Experimental investigation of the flexural mechanism and performance of channel steel tube slab structure under concentrated loads

Experimental studies about the flexural performance of channel steel tube slab (CSTS) structure subjected to concentrated loads were carried out, with considering various spacing of adjacent tubes, longitudinal spacing between the channel steel and missing tensile channel steel. A self-designed flexural device equipped with particle image velocimetry (PIV) technology was used to monitor continuous structure deformation and concrete cracking characteristics. In this study, the mechanism and performance of CSTS structure serving in underground engineering were analyzed, and a theoretical model for the bearing capacity of the CSTS structure was proposed. The results show that the failure mode of the test specimens exhibits ductile failure with an average ductility coefficient 2.52. The large shear strain of the concrete was obtained from PIV speckle contour, and it shows the same propagation trend compared with the main cracks appearing in the tests. In addition, the tensile channel steel along with decreasing the spacing of adjacent tubes can increase the bearing capacity of the specimens. The proposed theoretical model shows a reasonable prediction of the ultimate bearing capacity of specimens compared with the experimental results.