Evaluating the effect of shear connection degree and shear connector shape on the bending behavior of steel-concrete composite beam

Abstract

The steel-concrete composite beams are created from the steel girder, the concrete slab, the shear connectors, and transverse reinforcement.  The shear connectors play an important role in incorporating the steel girder and the concrete slab working together as a unity. The existence of the shear connectors will restrain the relative slip between the steel girder and the concrete slab. This enhances the load capacity and reduces the vertical deflection of the steel-concrete composite beams. The experimental study was carried out on three steel-concrete composite beams using perfobond shear connectors to investigate the effect of the shear connection degree and shape on the bending behavior of three steel-concrete composite beams. These steel-concrete composite beams had different number of shear connectors and shapes. The parameters evaluated here included the load capacity and the vertical deflection of composite beams. The shear capacity of perfobond shear connector was obtained from push-out tests. The load capacity of steel-concrete composite beam with full shear connection degree and partial shear degree were also determined by the prediction formula to evaluate the reliability of the experiment.