Study on flexural capacity of simply supported steel-concrete composite beam

This paper investigates the flexural capacity of simply supported steel-concrete composite I beam and box beam under positive bending moment through combined experimental and finite element (FE) modeling. 24 composite beams are included into the experiments and parameters including shear connection degree, transverse reinforcement ratio, section form of girder, diameter of stud and loading way are also considered and investigated. ABAQUS is employed to establish FE models to simulate the behavior of composite beams. The influences of a few key parameters, such as the shear connection degree, stud arrangement, stud diameter, beam length and loading way, on flexural capacity are discussed. In addition, three methods including GB standard, Eurocode 4, and Nie method are also used to estimate the flexural capacity of composite beams and also for comparison with experimental and numerical results. The results indicate that Nie method may provide a better estimation in comparison to other two standards.