Behaviour of a Demountable Continuous Shear Connector in Steel-Concrete Composite Beams

Abstract

A demountable continuous shear connector is proposed to improve the reusability of steel-concrete composite beams and promote the development of a circular economy in construction. Unlike traditional welded shear studs and bolted shear connectors, this continuous shear connector is comprised of a steel bar with discrete shear components, effectively reducing the workload of installing individual shear connectors on construction sites. Furthermore, both the concrete slab and the steel beam can be simply dismantled and reused after sliding the continuous shear connector out of the steel beam. The longitudinal shear force in the composite beam using the continuous shear connector is transferred from the embedded plate in the concrete slab to the top flange of the steel beam by an individual shear component. To study the interaction between these parts, elemental shear tests were conducted. By studying steel plates of different thicknesses and grades, the expected connector shear fracture and limited plastic deformation in the steel plates were observed.