When the plastic hinge method is used to simulate the elasto-plastic properties of concrete-filled steel tubular structures,the plastic interactive yield surfaces of concrete-filled steel tubular column sections need to be defined.Although the fiber model approach can be well applied to the yield surface analysis,the numerical method is still complicated for the real applications.Therefore based on the experimental and theoretical researches on concrete-filled square steel tubular (CFST) members,this paper develops one method to determine the elastic element parameters.Then a simplified approach to quickly define the axial force-moment interactive plastic yield surface of concrete-filled square steel tubular columns is developed through theoretical analysis and a large number of parametric analyses.Finally,the fiber model method is adopted to verify the feasibility and validity of the proposed method.Results of the two methods are in good agreement,which indicates that the proposed method is reliable.