• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.783-794
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• 2020

Steel-concrete-steel sandwich composite wall is composed of two external steel plates and infilled concrete core. Internal mechanical connectors are used to enhance the composite action between the two materials. In this paper, the compressive behavior of a novel sandwich composite wall was studied. The steel trusses were applied to connect the steel plates to the concrete core. Three short specimens with different truss spacings were tested under compressive loading. The boundary columns were not included. It was found that the failure of walls started from the buckling of steel plates and followed by the crushing of concrete. Global instability was not observed. It was also observed that the truss spacing has great influence on ultimate strength, buckling stress, ductility, strength index, lateral deflection, and strain distribution. Three modern codes were introduced to calculate the capacity of walls. The comparisons between test results and code predictions show that AISC 360 provides significant underestimations while Eurocode 4 and CECS 159 offer overestimated predictions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.293-308
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• 2015

Interaction between the external thin-walled steel tube and the internal concrete core significantly increases the bending resistance of composite beams and beam-columns in comparison with the steel or concrete members. There is presented a developed method for design of hollow and solid concrete-filled steel tubular beams based on test data, which gives better agreement with test results than EC4 because its limitation to take an increase in strength of concrete caused by confinement contradicts the recommendation of 6.7.2(4) that full composite action up to failure may be assumed between steel and concrete components of the member. Good agreement between the results of carried out experimental, numerical and theoretical investigations allows recommending the proposed method to use in design practice.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.405-416
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• 2019

Profiled composite slab has been widely used in civil engineering due to its structural merits. The extension of this concept to the bearing wall forms the profiled composite wall, which consists of two external profiled steel plates and infill concrete. This paper investigates the structural behavior of this type of wall under axial compression. A series of compression tests on profiled composite walls consisting of varied types of profiled steel plate and edge confinement have been carried out. The test results are evaluated in terms of failure modes, load-axial displacement curves, strength index, ductility ratio, and load-strain response. It is found that the type of profiled steel plate has influence on the axial capacity and strength index, while edge confinement affects the failure mode and ductility. The test data are compared with the predictions by modern codes such as AISC 360, BS EN 1994-1-1, and CECS 159. It shows that BS EN 1994-1-1 and CECS 159 significantly overestimate the actual compressive capacity of profiled composite walls, while AISC 360 offers reasonable predictions. A method is then proposed, which takes into account the local buckling of profiled steel plates and the reduction in the concrete resistance due to profiling. The predictions show good correlation with the test results.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1237-1257
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• 2016

The paper concerns analysis of effects of shrinkage of slab concrete in a steel-concrete composite deck of a through truss bridge span. Attention is paid to the shrinkage alongside the span, i.e., transverse to steel-concrete composite cross-beams. So far this aspect has not been given much attention in spite of the fact that it affects not only steel-concrete decks of bridges but also steel-concrete floors of steel frame building structures. For the problem analysis a two-dimensional model is created. An analytical method is presented in detail. A set of linear equations is built to compute axial forces in members of truss girder flange and transverse shear forces in steel-concrete composite beams. Finally a case study is shown: test loading of twin railway truss bridge spans is described, verified FEM model of the spans is presented and computational results of FEM and the analytical method are compared. Conclusions concerning applicability of the presented analytical method to practical design are drawn. The presented analytical method provides satisfactory accuracy of results in comparison with the verified FEM model.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.27-41
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• 2019

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.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2019

Steel-concrete composite walls have been proposed and developed for applications in various types of structures. The double-skin profiled composite walls, as a natural development of composite flooring, provide structural and architectural merits. However, adequate intermediate fasteners between profiled steel plates and concrete core are required to fully mobilize the composite action and to improve the structural behavior of the wall. In this research, two new types of fasteners (i.e., threaded rods and vertical plates) were proposed and three specimens with different fastener types or fastener arrangements were tested under axial compression. The experimental results were evaluated in terms of failure modes, axial load versus axial displacement response, strength index, ductility index, and load-strain relationship. It was found that specimen with symmetrically arranged thread rods sustained more stable axial strain than that with staggered arranged threaded rods. Meanwhile, vertical plates are more suitable for practical use since they provide stronger confinement to profiled steel plate and effectively prevent the steel plate from early local buckling, which eventually enhance the composite action and increase the axial compressive capacity of the wall. The calculation methods were then proposed and good agreement was observed between the test results and the predicted results.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.405-413
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• 2020

Current study on the buckling analysis of steel plate in composite structures normally focuses on applying finite element method to derive the buckling stress. However, it is time consuming, computationally complicated and tedious for general use in design by civil engineers. Therefore, in this study an analytical study is conducted to predict the buckling behavior of steel plates in composite structures. Hand calculation method was proposed based on energy principle. Novel buckling shapes with biquadratic functions along both loaded and unloaded direction were proposed to satisfy the boundary condition. Explicit solutions for predicting the critical local buckling stress of steel plate is obtained based on the Rayleigh-Ritz approach. The obtained results are compared with both experimental and numerical data. Good agreement has been achieved. Furthermore, the influences of key factors such as aspect ratio, width to thickness ratio, and elastic restraint stiffness on the local buckling performance are comprehensively discussed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.549-557
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• 2019

The use of shear studs usually placed in the form of mechanical shear connectors makes it possible to adopt composite steel-concrete structures in various structures, and steel-concrete plate composite (SCP) is being seriously considered for the installation of storage tanks exposed to harsh environments. However, manufacturing of SCP must be based on the application of existing design guidelines which require very close arrangement of shear studs. This means that the direct application of current design guidelines usually produces very conservative results and close arrangement of shear studs precludes pouring concrete within exterior steel faceplates. In this light, an improved guideline to determine the stud spacing should be introduced, and this paper proposes an improved ratio of the stud spacing to the thickness of steel plate on the basis of numerous parametric studies to evaluate the relative influence of the stud spacing on the stability of the SCP.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.51-66
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• 2022

This paper presents the axial compression behavior of partially encased composite (PEC) columns using H-shaped structural steel. In the experimental program, a total of eight PEC columns with H-shaped steel sections of different flange and web slenderness ratios were tested to investigate the interactive mechanism between steel and concrete. The test results showed that the PEC columns could sustain the load well beyond the peak load provided that the flange slenderness ratio was not greater than five. In addition, the previous analytical model was extended to predict the axial load-strain relationships of the PEC columns with H-shaped steel sections. A good agreement between the predicted load-strain relationships and test data was observed. Using the analytical model, the effects of compressive strength of concrete (21 to 69 MPa), yield strength of steel (245 to 525 MPa), slenderness ratio of flange (4 to 10), and slenderness ratio of web (10 to 25) on the interactive mechanism (K_h = confinement factor for highly confined concrete and K_w = reduction factor for steel web) and ductility index (DI = ratio between strain at peak load and strain at proportional load) were assessed. The numerical results showed that the slenderness of steel flange and yield strength of steel significantly influenced the compression behavior of the PEC columns.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.393-410
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• 2001

In an experimental and analytical study on the structural behavior of slender circular steel-concrete composite columns, eleven specimens were tested to investigate the effects of three ways to apply a load to a column. The load was applied eccentrically to the concrete section, to the steel section or to the entire section. Three-dimensional nonlinear finite element models were established and verified with the experimental results. The analytical models were also used to study how the behavior of the column was influenced by the bond strength between the steel tube and the concrete core and the by confinement of the concrete core offered by the steel tube. The results obtained from the tests and the finite element analyses showed that the behavior of the column was greatly influenced by the method used to apply a load to the column section. When relying on just the natural bond, full composite action was achieved only when the load was applied to the entire section of the column. Furthermore, because of the slenderness effects the columns did not exhibit the beneficial effects of composite behavior in terms of increased concrete strength due to the confinement.