High-strength steel-wire-mesh reinforced square concrete filled steel tubular columns: Concept and compressive behavior

Confinement from steel tube to concrete core is generally low in square concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns compared with their circular counterparts. To improve it, a new confining measure based on high-strength steel wire meshes (SWMs) has been proposed in this study. Different from traditional measures usually confining the concrete core from outside of it, the SWM confines the concrete core from inside of it by utilizing interaction force between SWM and concrete. Axial compression test on short SWM reinforced CFST columns was conducted to examine the efficiency of SWM. The test results demonstrated that the compressive load-carrying capacity of the square CFST column could be improved by 21.7% with a steel wire ratio of 1.54%. Finite element analysis was carried out to investigate some mechanical behaviors that were not captured in the test. It was revealed that the strength of SWM can be fully utilized, provided the entire section of concrete is reinforced by SWM and the SWM is placed along the middle half-part of column. Based on the results of this study, the use of high-strength SWM is proved an effective measure to improve the compressive performance of square CFST columns.