The Composite Steel Reinforced Concrete Column Under Axial and Seismic Loads: A Review

The composite steel reinforced concrete (SRC) columns with the form of partial or full encasement of the steel section in the reinforced concrete (RC) have attracted pervasive attention due to their advantages compared to the conventional RC columns. This paper aims to summarize the representative publications regarding the SRC columns. Firstly, the analytical studies of the SRC columns, including comparative studies between available codes to address the philosophy of design and the limits in the available codes of design, bond slip behavior, analytical confinement material models, and finite element analysis, are addressed. In addition, the discussion and summary of the axial behavior of the SRC columns and the important parameters affecting the axial behavior of these types of columns were included. It also attempts to cover the parameters affecting the seismic behavior of the SRC columns. Important progress has been made by the previous studies in the SRC columns under the axial load and the combination of axial and seismic loads, but they fundamentally focused on the columns with the simple arrangement of steel section, and a few attention was paid to the new type of SRC columns with rotated cross-shaped steel section whose webs coincide with the diagonal lines of the columns’ section. Due to the lack of study and the brittle failure of the columns with lightweight and high strength concrete, more studies should still be made to know the behavior of the SRC columns. The paper concludes with suggestions for the future studies to enhance the effectiveness of the SRC columns.