PKG 888
PKG 888
PKG 888
INTRODUCTION
Plastic have exceptional properties, which make these materials attractive for
different structural applications. Some of these properties include high resistance to
severe environmental attacks, electromagnetic transparency and high strength to
weight ratio. Due to these properties, there is a great demand for structures such as
piling, overhead sign structures, light poles and bridge piers to be made up of
materials that are more durable in comparison to traditional materials and systems.
There are two types of plastics; thermoplastic and thermosetting polymers.
Thermoplastic polymers like HDPE/Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) are polymers used
in the construction industries. This provides some main attributes that make it useful
in the construction of certain structures exposed to corrosive environments.
HDPE/PVC tubes are characterized by having light weight, which permits easy
handling. They are impermeable to gases and fluids. Their service life goes beyond
fifty years. Very few authors have studied the behavior of concrete filled plastic
tubular columns.
(Kurt, 1978) conducted a theoretical analysis to study the interaction between the
concrete core and plastic tube. This analysis indicates that the effective pressure on
the boundary between concrete core and pipe is proportional to the Poisson’s ratio
of concrete and inversely proportional to the ratio of the modulus of elasticity of
concrete and plastic. He also conducted experiments to see the increase and decrease
in strength of concrete core due to confinement and slenderness ratio respectively.
(Marzouck et al., 2002) conducted experimental study on concrete filled PVC tubes
with 100mm diameter concrete core and 3mm thickness of tube. The lengths of tubes
were 758, 562, 416 and 270mm. They concluded that the PVC tube provides
considerable lateral confinement to the concrete columns. They reported that as the
slenderness ratio increases, the compressive strength of concrete filled PVC tube
decreases. They found that tube exhibits large lateral deformation before failure.
(Wang and Yang, 2010) presented the experimental study on plastic pipe confined
concrete (PPC). The plastic pipes were taken as HDPE pipes. They reported that the
thickness and unconfined compressive strength of concrete affect the post-peak
behavior of stress-strain curve and the ultimate strength of PPC. They also reported
that the ductility ratio of PPC increases from 1.17 to 4.27 times that of common
concrete (CC) and energy absorption of PPC increases from 10.7 to 26 times that of
CC. (Gupta et al., 2012) tested twelve specimens of unplasticised poly vinyl chloride
(UPVC) tubes filled with steel fibre concrete. They showed the effect of diameter to
thickness ratio and length to diameter ratio on the strength, confinement and
ductility. They also concluded that the maximum displacement till complete failure
of concrete core was around 4.5mm while concrete filled UPVC tubes were not
completely failed till 11mm of compression.
(Hsuan et al., 2003) carried out a nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) of concrete
filled steel tubular (CFT) columns with circular section, square section and square
section stiffened by reinforcing ties to study and analyze their behavior. They
reported that for circular tubes having smaller values of D/t (say D/t < 40) provides
a greater confinement. They proposed an empirical relationship on the basis of FEA
between confining pressure and D/t values for the two ranges of D/t values. The two
ranges of D/t values were 21.7 to 47 and 47 to 150. On the basis of these equations,
it is clear that as D/t increases, the confining pressure decreases.
From the literature review it can be concluded that few researchers have studied the
behavior of concrete filled plastic tubes. Study the behavior of CFPT with the help
of computer modeling is still untouched. In this paper a systematic computational
study using FEA has been conducted. With the help of this study it has been shown
that the value of fl depends on D/t ratio and concrete compressive strength while post
peak variation of load-compression curve depends on D/t ratio of HDPE tube.
COMPUTER MODELING
A three dimensional Finite element model was developed using ANSYS software to
simulate the concrete filled HDPE tube (CFHT) under axial compression. To model
the concrete core, a three dimensional eight node solid element SOLID 65 was used.
To model the HDPE tube, eight node solid element SOLID 45 was used. Mesh size
was chosen from 6mm to 10mm for both HDPE tube and concrete core. Two rigid
plates were modeled to simulate rigid cross heads of machine. Load was applied to
the column through the top loading plate. In the compression test, direct contact
exists between the end plates and end surface of the column; therefore a contact
available in ANSYS was used to simulate the interaction between rigid plate and
column end surface. The contact was defined as a surface to surface contact.
To activate the confinement of concrete core in finite element model, a contact
surface pair comprised of the inner surface of the HDPE tube and the outer surface
of concrete core was adopted. Flexible behavior in the normal direction was assumed
with no penetration allowed between the surfaces. A friction factor of 0.2 was
obtained and then adopted to achieve a quick convergence and to obtain accurate
results. In finite element model, the lower rigid plate contacting the bottom of
column was fixed in all six directions by reference node. The upper rigid plate at the
top of the column was modeled fixed in five directions and only allowed movement
in column axis at reference node. The load was applied as static uniform
displacement at upper rigid plate through the reference node at the center of rigid
plate. Fig. 1 shows a typical finite element model adopted for modeling of CFHT
column.
Fig. 1:Typical Finite Element Model for CFHT Column
The material behavior of the HDPE tube is similar to PVC-U pipe and it can be
simulated by an elastic-perfectly plastic model (Yaun and Yang, 2013). The
Poisson’s ratio and elastic modulus of HDPE are taken 0.35 and 1000MPa. When
HDPE tube subjected to several stresses, a Von mises criterion F is used to define
the elastic limit, which is written as
1
F 3J 2 ( 1 2) 2 ( 2 3) 2 ( 3 1) 2 y (1)
2
Ecc
f (4)
2 3
1 ( R RE 2) (2 R 1) R
cc cc cc
Where
Ecccc RE ( R 1) 1
RE R
fcc , ( R 1) 2 R (5)
Table 1 shows the geometrical and material properties of concrete filled HDPE tubes
(CFHT) specimens. The geometrical material properties were taken from the
literature (Wang and Yang 2010). The outer diameter and length of pipes are
constant and equals to 110mm and 220 mm respectively. The thickness of HDPE
pipes varies from 4.61mm to 10.3mm. The HDPE pipes which were used for the
specimens fall under the category of nominal pressure of 0.6 MPa, 1.0 MPa and 1.6
MPa. Three grades of concrete i.e. C30, C45 and C60 have been used in the study.
The variables which affect the confining pressure (fl) are the grade of concrete,
ultimate tensile strength of tube material (fu) and diameter to thickness ratio while
the value of D/t affects the material degradation parameter (k3). The results of
numerical simulations for CFHT specimens are given in Table 2. From finite element
analysis, Strength of concrete filled HDPE tubes varies from 24.05MPa to 44.58
MPa. The Stress-strain curves are plotted against the experimental data (Wang and
Yang 2010) in Fig. 4. The numerical results and mode of deformation (Fig. 4) are
fairly in good agreement with experimental values. It was observed that the value of
fl and k3 decrease with the increasing of diameter to thickness ratio. As a result the
value of fl varies from 1.18 to 3.0 for CFHT when HDPE pipes with nominal pressure
0.6 MPa to 1.6 MPa when C30 grade concrete was used for specimens. On the other
hand it varies from 0.6 to 1.5 MPa when higher grade of concrete C45 and C60 were
used. The values of confining pressure for higher grade of concrete say C45 & C60
are half of the values for normal grade of concrete C30. The higher grade of concrete
loses its strength before getting full confinement. In the present case the degradation
parameter (k3) varies from 0.3 to 0.4 and depends on the value of D/t. From equation
6 and 7, it can be seen that the confining pressure depends on the ultimate strength
of HDPE tube, compressive strength of concrete and the value of D/t.
Figs 5(a) & 5(b) show the curves between fl/fu versus D/t and k3 versus D/t
respectively. From the results of numerical simulations, two empirical relations may
be proposed for getting the values of fl and k3. These equations can be used for the
value of D/t from 10 to 25. These are as follows:
2
fl D D
0.0004 0.0194 0.2758 10 D 25 for C30 concrete
fu t t t
(6)
2
D D
0.0002 0.0098 0.1388 10 D 25 for C45 & C60 concrete (7)
fl
fu t t t
For the parameter k3, another empirical relation may be proposed as follows
2
D D
k 3 0.0005 t 0.0234 t 0.5976 10 D t 25
(8)
(j)
CONCLUSIONS
Following points can be concluded on the basis of results obtained from Finite
element analysis of concrete filled HDPE tube.
1. The confinement contribution increases with decrease of D/t value. The
confining pressure is half for higher grade of concrete compared to normal
grade of concrete. In the present case the confining pressure varies from 0.6
MPa to 3.0 MPa.
2. The material degradation parameter, k3 increases with decreasing of D/t
value.
3. The enhancement in concrete strength is not much more in concrete filled
HDPE pipe, but it provides the protective layer to concrete against the
chemical attack. It also improves the ductility of concrete
4. Two empirical relations have been proposed to calculate the value of fl and
k3.
5. A better ductility can be achieved with the use of HDPE pipes for concrete
filled tubes.
REFERENCES