The behaviour of a headed-stud-connection in a composite slab

Nowadays in the Netherlands composite beams (Fig. 1) are still little used. These beam~ consist of a composite slab with a profiled steel sheeting connected with a headed-stud-connection in the rib. The design rules for the strength of this connection in a composite beam are related to the design rules concerning solid slabs by means of a simplereduction-factor. However the failure-strength and the failure-mode predicted by the design rules do not correspond with those observed in push-out tests. Sometimes the design rules are resulting in a unsafe prediction of the failure-strength and in other cases the design rules are far to conservative. At Eindhoven University of Technology a researchproject is started in which a model is made to predict the failure-strength, the failure-mode and the load-deformation-behaviour of a headed-stut/connection in a composite slab