The present study experimentally and numerically investigated the impact behavior of composite reinforced concrete (RC) beams with the pultruded I-GFRP and I-steel beams. Eight specimens of two groups were cast in different configurations. The first group consisted of four specimens and was tested under static load to provide reference results for the second group. The four specimens in the second group were tested first under impact loading and then static loading to determine the residual static strengths of the impacted specimens. The test variables considered the type of encased I-section (steel and GFRP), presence of shear connectors, and drop height during impact tests. A mass of 42.5 kg was dropped on the top surface at the m

This paper studies the effects of stiffeners on shear lag in steel box girders with stiffened flanges. A three-dimensional linear finite element analysis using STAAD.Pro V8i program has been employed to evaluate and determine the actual top flange stress distribution and effective width in steel box girders. The steel plates of the flanges and webs have been modeled by four-node isoparametric shell elements, while the stiffeners have been modeled as beam elements. Different numbers (4, 8, and 15) for the steel stiffeners have been used in this study to establish their effects on the shear lag and longitudinal stresses in the flange. Using stiffeners reduced the magnitude of the top flange longitudinal stresses about 40%, but did

Strengthening of composite beams is highly needed to upgrade the capacities of existing beams. The strengthening methods can be classified as active or passive techniques. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to provide detailed FE simulations for strengthened and unstrengthened steel–concrete composite beams at the sagging and hogging moment regions with and without profiled steel sheeting. The developed models were verified against experimental results from the literature. The verified models were used to present comparisons between the effect of using external post-tensioning and CFRP laminates as strengthening techniques. Applying external post-tensioning at the sagging moment regions is more effective because of the e

A steel-concrete composite structure (1) is described. The steel-concrete composite structure comprises a steel member (2) having an upper surface (5) and a plurality of shear connector elements (6) upstanding from the upper surface and a concrete slab (4) having upper and lower surfaces (7, 8). The slab is supported on its lower surface by the upper surface of the steel member. The slab comprises a plurality of through holes (9) between the upper and lower surfaces, each through hole tapering towards the lower surface so as to form an inverted frustally-shaped seating surface (10). The concrete slab is configured and positioned with respect to the steel member such that at least one shear connector element projects into each through hole.

The structural behavior of Segmental Precast Post-tensioned Reinforced Concrete (SPPRC) beams largely depends on the behavior of the joints that connect between the segments. In this research, series of static tests were carried out to investigate the behavior of full-scale SPPRC beams with different types of epoxy-glued joint configurations; multi-key joint, single key, and plain key joint. The reference specimen was monolithically casted beam and the other specimens were segmental beams with five segments for each one. The general theme from the experimental results reflects an approximate similarity in the behavior of the four beams with slight differences. Due to the high tensile strength of the used epoxy in comparison to concr

When the flange of a reinforced concrete spandrel beam is in tension, current design codes and specifications enable a portion of the bonded flexure tension reinforcement to be distributed over an effective flange width. The flexural behavior of the RC L-shaped spandrel beam when reinforcement is laterally displaced in the tension flange is investigated experimentally and numerically in this work. Numerical analysis utilizing the finite element method is performed on discretized flanged beam models validated using experimentally verified L-shaped beam specimens to achieve study objectives. A parametric study was carried out to evaluate the influence of various factors on the beam’s flexure behavior. Results showed that