Bridge Deck Slab with Steel Sheeting and Shear Connectors Subjected to Vertical Loading

Abstract

Construction of the multiple lane bridges is increasingly growing in the recent years, specifically in the metropolitan cities to decrease the traffic volume and facilitate the road transportations. Steel-concrete composite bridge deck with steel sheeting is one of the deck slabs which showed some advantages over the conventional reinforced-concrete (RC) deck slabs. This study modelled and analysed these kinds of composite slabs comprising of steel sheeting and shear connectors which are filled by normal strength concrete. Finite element analysis (FEA) is applied for modelling and analysing in this research. The results were compared with the experimental test results which were tested earlier. The sample composite deck slabs were modelled and run for analysis by finite element software to obtain the ultimate load and related deflection of slabs under the vertical loading at the center of the deck slabs. The results indicated an acceptable correlation with the experimental test results. In addition, the results of FEA indicated that the horizontal shear resistance is larger by approximately 1.8 times than the required horizontal shear resistance which is in the acceptable range.