Effective flange width of steel–concrete composite beam with partial openings in concrete slab

Abstract

Openings often existed in the concrete flange of steel–concrete composite floors in practical structures, affecting the mechanical behavior of composite floors, such as bearing capacity, rigidity and stability. In this paper, the effective flange width of steel–concrete composite beams with openings in the concrete slab was studied by finite element method. The predicted results for the entire loading history of composite beams with openings in the concrete slab were verified by test results, and the axial normal stress distribution was analyzed in detail based on finite element analysis results. Then the parametric analysis was carried out for obtaining the practical simplified design method for calculating the effective width of steel–concrete composite beams with openings in the concrete slab. At last, the predicted deflection of composite beams with openings in the concrete slab was compared with test results and finite element analysis results, showing that the simplified method for calculating the effective flange width of steel–concrete composite beams with openings in concrete slab had enough precision and was suitable for practical design.