EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE BEHAVIOR OF COMPOSITE CONCRETE CASTELLATED STEEL BEAMS SUBJECTED TO PURE BENDING

The aim of this study is to investigate the behavior of composite castellated beam in which the concrete slab and steel beam connected together with headed studs shear connectors. Four simply supported composite beams with various degree of castellation were tested under two point static loads. One of these beams was built up using standard steel beam, i.e. without web openings, to be a reference beam. The other three beams were fabricated from the same steel I-section with various three castellation ratios, (25, 35, and 45) %. In all beams the concrete slab has the same section and properties. Deflection at mid span of all beams was measured at each 10 kN load increment. The test results show that the castellation process leads to increase the moment capacity of composite beams at permissible deflection that is (span/360) in the range of (11- 96) %. On the other hand, the maximum measured deflection was reduced in the range of (7.8 – 27.1) %.