Experimental Investigation on the Cold – Formed Steel – Concrete Composite Beam Under Flexure

Steel – concrete composite members are widely used in the construction of multistorey buildings and bridges. Composite construction takes the advantages of steel and concrete, in turn reduces the cost of construction. This paper discuss the use of galvanised steel with concrete as composite beam under flexural loading. Six specimens were tested to failure with varying number of headed stud connectors from 0 to 5. Load carrying capacity of the composite beam specimen improved by 62 % as compared to beam without shear connectors. The mode of failure of the composite beam is mainly due to failure of the shear connectors at tension zone, which leads to formation of multiple cracks on concrete portion. The analytical model was developed using finite element software ANSYS and found to obtain similar result as compared to the experimental results with minimal variation in the central deflection