Structural elements made of seam-welded hollow sections are considerably less expensive than their seamless equivalents. This is a strong incentive for their use, but the current steel design standards still contain recommendations for seam-welded hollow sections based on test results performed with sections produced using outdated steel grades and fabrication processes. These design procedures are even more conservative when applied to composite tubular seam-welded elements. This paper presents an experimental campaign performed to investigate the structural behaviour of steel-and concrete-filled composite columns made with seam-welded rectangular hollow profiles. The experiments involved columns with only steel sections, concrete-filled and concrete-filled plus additional reinforcing bars. The main aim of the tests was to identify the contribution of each component in the overall structural response. The results enable an evaluation of the design recommendations present in Eurocode 4 aiming to determine less conservative buckling curves to be used for the investigated composite columns made of seam-welded rectangular hollow sections.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.