Modeling of the Shear Connection Capacity of Hybrid Steel Trussed Composite Beams

Hybrid Steel Trussed Composite Beams represent a technical solution in use in numerous countries since many years. They are able to join the advantages of prefabrication with those of cast in place structures: they are easy to manufacture, fast to realize, monolithic and with no need of formwork. The behavior of these beams has been recently topic of discussion in the scientific community because the knowledge both related to the reinforced concrete structures and that of composite constructions cannot be straightforwardly extended to this typology, which is intermediate between one and another technology. This paper provides a contribution towards a better understanding of the mechanism of transfer in the beam typologies with bottom steel plate. A FE model is set up and, subsequently, a simple design formula for the prediction of the shear capacity of the concrete-steel connection is derived and verified on the results of parametric FE analyses.