimate load. As also can be seen in Fig. 10, the thickness of
the steel tube may be the main factor that influences the ductility of
ECC encased CFST columns since the ductility index for C3-ECC is 32%
higher than that of C1-ECC. This is attributed to the passive confine-
ment from the steel tube. The role of the steel tube can be illustrated as
follows: during the initial loading stage, there is a negligible interaction
between the steel tube and inner concrete. Then, the lateral expansion
of the inner concrete gradually becomes greater than the expansion of
the steel tube. Therefore, the passive confinement effect is provided by
steel tube, which will make the inner concrete more ductile. The thicker
steel tube may provide higher passive confinement, which causes
higher ductility index of the ECC-encased CFST columns.
3.5. Strain analysis
The strain gauges were adopted in order to measure the deformation
of the steel tube, longitudinal reinforcement, and stirrup for specimen
C1-C and C1-ECC. The relations of strain measured by different strain
gauges vs. axial load are shown in Fig. 11. The x-axis represents the
strain recorded by a strain gauge, while the y-axis represents the axial
load recorded by force sensor.
Fig. 11(a) shows the strain of the stirrup with increasing axial load.
The strain vs. applied load curve contains two stages: the initial elastic
stage and the strain-hardening stage. During the initial stage, the stirrup
strain for specimen C1-C fluctuated around zero before the applied load
reached about 1600 kN. By comparison, the value for specimen C1-ECC
was about 3600 kN, indicating ECC can significantly delay the propa-
gation of cracks in the column since the stirrup deforms severely when
the cementitious material was crushed. With the load increased, the
strain values increased rapidly, indicating the stirrup in the midsection
deforms rapidly and soon yield.
Fig. 11(b) shows the strain development of longitudinal reinforce-
ment. Since the elastic modulus of ECC is much lower than that of
concrete, the deformation of C1-ECC column was higher than that of
C1-C column during the initial stage. When the load increased, the
outer concrete of C1-C column was crushed under the load of 1600 kN
(Point A) and the axial load was partially transferred to the longitudinal
reinforcement, thus the longitudinal reinforcement for C1-C deformed
quickly after point A. By contrast, the longitudinal reinforcement for
C1-ECC deformed much more slowly because ECC material has a su-
perior bond with steel reinforcement.
The strain development of steel tubes for C1-C and C1-ECC are
shown in Fig. 11(c) and (d). Fig. 11(c) shows the strain development of
the steel tube along the longitudinal direction. The specimen C1-C
reached its peak load at point B, however, the longitudinal strain of the
steel tube was only 1000με at point B, indicating the steel tube was still
under its elastic-plastic stage while the outer reinforced concrete has
already been crushed. After point B, the load decreased slowly while the
6
Engineering Structures 171 (2018) 1–9
strain increased rapidly, which indicates the load transferred from outer
RC component to the inner steel tube. On the contrary, the steel tube
deformed uniformly during the whole loading stage for C1-ECC column,
indicating a compatible deformation between steel tube and other
components.
Fig. 11(d) shows the strain development of the steel tube along the
circumferential direction. The strain values for both specimens in-
creased slowly during the initial stage. As the axial load increased to
about 2000 kN, the steel tube deformed more rapidly along the cir-
cumferential direction. It can also be observed that the strain value for
C1-ECC column was much lower than that of C1-C column. For ex-
ample, when the axial load was 3000 kN, the strain value for C1-ECC is
80με, while the value for C1-C is 155με. This may be the reason that
expansion of steel tube can be partially prohibited by the external re-
inforced ECC, since ECC has a much higher tensile strain and crack
dispersion capability than concrete.
4. Simplified calculation method
For the past two decades, composite columns have been widely used
in structural engineering. Accordingly, different methods for the design
of composite columns have been proposed and applied in practice.
These design codes include AISC-LRFD-2010 [27], ACI-318-11 [28],
Eurocode 4 [29], and CECS-188-2005 [30]. In this paper, the carrying
capacity of ECC-encased CFST columns was calculated based on the
above-mentioned design codes and the results were compared with the
experimental results.
4.1. AISC-LRFD-2010
According to AISC-LRFD-2010, the compressive strength of concrete
encased composite column could be calculated as follows:
Nu = f y Ast + f ysr Asr + 0.85fc′ Ac (2)
in which Nu is the ultimate compressive strength, f y is the yield strength
of steel tube, f ysr is the yield strength of longitudinal bars, and fc′ is the
compressive strength of concrete. Ast , Asr , and Ac are the cross-sectional
area of steel tube, longitudinal bars and concrete, respectively. It can be
seen that this design code does not consider the confinement effect.
Also, considering the incompatible deformation between concrete and
steel, the reduction factor for RC component is set as 0.85.
4.2. ACI-318-11
According to ACI-318-11, the compressive strength of concrete en-
cased composite column should be calculated as follows:
2.0 1.91
1.8
1.6
1.45
1.4 1.32 1.38 1.41
Ductility index
1.21
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
C1-C C1-ECC C2-C C2-ECC C3-ECC C4-ECC
Specimens
Fig. 10. Ductility indexes of concrete and ECC encased CFST columns.
J. Cai et al. Engineering Structures 171 (2018) 1–9

6000 6000

5000 5000

4000 4000

Load(kN)
Load(kN)

3000 3000

2000 2000 A
•
C1-C C1-ECC
1000 1000
C1-ECC Outer Concrete crushed C1-C
0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Strain (με) Strain (με)
(a) Stirrup (b) Longitudinal reinforcement
6000 6000

5000 5000

4000
B• 4000
Load(kN)

Load(kN)
3000 Outer Concrete crushed 3000

2000 2000
C1-C
1000 C1-C 1000 C1-ECC
C1-ECC
0 0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Strain (με) Strain (με)
(c) Longitudinal direction (d) Circumferential direction
Fig. 11. Strain variations for specimens C1-C and C1-ECC.

Table 5 4.3. Eurocode 4

The ratio of the calculated results (Nuc ) to the experimental results (NuE ).
Design codes C1-ECC C2-ECC C3-ECC C4-ECC Average value EC4 does not consider the confinement effect as well, thus the
carrying capacity for the concrete encased composite column is calcu-
AISC-LRFD-2010 0.631 0.625 0.597 0.642 0.623 lated by each component individually, which shown as follows:
ACI-318-11 0.587 0.572 0.563 0.584 0.576
Eurocode 4 0.721 0.738 0.709 0.727 0.723 Nu = f y Ast + f ysr Asr + fc′ Ac (4)
CECS-188-2005 0.812 0.804 0.785 0.809 0.802
in which Nu is the ultimate compressive strengths, f y is the yield
strength of steel tube, f ysr is the yield strength of longitudinal bars, fc′ is
Table 6 the compressive strength of concrete. Ast , Asr , and Ac are the cross-
Comparison of the modeling results (NuM ) with the experimental results (NuE ). sectional area of steel tube, longitudinal bars and concrete. This design
Specimens NuE (kN) NuM (kN) NuM / NuE code is similar to AISC-LRFD-2010, but EC4 does not incorporate the
reduction factor for RC component.
C1-ECC 5197 4994 0.961
C2-ECC 5148 5060 0.983
C3-ECC 6257 6013 0.961
4.4. CECS-188-2005
C4-ECC 5069 4891 0.965
According to CECS-188-2005, the compressive strength of concrete
encased composite column should be calculated as follows:
Nu = 0.80[0.85fc′ (Ac −Astl ) + f y Astl ] (3)
Nu = 0.9(fco Aco + f ysr Asr ) + fcc Acc (1 + 1.8θ) (5)
where Nu is the ultimate compressive strengths, fc′ is the compressive where fco and fcc are the compressive strength of external concrete and
strength of concrete, f y is the yield strength of steel tube. Ac and Astl are internal concrete, f ysr is the yield strength of longitudinal bars. Aco , Asr ,
the cross-sectional area of concrete and steel longitudinal reinforcement and Acc are the cross-sectional area of outside concrete, longitudinal
(bars or steel tube). According to this design code, the composite bars and inner concrete, respectively. θ is the confinement index, which
column is treated as a concrete column reinforced with special re- can be calculated as follows:
inforcement, including steel reinforcement and steel tube. This design
code does not consider the confinement effect and the reduction factor θ = f y Ast / fcc Acc (6)
is even higher than that of AISC-LRFD-2010.
where f y and Ast are the yield strength and cross-sectional area of steel

7
J. Cai et al.
tube.
It can be seen that the CECS-188-2005 considers the confinement
effect of steel tube, which is different from the previous three design
codes. Also, considering the incompatible deformation between each
component, a reduction factor of 0.9 was also introduced.
4.5. Comparison between design codes and experimental results
The carrying capacity for each column can be worked out based on
the above design codes. The comparisons between calculated results
(Nuc ) and experimental results (NuE ) are shown in Table 5. It can be seen
that all the design codes are very conservative and cannot be applied to
calculate the carrying capacity of ECC-encased CFST column directly.
As has been analyzed above, ECC-encased CFST columns have much
better composite effect when compared with concrete-encased CFST
column. For concrete-encased CFST column, the steel tube has not been
yielded while the outer concrete has already been crushed. By contrast,
the steel tube deformed uniformly during the whole loading stage for
ECC-encased CFST column, indicating a compatible deformation be-
tween steel tube and ECC material. Thus, the bearing capacity of ECC
encased CFST column can be expressed as follows:
Nu = NRE + NCFST
where NRE is the load carrying capacity of outer reinforced ECC and
NCFST is the load carrying capacity of inner CFST. It should be noted
that the reduction factor was ignored when considering the compatible
mechanical behavior of inner CFST and outer steel reinforced ECC,
which is quite different from the existing design codes. In Eq. (7), NRE
can be expressed as follows
NRE = AE fE + Asr f ysr
where AE and Asr are the cross-sectional area of outside ECC and
longitudinal bars, f ysr is the yield strength of longitudinal bars, fE is the
compressive strength of outside ECC.
According to GB50936-2014 [31], NCFST can be expressed as follows
NCFST = Asc fsc
where Asc and fsc are expressed as follows
fsc = (1.212 + Bθ + Cθ 2) fcc
A Foundation of China under 51778131, Distinguished Young Scholar
αSC = st
Acc
fy
θ = αSC
fcc
0.176f y
B= + 0.974
213
0.104fcc
C=− + 0.031
14.4
where Ast and Acc are the cross-sectional area of steel tube and inner
concrete, f y is the yield strength of steel tube and fcc is the compressive
strength of inner concrete. It can be seen that the nominal strength ( fsc )
was directly related to the yield strength and cross-sectional area of
steel tube, the contribution of the steel tubes to the axial capacity of
CFST has been considered in this model.
The comparisons between the modeling results (NuM ) and the ex-
perimental results (NuE ) are shown in Table 6. The suggested equation
appears to provide more reliable predictions with the maximum error
less than 5%, indicating that the proposed model can provide precise
predications of the bearing capacity for ECC-encased CFST columns.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, the axial compressive performance of ECC- encased
Engineering Structures 171 (2018) 1–9
CFST columns was experimentally investigated. Four ECC-encased
CFST columns and two concrete-encased CFST columns were tested.
The influences of longitudinal reinforcement ratio, stirrup ratio and the
thickness of steel tube on ECC-encased CFST columns were analyzed
and a simplified calculation model was also proposed. The key con-
clusions reached based on the results of this investigations are sum-
marized as below:
1. The concrete-encased CFST column failed with serious concrete
spalling and crushing, while the ECC-encased CFST column gen-
erally maintains its integrity.
2. The compressive strength for C1-ECC is about 30% higher than C1-
C, even though the outer ECC has similar compressive strength with
the outer concrete, indicating that the ECC encased CFST has a
better composite effect than that of concrete-encased CFST columns.
Also, the ductility index for specimen C1-ECC is 10 percent higher
than that of C1-C indicating that substituting concrete with ECC can
increase the ductility of the composite columns.
3. The thickness of the steel tube has great effects on both ultimate
load and the ductility of ECC encased CFST columns. The ultimate
load increased with the increase of longitudinal reinforcement ratio,
(7) while the stirrup ratio has little influence on the ultimate load car-
rying capacity. However, the stirrup ratio could improve the duc-
tility of the composite column which is attributed to the passive
confinement effect provided by the stirrup.
4. According to the strain analysis, when the outer concrete of con-
crete-encased CFST columns crushed, the inner steel tube is still
under its elastic-plastic stage. By contrast, for ECC-encased CFST
columns, the inner steel tube yielded while the outer ECC crushed. It
can be inferred that a good composite effect can be achieved for the
(8)
proposed ECC encased CFST columns.
5. It is found that the existing design codes significantly underestimate
the load carrying capacity of the ECC encased CFST columns.
Therefore, a new equation for predicting the bearing capacity of
ECC-encased CFST columns was proposed and verified with ex-
perimental results.
(9)
Acknowledgment
(10)
Financial support of this work by National Natural Science
(11) Foundation of Jiangsu Province under BK20160027 and Priority
Academic Program Development of Jiangsu High Education Institutions
under 1105007002 is gratefully acknowledged.
(12)
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