ABSTRACT
The U-shaped steel plate composite beam is a new steel-concrete composite structure, which is filled with concrete in variable-section-u-plate and made to work together by shear bolts arranged on the web and bottom plate. Compared with the general u-plate composite beam, the utilization rate of steel is further improved. It also has the advantages of superior mechanical performance and convenient construction of the composite structure. In this paper, experimental research and theoretical analysis are carried out for the U-shaped steel plate composite beam. An experimental study was carried out on four simply supported U-shaped steel plate composite beams. The failure modes, load-deflection curves, strain distribution along the section height, stress distribution along the longitudinal direction of the steel web, and slip between U-shaped steel plate and concrete were analyzed. The influences of the height, thickness, shear span length, and loading mode on the performance of composite beams are investigated. The experimental results show that there are three typical failure modes, namely, shear failure, bending failure, and the mixed failure of bending failure and longitudinal slip failure. By using the finite element software ABAQUS 2018, the finite element models of four composite beam specimens are established respectively, and supplementary analysis is conducted on the U-shaped steel plate composite beams. The ultimate bearing capacity and the development trend of load-displacement curves obtained by finite element analysis are consistent with the test results, and the stress cloud diagrams of concrete and steel plates can explain the typical failure modes of each specimen well.
