Partial-interaction behavior of steel-concrete composite bridge deck

This paper presents an experimental and analytical study to examine the partial-interaction behavior of steel-concrete composite bridge deck consists of corrugated steel plate, longitudinal stiffeners, studs, and concrete. To examine the behavior of steel-concrete interface, push-out tests were performed for nine specimens. Then, static flexural tests for ten steel-concrete composite decks and nonlinear analysis were performed to analyze the partial-interaction behavior of steel-concrete composite deck. As the results of push-out tests, the degrees of interaction had significant influence on the ultimate load but the degree of interaction on the relative slip corresponding to the ultimate load was not so influencial. The nonlinear analysis connecting modeling of the steel-concrete interaction by interface element with the push-out test showed that it could simulate, with high precision, complicating interface behavior. The ratios of ultimate load depending on the degree of interaction of steel-concrete composite deck tended to decrease as the ratios of shear length and effective depth increased. For the steel-concrete composite deck in this paper, the critical ratio to distinguish flexural failure from slip failure was shown as approximately 5.0.