Shear Performance of Short Channel Connectors in a Steel-UHPC Composite Deck

摘要

The steel-ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) composite deck has been increasingly concerned for the fatigue damage ameliorations on the steel bridge deck and the pavement. The UHPC plate in the composite deck featured by the favorable tensile performance and small thickness helps achieving a light self-weight. However, it results to a limited short space for the shear connector to transfer the interlayer shear force. Therefore, this study proposed a kind of short steel channel-section connector for the composite deck with a thin UHPC plate, and investigated its mechanical behavior through push-out tests and parametric FEM analysis. The test results showed the deformation of the channel connector during the loading process generally included the elastic, elastic–plastic, and plastic stages, and the shear fracture of channel connector dominated in the failure mode. The shear stiffness of the specimen with embedded reinforcement was increased by 39%, but had little influence on the shear capacity. On the other side, the parametric analysis told that the shear strength of connector increased significantly as the connector height increased from 50 to 80 mm. Nevertheless, the connector arrangement direction was a sensitive factor to the uplift resistance of the connector.