Experimental investigation on post-fire performances of fly ash concrete filled hollow steel column

In structural engineering practice, understanding the performance of composite columns under extreme loading conditions such as high-rise bulding, long span and heavy loads is essential to accuratly predicting of material responses under severe loads such as fires or earthquakes. Hitherto, the combined effect of partial axial loads and subsequent elevated temperatures on the performance of hollow steel column filled fly ash concrete have not been widely investigated. Comprehensive test was carried out to investigate the effect of elevated temperatures on partial axially loaded square hollow steel column filled fly ash concrete as reported in this paper. Four batches of hollow steel column filled fly ash concrete ( 30 percent replacement of fly ash), (HySC) and normal concrete (CFHS) were subjected to four different load levels, nf of 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% based on ultimate column strength. Subsequently, all batches of the partially damage composite columns were exposed to transient elevated temperature up to 250o C, 450o C and 650o C for one hour. The overall stress – strain relationship for both types of composited columns with different concrete fillers were presented for each different partial load levels and elevated temperature exposure. Results show that CFHS column has better performance than HySC at ambient temperature with 1.03 relative difference. However, the residual ultimate compressive strength of HySC subjected to partial axial load and elevated temperature exposure present an improvement compared to CFHS column with percentage difference in range 1.9% to 18.3%. Most of HySC and CFHS column specimens failed due to local buckling at the top and middle section of the column caused by concrete crushing. The columns failed due to global buckling after prolong compression load. After the compression load was lengthened, the columns were found to fail due to global buckling except for HySC0