Slender double-tube ultra-high strength concrete-filled tubular columns under ambient temperature and fire

Abstract This paper presents the results of an experimental campaign where both the room temperature and the fire resistance of six double-tube concrete filled steel tubular slender columns with different combinations of concrete strength are studied. Firstly, the ultimate axial load of the specimens at room temperature was experimentally obtained and afterwards the fire resistance of such columns subjected to a 20% of their load bearing capacity was measured. Given the reduced number of experimental results found in the literature on slender concrete filled tubular columns with double steel tubular cross-sections, the main objective of this paper is to compare the behaviour of such innovative cross-sections under ambient and high temperatures. The influence of filling the inner ring with concrete on the fire performance of these columns is studied in this paper, as well as the variation of thicknesses of the outer and inner steel tubes. Despite the fact that the tested columns are not covered by the scope of Eurocode 4, the current simple calculation models were applied in this paper in order to assess the validity of the standard to this typology of columns, unsafe results being found.