Experimental and numerical study on static behavior of elastic concrete-steel composite beams

• Elastic concrete-steel composite beam was investigated.
• Elastic concrete can improve the ductility of stud and composite beam.
• Elastic concrete can reduce the width of concrete cracks efficiently.
• Elastic concrete make to apply large studs into practice more reliable.

Elastic concrete (rubber-filled concrete) is employed into the steel-concrete composite structures due to its good ductility and crack resistance. Bending test and numerical simulation were conducted to investigate the static behavior of partial shear connected elastic concrete-steel composite beam with different section size, studs and degrees of shear connection. The results of the tests show that elastic concrete could improve the ductility behavior of stud and composite beam, and reduce the width of concrete cracks efficiently. Larger degree of shear connection can lengthen the elastic stage and retard the development and spread of slip, but may lead to a decrement of ductility. With the degree of shear connection unchanged, stud with large diameter of 22 mm may cause 9% lower ultimate bearing capacity, and even worse deformability and ductility of composite beam compared with the smaller stud. Moreover, the analysis results exhibited a good behavior and applicability of the elastic concrete in the partial shear connected composite beams. With the help of elastic concrete, ductility of composite beam has been improved effectively so that it is possible to apply large studs into practice.