Residual bearing capacity of steel-concrete composite beams under fatigue loading

This study was conducted to investigate the residual bearing capacity of steel-concrete composite beams under highcycle fatigue loading through experiments and theoretical analysis. Six test beams with stud connectors were designed and fabricated for static, complete fatigue, and partial fatigue tests. The failure modes and the degradation of several mechanical performance indicators of the composite beams under high-cycle fatigue loading were analyzed. A calculation method for the residual bearing capacity of the composite beams after certain quantities of cyclic loading cycles was established by introducing nonlinear fatigue damage models for concrete, steel beam, and shear connectors beginning with the material residual strength attenuation process. The results show that the failure mode of the composite beams under the given fatigue load appears to be primarily affected by the number of cycles. As the number of fatigue loadings increases, the failure mode transforms from midspan concrete crushing to stud cutting. The bearing capacity of a 3.0-m span composite beam after two million fatigue cycles is degraded by 30.7% due to premature failure of the stud. The calculated values of the residual bearing capacity method of the composite beam established in this paper agree well with the test values, which indicates that the model is feasibly applicable.