ANALYSIS OF COMPOSITE SLAB THROUGH FINITE ELEMENT TECHNIQUE

Abstract

Composite construction involves use of two materials so that they are utilized to best of their advantage. Composite slab consists of steel deck at bottom which acts as formwork in construction stage and as positive reinforcement later and concrete at the top. T;{1; composite slabs are generally strong in flexure due to steel deck but are weak in longitudinal shear which governs the composite slab strength. The. longitudinal shear depends on many factors and so cannot be analytically calculated. Thus, it is estimated by carrying out full scale bending tests which makes the analysis and design procedure of composite slab time consuming, elaborate and costly. Finite element methods have been used for analysis of composite slab and have been a topic for research. In the finite element analysis due to difficulty in finding the shear bond characteristic analytically, the values are experimentally derived. Small scale tests (elemental tests) have been developed to replace the full scale tests and to find out the shear bond characteristics. In this study Slip Block test is done to find the shear bond characteristic for the steel deck. Steel deck similar to Ribdeck-80 manufactured by Richard Lee Steel Decking Ltd. has been used in this profile. Three types of profiles have been used plain profile and profile with rectangular and circular embossments respectively. ABAQUS 6.9.3 has been used for finite element analysis of composite slab. The finite element modeling of steel deck and concrete top is done and the shear bond characteristic is simulated by using radial thrust connector elements. The slab is analyzed at construction stage and at composite slab stage. The steel deck is also studied for variation of flexural resistance for changing embossment spacing. A general purpose software has been developed for analysis and design of open deck plain profiles of any configuration