Local buckling of steel plates in concrete-filled steel tubular columns at elevated temperatures

Local buckling remarkably reduces the strength of steel plates in rectangular thin-walled concrete-filled steel tubular (CFST) columns at ambient temperature. This effect is more remarkable at elevated temperature. However, there have been very limited experimental and numerical investigations on the local and post-local buckling behavior of steel plates in CFST columns at elevated temperatures. This paper presents numerical studies on the local and post-local buckling behavior of thin steel plates under stress gradients in rectangular CFST columns at elevated temperatures. For this purpose, finite element models are developed, accounting for geometric and material nonlinearities at elevated temperatures. The initial geometric imperfections and residual stresses presented in steel plates are considered. Based on the finite element results, new formulas are proposed for determining the initial local buckling stress and post-local buckling strength of clamped steel plates under in plane stress gradients at elevated temperatures. Moreover, new effective width formulas are developed for clamped steel plates at elevated temperatures. The proposed formulas are compared with existing ones with a good agreement. The effective width formulas developed are used in the calculations of the ultimate axial loads of rectangular CFST short columns exposed to fire and the results obtained are compared well with the finite element solutions provided by other researchers. The initial local buckling and effective width formulas can be implemented in numerical techniques to account for local buckling effects on the responses of rectangular thin walled CFST columns at elevated temperatures.