ABSTRACT
In the current political climate, prominent structures are increasingly being designed for impact loading, as would occur from explosions. It is crucial that the main structural members have sufficient strength to absorb the impulse loads and sufficient ductility to absorb the energy without suffering rupture and global collapse. The combination of stainless steel and concrete lends itself to such applications because of the pronounced strain-hardening characteristic of stainless steel and the energy absorption capacity of concrete under confinement. The paper describes a composite mechanical model for determining the strength of concrete-filled circular hollow section stainless steel tubes under bending. Different loading rates are investigated accounting for the strain-rate dependency of the stainless steel and the concrete. Strain rate dependent constitutive models are proposed for the stainless steel and combined with existing rate dependent models for concrete to produce the section capacity of the composite tube at high strain rates.
