FEM analysis of steel-concrete composite bridges with encased perforated steel strips

Abstract

One of the newest contributions to the science of bridges are steel-concrete composite bridges with encased perforated steel strips. Their main advantages are their low height, low usage of materials and therefore lower cost of the bridge. They are mainly used as short span railway bridges (under 20m of length). Main focus of today researchers and structural engineers in this area is to improve the geometry of the steel strip – and therefore find new types with lower usage of material and higher shear strength. At Technical University of Košice, Faculty of Civil Engineering, several new types have been developed and tested. In order to properly measure the shear strength, the push-out tests had to be carried. They track the dependence between load (typed by loading conditions) and slip. These experiments were performed at Laboratory of Excellent Research in Košice. In this article is closely described software modelling of a strip developed at Faculty of Civil Engineering, the experiments performed as well as the results found.