SHEAR RESISTANCE OF STIFFENED ANGLE SHEAR CONNECTOR CONSIDERING ELEVATED TEMPERATURE EFFECT

An experimental study was performed to investigate the behaviour of a newly proposed shear connector i.e. stiffened angle shear connector at elevated temperature. This paper describes a finding on shear resistance of the stiffened angle shear connectors subjected to isothermal fire loading. Eight push-out specimens were tested covering various geometries of stiffened angle shear connector. The specimens were first heated from a room temperature up to a target temperature followed by incremental monotonic loading in order to assess the connector shear resistance at high temperatures. A comparison was done between the behaviour at ambient temperature and high temperature. The results show the stiffened angle shear connector exhibited high shear resistance and the failure mode was governed by connector fracture.