Nonlinear analysis of steel-concrete composite beams with flexible shear connectors

Steel-concrete composite beam is a typical construction which is made up of two dissimilar materials such as steel and concrete. It is used mainly for construction of commercial/residential high-rise buildings and bridges. From last few decades steel-concrete composite structure has been utilised in construction industry due to several advantages such as reduced time and cost of major construction and the avoidance of one of the major issues in present era, space scarcity. Shear connector is a basic component through which steel and concrete components are mechanically connected to transfer the load from concrete slab to steel beam in a conventional type of steel-concrete composite beam. Three dimensional numerical models are created using finite element analysis commercial software package ANSYS15 to study the flexural capacity of beam specimens. Earlier, validation has been done with the test results available in the literature and the proposed model is found to be capable of analysing the specimens with acceptable accuracy. Further numerical models are made to understand the behaviour of steel-concrete composite beam which is made up of two different flexible shear connectors such as stud and channel connector under four-point bending. Degree of shear connection, geometry and layout of shear connectors are taken into account as key parameters for this present numerical study. Normal strength of concrete is considered. The associated results such as ultimate load, mid-span deformation, interfacial slip capacity are presented. Diameter along with length of stud connector is found to influence the load carrying capacity of beams. Ultimate load capacity as well as stiffness of beams is found to enhance when channel section is considered with minimal spacing of connector. Thus finding the required degree of shear connection was also proved to be vital for assessing the performance of steel-concrete composite beams.