Improvement of the behaviour of composite slabs: A new type of end anchorage

Abstract

The application of composite steel-concrete slabs with profiled steel sheeting has increased, due to the various advantages in relation to reinforced concrete slabs such as, the reduced thickness, the reduced amount of lost formwork needed, as well as the speed of execution. The loss of longitudinal shear resistance is, generally, the governing design mode for simply supported spans of common lengths. For common distributed loadings, the composite behaviour is influenced by the partial shear connection between the concrete and the steel sheeting. The present research work is intended to contribute to improving the ultimate limit state behaviour of composite slabs using end anchorage. Eurocode 4, Part 1.1 (EN 1994-1-1) provides an analytical methodology for predicting the increase of longitudinal resistance, achieved by using shear studs welded through the steel sheeting as the end anchorage mechanism. The code does not supply an analytical methodology for other kinds of end anchorage so, additional tests or studies are needed to prove the effectiveness of these types of anchorage. The influence of end anchorage mechanisms provided by transverse rebars at the ends of simply supported composite slabs is analysed in this paper. Two experimental programmes were carried out, the first to determine the resistance provided by the new end anchorage mechanism and the second to analyse its influence on the behaviour of simply supported composite slabs.