Ultimate strength behavior of steel plate-concrete composite slabs: An experimental and theoretical study

Steel plate-concrete composite slabs provide attractive features, such as more effective loading transfer, and more cost-effective stay-in-place forms, thereby enabling engineers to design more high-performance light structures. Although significant studies in the literatures have been directed toward designing and implementing the steel plate-concrete composite beams, there are limited data available for understanding of the composite slabs. To fill this gap, nine the composite slabs with different variables in this study were tested to unveil the impacts of the critical factors on the ultimate strength behavior. The key information of the findings included sample failure modes, crack pattern, and ultimate strength behavior of the composite slabs under either four-point or three-point loading. Test results showed that the failure modes varied from delamination to shear failures under different design factors. Particularly, the shear stud spacing and thicknesses of the concrete slabs significantly affected their ultimate load-carrying capacities. Moreover, an analytical model of the composite slabs was derived for determining their ultimate load-carrying capacity and was well verified by the experimental data. Further extensive parametric study using the proposed analytical methods was conducted for a more comprehensive investigation of those critical factors in their performance. These findings are expected to help engineers to better understand the structural behavior of the steel plate-concrete composite slabs and to ensure reliability of design and performance throughout their service life.