Shear lag effect in steel-concrete composite beam in hogging moment

Abstract

Shear lag effect can be an important phenomenon to consider in design of the steel-concrete composite beams. Researchers have found that the effect can be strongly related with the moment distribution, the stiffness and the ductility of the composite beams. For continuous composite beams expected to sustain hogging moment, the shear lag effect can be more distinct as cracking of the concrete slab reduces its shear stiffness. Despite its influences on behaviour of the steel-concrete composite beams, a method for calculating the shear lag effect in steel-concrete composite beams sustaining hogging moment is still not available. Shear lag effect in steel-concrete composite beams sustaining hogging moment is investigated in this paper. A method was proposed specifically for predicting the effect in the cracked part of the steel-concrete composite beam. The method is validated against available experimental data. At last, FE studies are conducted for steel-concrete composite beams with different design parameters, loading conditions and boundary conditions to further investigate the shear lag effect and compare with the proposed method.