Longitudinal shear behaviour of composite slabs with profiled steel sheeting and ECC

This paper studies the longitudinal shear behaviour of composite slabs composed of profiled steel sheeting and engineered cementitious composite (ECC), i.e., referred to as "ECC composite slab" in the following. A total of eleven full-scale ECC composite slab specimens were designed and tested under four-point flexural loading. The main testing parameters included the shear span ratio, the thickness of the steel sheeting, the depth of the composite slab, and the arrangement of the shear studs. The influence of these parameters on the failure modes and the longitudinal shear resistance of the specimens were evaluated based on the test results. The behaviour of the ECC composite slab was compared with that of the composite slab with traditional concrete topping. The formulae for calculating the longitudinal shear resistance and the ultimate shear bond stress of ECC composite slabs were proposed according to the m-k method and the partial shear connection (PSC) method, and the predictions agreed well with the test results. Finally, an advanced finite element model (FEM) was established and validated against the test results, which further proved that adopting shear studs as end anchorage could significantly improve the longitudinal shear resistance of an ECC composite slab.