Behaviour of rebar shear connector in a push test for composite beam with cold-formed steel section

Abstract

Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) has been widely used for residential, commercial and light industries due to lightweight and ease to install. Development of suitable shear connector for composite beam systems with CFS is proposed in this research. This paper presents the performance of the proposed shear connector using rebar in CFS composite beam systems. A new method is introduced to install the proposed shear in composite beam system encased in Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC). Three specimens are tested until failure for the rebar of a shear connector with different configurations with a dimension of 12 mm and 16 mm and interval distance longitudinally 200 mm and 330 mm for the standard push-out test. The shear capacity, ductility and failure modes are recorded from the test specimens. The experimental results are compared with Eurocode 4 to establish the relationship between theoretical value and experimental value. It can be concluded that the increased in dimension size and the reduced in intervals longitudinal distance of rebar contributed to an increase in the shear capacity.