Shear Tests of Composite Slabs, Experimental and Numerical Investigation

Abstract

Composite slab is being used for horizontal structures. The sheeting can serve as a permanent formwork and no additional reinforcement can be required. The slabs are then fast and easy assemble construction which can be effectively used in reconstructions. One of the meanings to assure composite action of composite steel-concrete slabs is prepressed embossments. Its main disadvantage is that the design of a new type of sheeting requires expensive and time consuming large-scale laboratory testing which hamper its widespread commercial usage. Small-scale shear tests present a less expensive alternative to the large-scale tests but its results cannot be simply used for the design of the whole slab. The results from small-scale tests with different options are compared in this paper. Also a possibility of contribution of FE simulation results to the small-scale tests usage is investigated.