Design of composite slabs with prepressed embossments using small-scale tests

The loadbearing capacity of steel-concrete composite slabs using thin-walled steel sheeting with prepressed embossments is in most cases determined by their resistance in longitudinal shear. The design of composite slabs still requires full-scale laboratory bending tests to be performed. Small-scale shear tests cannot include all of the influences affecting the bent slab. However, by using an appropriate procedure, the shear characteristics obtained from such tests can be used to determine the bending capacity of the slab. Two such procedures are compared in this paper. End restraints effectively increase the loadbearing capacity of the composite slabs. Two different types of easily assembled additional end constraints are also tested and compared in this paper. Small-scale tests are used to obtain their shear bearing characteristics and to predict the loadbearing capacity of bent slabs using these restraints.