Mechanical behavior of Glass fiber-reinforced polymer-timber-steel tube-concrete composite columns under axial compression

This paper proposes a novel glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP)-timber-steel tube-concrete composite column (GTSC) that combines an outer steel tube with GFRP fabric reinforcement, an inner timber core, and concrete for the rest of the space. The mechanical behavior of eight specimens of novel composite columns was investigated considering diameters of timber cores, layer numbers, and angles of GFRP laminates. The results showed that as the size of the timber core increased from 0 to 50 mm, the ductility and the energy dissipation capacity of the composite column maximum increased by 61.5% and 63.4%, respectively. Conversely, the ultimate load carrying capacity and stiffness decreased. It was also found that the timber core weakened the strength of the confined concrete. However, timber core reduced the weight of columns, which slowed down the reduction of the ultimate load carrying capacity of per unit GTSCs, with the stiffness remains unchanged. GFRP laminates with an angle of 60° provide the best stiffness and ductility, and the layer numbers of GFRP has a positive effect on GTSC's mechanical performance. In addition, an analytical model was proposed based on the ultimate equilibrium method, which accounts for the ultimate bearing capacity of GTSC based on the influence of timber. Analyses revealed a good correlation between analytical and experimental results.