Performance of steel bridge piers filled with lightweight concrete under cyclic loading

Abstract

Abstract Concrete-filled steel tube columns are widely used in civil engineering structures due to their excellent ductility, energy absorption capacity, ultimate load-bearing capacity, and seismic behavior. In this paper, a numerical study modeling of eight lightweight concrete and conventional concrete filled steel tubes was carried out using ABAQUS software, and the lateral load-carrying capacity of square and circular steel tubes under cyclic load was compared. The quarter and one-third height of the tubes was filled with concrete with respect to the pier's height, to improve the base performance of the piers. The results show that the capacity of steel tubes filled with lightweight concrete increased by 40%–70% regarding energy absorption. The square tubes showed better performance than the circular tubes in terms of yielding load, yielding displacement, and energy dissipation.