Innovative Shear Connector to be used in Steel-Concrete Composite Beams (R-10440)

Composite structures have been applied more frequently in civil constructions. These can be used in buildings, bridges and many others types of constructions. In fact, this increase is explicated due to an efficient and economically solution, due to the optimum utilization of its elements, where concrete contributes for the compression and steel contributes in the tension region. The assurance that these elements work together is extremely important in composite structures behavior, therefore, shear connectors are used to joint steel to concrete. In order to understand the shear connectors behavior and to define their resistance and ductility, Eurocode 4 specifies the guidelines for the execution of experimental pushout tests. These tests present two concrete slabs joined to a steel profile through a steel connector that will be subjected to direct shear. Factors such as concrete compressive resistance, reinforcement bar diameter, geometry and tensile strength of connectors and profile influence the experimental test performance. Some types of connectors currently used are stud bolt, U-profiles, Crestbond, Perfobond, T-Perfobond, among others. It intended to develop a connector that presents high ductility and resistant capacity, since the current Perfobond presents good resistant capacity, but low deformation capacity. As there is no current standardization about this type of shear connector, the scope of this research is to develop a more ductile connector by studying the parameters that control its resistance, through an extensive experimental program and finite element numerical models, and to propose an analytical formulation to determine the strength of the shear connector.

Keywords:concrete

Disciplines:Structural engineering

Project type:Collaboration project