Time dependent finite element analysis of steel-concrete composite beams considering partial interaction

Abstract

A finite element computer code for short-term analysis of steel-concrete composite structures is extended to study long-term effects under service loads, in the present work. Long-term effects are important in engineering design because they influence stress and strain distribution of the structural system and therefore contribute to the increment of deflections in these structures. For creep analysis, a rheological model based on a Kelvin chain, with elements placed in series, was employed. The parameters of the Kelvin chain were obtained using Dirichlet series. Creep and shrinkage models, proposed by the CEB FIP 90, were used. The shear-lag phenomenon that takes place at the concrete slab is usually neglected or not properly taken into account in the formulation of beam-column finite elements. Therefore, in this work, a three-dimensional numerical model based on the assemblage of shell finite elements for representing the steel beam and the concrete slab is used. Stud shear connectors are represented for special beam-column elements to simulate the partial interaction at the slab-beam interface. The two-dimensional representation of the concrete slab permits to capture the non-uniform shear stress distribution in the horizontal plane of the slab due to shear-lag phenomenon. The model is validated with experimental results of two full-scale continuous composite beams previously studied by other authors. Results are given in terms of displacements, bending moments and cracking patterns in order to shown the influence of long-term effects in the structural response and also the potentiality of the present numerical code.