Steel–concrete composite columns such as concrete-encased steel (CES) and concrete-filled steel tube (CFT) columns have large load-carrying capacity and high local stability due to composite action, and high-strength materials improve structural safety and space efficiency. Thus, the use of high-strength composite columns is growing in the construction of high-rise and long-span structures. When high-strength steel is used for conventional CES columns (consisting of a wide-flange steel core and concrete encasement), early crushing of concrete encasement needs to be considered, because the steel core may not develop its full plastic strength at the concrete failure, particularly under flexural loading (Kim et al. 2012, 2014). On the other hand, CFT columns using high-strength steel show excellent structural performance, because the steel tube provides good lateral confinement to concrete core and the concrete core restrains local buckling of the steel tube (Kim et al. 2014). However, in terms of fire proofing, local instability, diaphragm connections, and concrete compaction, CES columns still have advantages over CFT columns. Thus, further studies are necessary for high-strength CES columns. To improve the load-carrying capacity of CES columns, concrete-encased steel angle (CES-A) sections can be used (Kim et al. 2014, 2017; Eom et al. 2014; Hwang et al. 2015, 2016). In the case of CES-A sections (Fig. 1), the contributions of steel to flexural strength and flexural stiffness are maximized: the strain and moment-arm of steel are significantly increased by placing steel angles at four corners, and the corner steel angles connected by transverse reinforcement provide good confinement to concrete core (Kim et al. 2014, 2017). Because of these advantages, along with constructability improvement by prefabrication, CES-A sections have recently become popular in Korea. Structural steel angles for columns have been widely studied and used in various ways: (1) to externally strengthen existing RC columns with batten plates (i.e., steel jacketing for reconstruction or seismic retrofitting) (Critek 2001; Zheng and Ji 2008a, b; Montuori and Piluso 2009; Nagaprasad et al. 2009; Calderon et al. 2009; Badalamenti et al. 2010; Garzon-Roca et al. 2011a, b, 2012; Campione 2012a, b; Khalifa and Al-Tersawy 2014; Tarabia and Albakry 2014; Cavaleri et al. 2016); (2) to replace wide- flange members with the built-up members connected by battens (Hashemi and Jafari 2004); (3) to reduce laborious fieldwork of composite columns by prefabrication (Kim et al. 2011; Eom et al. 2014; Hwang et al. 2015, 2016); and/ or (4) to improve structural capacity and cost efficiency of composite columns by maximizing the contribution of highstrength steel (Kim et al. 2014, 2017). According to the primary purpose, steel angles could be either encased in concrete or exposed, and could transmit column loads or not (providing confinement only). Especially for the steel jacketing, extensive studies are available.