Experimental study of composite concrete cellular steel beams

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to compare the structural behavior of composite steel– concrete beams using cellular beams with and without steel ring stiffeners placed around the web openings. An IPE140 hot rolled I-section steel beam was used to create four specimens: one without openings (control beam); one without shear connectors (non-composite); a composite steel–concrete beam using a cellular beam without strengthening (CLB1); and a composite steel–concrete beam using a cellular beam (CLB4-R) with its openings strengthened by steel ring stiffeners with geometrical properties Br = 37mm and Tr = 5mm. CLB1 was fabricated with openings of 100mm diameter and a 1.23 expansion depth ratio, while CLB4-R was fabricated with openings of 130mm diameter, a 1.42 expansion depth ratio. Both beams were 1700mm in length with ten openings. The results of this experiment revealed that the loads applied to CLB1 and CLB4-R at deflection L/360 exceeded the load applied to the control specimen at the same deflection by 149.3% and 177.3%, respectively. The results revealed that the non-composite beam had an ultimate load 29% lower than that of the control beam. The ultimate load on CLB1 was 5.3% greater than that of the control beam, and failure occurred due to web-post buckling. While the ultimate load of the CLB4-R beam was 18.43% greater than that of the control beam, the Vierendeel mechanism was indicated as the failure mode.