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Tension Connection for Concrete Filled Steel Pipe Pile

I am reviewing a tension connection detail for 12"OD steel pipe pile filled with concrete.It is common practice
welding rebar to the pipe pile for tension this type of connection, Customer wants to avoid welding rebar to the
pipe or any type of connection detail which involves welding. They provided a detail with 4-#8 bars embedded
in to the pipe pile filled with concrete upto 3 foot with a hook on the other side of the rebar, which would
eventually run in to the pile cap.

Since the load transfer occurs completely through bond, they used Eq: I 9-9 from AISC 14th Ed Section I 6.3c
to check the tensile strength of the connection, from the load transfer throgh the bond between concrete and
inner surface of the steel pipe pile.

- Does the equation mentioned above from AISC is applicable for the condition?
- Has any one ever used or come across tension connection detail for concrete filled steel pipe pile which does
not involve welding?

The connection you describe, hooked rebar embedded into the concrete filled pile and then appropriate rebar
details in the cap or into the grade beam is what I have seen for the last 38 years+. Welding is uncommon &
usually used for oddball connections or to deal with severe mis-alignments.

I'm in an area where uplift and overturning are common considerations in deep foundations. As a result, for
concrete filled steel pipe, welding is common between sections.

I think there are two issues here. When driving piles, you have to weld if you are splicing. This welding needs
to also provide the required tensile capacity. In anchorage at the top to the pile cap, I agree with emmgjld that
transfer by shear can do the job. MacG, It seems to me that this is very similar to shear-friction, which relies
on bars crossing a plane to provide a clamping force. The steel pipe provides a circumferential clamping force,
in my opinion much more reliably so than bars crossing a plane.

I think most of that research has been done on concrete filled steel columns in compression, to try to define
the benefit the concrete core gains from confinement by the tube. A lot of major buildings have been built that
way in different parts of the world, but I don't think there is yet actual codification of the methods used, but
maybe I just missed it.

As I said, 38+ years, common to have #5 to #8 bars inserted into the pipe piling 6' to 8' for large steel framed
buildings and sign/light posts. I have never heard of a failure of these tension connections. Sorry we are so
primitive here in Colorado.

Well, it's common knowledge that Coloradans are just cave folk in Gorete While those AISC provisions
(composite columns) don't distinguish between force transfer in tension and compression, I wonder if they
might have been intended for just compression. Like MG22, the thought of such a connection in tension gives
me the shakes. Unless non-shrink concrete is used, I would expect the concrete to pull away from the steel a
tiny bit which is not confidence inspiring. In a compression application, I would hope that concrete dilation
would counteract that. In a tension application, you obviously wouldn't have that going for you. If these things
are getting used extensively, there must have been some testing done at some point.