Paneled Composite Beams (Dept.C)

Abstract

Recently, composite members had been widely used in construction, where the use of appropriate materials arranged in an optimum geometric configuration providing the required compressive and tensile strength, achieve greater stiffness, material saving, less own weight and better vibration resistance. Unfortunately, the behavior of continuous composite beams supported on other beams is unpredictable and such system requires a more complicated design. Most of the current design codes do not mention the behavior of this system due to the lack of both experimental data and practical experience. Therefore the designer usually ignores the real behavior of such system which acts as a paneled beam system, and considers the secondary beams as simply supported composite beams, or as continuous steel beams leading to either unsafe results or over conservative results, due to the lack of adequate code guidance, Thus, this paper explains the behavior of such system using linear finite element analysis, together with the most important factors affecting it.