Experimental behavior of innovative hollow corrugated columns under lateral impact loading

There has recently been a growing trend of replacing conventional structural elements by novel components to achieve more resilient infrastructure. Owing to the recent benchmark study conducted at Monash University, it has been demonstrated that the ultimate compressive capacity of hollow box columns consisting of self-strengthened corrugated plates is significantly enhanced compared to those made of flat plates. However, the behaviour of hollow corrugated columns subjected to impact loading has never been investigated. This paper reports the fundamental behavior of the columns built up from four corrugated plates, which are butt-welded together at the apexes of the section, under lateral impact loading. Three different types of corrugation profiles are considered to investigate the influence of geometric parameters and level of impact energy on the member behaviour. The samples are transversely hit by a 270kgweight dropping hammer from 5m height. Accordingly, the results of experimental tests conducted on large-scale corrugated columns with 1.8m height are addressed. The recorded data including the residual failure modes as well asimpact forces and global deformations time histories of corrugated columns are being compared with those obtained for a control specimen built from flat plates.