An experimental and numerical study to investigate the flexural behavior of hybrid steel-concrete composite beams with a corrugated web

Abstract

In this study, an experimental and numerical examine the flexural behavior of hybrid steel-concrete composite beams with corrugated webs. Five specimens were fabricated and tested experimentally under two-point loads. For all specimens, the composite beam has a hybrid steel built-up I-section with high-strength steel flanges (4×120) mm and a carbon or galvanized steel web (2×200) mm connected to a reinforced concrete slab (70 × 350) mm with shear connectors (L-shape) made up from bars of 10 mm diameter. All specimens have a span of 2000 mm. This study investigated various web-forming materials, the impact of a corrugated web on the beam compared to a flat web, and the effects of altering the sub-panel fold of a single wave from 100 to 150 mm, while maintaining other parameters constant. Experimental results show that galvanized steel beams had a 53% lower ultimate capacity for flat webs and a 50% lower ultimate capacity for corrugated webs than carbon steel beams. For carbon and galvanized steel, corrugated web beams outperformed flat webs by 11% and 19%, respectively. Increasing the sub-panel of one wave reduced the beam's ultimate capacity by 5%. When replacing carbon steel with galvanized steel, the web material changed, affecting flexural behavior and reducing maximum capacity. The corrugated pattern exceeds the flat shape in carbon or galvanized steel. ABAQUS finite element modeling gave reasonable results and enabled the study of another parameter, such as web depth. From the numerical study, increasing web depth led to an increase in ultimate strength.