Experimental study on the effect of partial shear studs layout on flexural behavior of steel-concrete composite beams

Abstract

In steel-concrete composite beams, partial shear connection offers advantages including greater ductility and lower cost. However, partial shear connection constraints on composite beam structural performance, such as reduced beam stiffness, increased steel-concrete interface slip, etc., should not be neglected. Several researches have revealed that shear connector layout is one of the main approaches to limit partially composite beam vulnerability. Shear connector layout optimization has not been completely investigated experimentally, and its effect on composite beam structural performance is still unknown. This paper focusses on the experimental study of the effect of shear connectors layout on the flexural performance of composite beams. It reports the optimization of the layout of shear connectors based on blocked distribution of shear connectors laid in a single row, while concentrating the highest number of shear studs towards the supports of a simply supported composite beam. A fully composite beam with normal layout of shear studs was tested as control specimen, while the rest of the beams used partial shear connection (η = 0.5). Beams with partial shear connection had 3 different layouts of shear studs. The first had uniformly distributed shear studs, and the rest had shear studs laid out in 2 and 3 blocks each of uniform spacing respectively. The results showed that the beam with 3 blocks layout each of equal spacing of shear studs had the closest best structural performance to the fully composite beam and had better ductility than the latter.