Axial compression behavior of square thin-walled steel tube-laminated bamboo composite hollow columns

The development of laminated-bamboo has broadened the application range of bamboo material in the field of structural engineering. A new type of steel/laminated bamboo composite column was developed based on the existing bamboo composite element for constructing multi-story, pre-fabricated, column-supported, and bamboo-framed buildings, and named as square thin-walled steel tube/multi-layered bamboo plywood composite hollow column (SBCC). The core of the SBCC is a square thin-walled steel tube, and the exterior column consists of several high-strength bamboo plywood pieces (such as bamboo mat plywood) that are bonded together using a structural adhesive to form a composite hollow column. SBCCs are a new type of steel/bamboo composite with excellent physical and mechanical properties. Multi-layered high-strength bamboo plywood forms the primary body in the SBCC that is subjected to compressive forces, and the square thin-walled steel tube only serves as a liner. Large numbers of bamboo are used, which reduce the manufacturing cost of the composite columns and result in a relatively high load-bearing capacity. A steel tube section is used in the column core to increase the cross-sectional size of the column, thereby reducing the slenderness ratio and effectively regulating the instability and failure of the columns under pressure. The composite has a simple cross-section, can be manufactured and processed simply, and is suitable for industrial production. This study aimed to study the axial compression performance of SBCCs, and explore its failure mechanism under axial loads in order to provide valuable information for its engineering applications. The influence of factors including bamboo-plywood net sectional dimension area, hollow ratio, and slenderness ratio on the mechanical performance and axial compression properties was investigated using 15 composite column specimens. The failure modes and deformation behavior of specimens were also analyzed in an axial compression test. Results showed that the compressive failure for SBCCs was principally characterized by interior damage of the bamboo plywood material, damage from glue failure at the matrix interface, and global buckling failure due to the large deformation in the middle of the column. The failure mode was mainly determined by the overall adhesive strength between the matrixes. The compressive bearing-capacity of SBCC increased with increasing net sectional dimension area and the hollow ratio of the bamboo, and decreased with increasing slenderness ratio. A calculating model for the axial compressive bearing-capacity of SBCCs, which can serve as a guideline for engineering applications, was obtained by nonlinear regression analysis of the test data, and the maximum error between the estimators based on the formula and the experimental results was about 20%. Another group of test data was utilized to validate the bearing-capacity model, and revealed the maximum error of about 7.2%. The study demonstrated that SBCC is a kind of steel-bamboo composite column with excellent axial compressive performance, and a potential alternative resource to wood as a vertical support element in houses.