Experimental and analytical investigations on compressive behaviors of modular steel shear-keyed tubes

•Four steel tubes with variable shear-key heights and thicknesses were subjected to axial compression testing.•The FEM was developed, and 100 shear-keyed tubes were studied to investigate the effect of varying parameters over a range of cross-sections.•Analytical models for buckling load and modified prediction equations for EC3:1–1, AISC360-16, CSA S16, and GB50017 were established to assess compression strength.