Residual behavior of UHPC-filled Q690 high-strength steel tubular members after axial impact

Structures may suffer from accidental impact loads during the service life. While most impacts will not destroy structures completely, quantifying their residual behavior after impact is crucial for evaluating the damage and then providing recommendations for repair or removal. This may greatly reduce the time and economic losses caused by impacts. Hence, this study experimentally and numerically investigated the residual behavior of UHPC-filled high-strength steel tube (UHPC-FHST) members subjected to axial impact. Parameters including impact energy, steel ratio, specimen length, and steel grade (Q690 and Q355) were carefully considered. After tests, different failure modes and axial load-displacement curves were obtained. The residual ratio (β), a ratio of the bearing capacity of a damaged specimen to that of a specimen without impact, was employed to assess the damage level of UHPC-FHST members after axial impact. Tests showed that UHPC-FHST members have excellent axial impact resistance, high residual strength, and high residual ratio, especially under low-energy impact conditions. β decreases rapidly and linearly with increasing nominal strain and then stabilizes after a certain value. A finite element (FE) model was thereafter established and benchmarked by the available test results, where two analysis steps were established to continuously simulate the impact and residual compression processes. The FE results demonstrated a great agreement with the tests, which could provide a reference for further investigations in related studies.