Effect of Rebar on Ductility of Moment-resisting Frame with Concrete-filled Tube Column

Today, many developed countries use the Concrete-Filled Steel tube columns (CFT) to construct high-rise building and bridge piers.

This paper investigates the effect of rebar inside the concrete core of CFT columns.

For this purpose, the structural performance of three two-span frames is evaluated with ABAQUS software. The frames vary based on the presence or absence of rebar within the concrete core, so that the first model has no rebar, the second model has less rebar, and the third model has more rebar inside the concrete core.

The observations from the hysteresis curves obtained from the analyses suggest the more ductile behavior, greater stiffness, and higher energy dissipation potential in the third model relative to the other two models, so that the third model has about 24% more energy absorption capacity than the case without the rebar.