Experimental study on rubber concrete filled steel tube members under pure bending

The test of four rubber concrete filled steel tube (RuCFST) members, one concrete filled steel tube (CFST) member and one empty member were conducted under pure bending. The main parameters were the shear span ratio (λ) from 3 to 5, and the rubber replacing ratio (r) from 10% to 20%. The bending moment-strain curves, the bending moment-deflection curves and the bending moment–curvature curves were obtained. The failure modes of core rubber concrete were analyzed. The failure mode of RuCFST members was bending failure from the results. The cracks of rubber concrete were distributed evenly and sparsely, and the filling of rubber in core concrete prevented the development of cracks. The shear span ratio has little effect on the behavior of the tested specimens. While the rubber replacing ratio had little effect on the bending moment capacity, but had some influence on the bending stiffness of the tested specimens. After filling in rubber concrete, the bending moment capacity and the bending stiffness can be improved compared with the empty steel tube specimen.