Flexural properties of new cold-formed thin-walled steel and concrete composite slabs

Abstract This paper presents a new type of steel and concrete composite slab, which is composed of cold-formed thin-walled steel C-sections, bars, concrete and polystyrene foam panels. Considering different filling quantities of the foam panel in the slab, two specimens (one three-hole slab and one two-hole slab) are made for flexural testing. Aimed at studying the bending performance and failure mode of the composite slab, the specimens are analyzed with respect to their flexural capacity, ductility ratio, concrete strain, reinforcement strain and C-section strain. Results show that the composite slab fails in a normal section of flexure while it has good bearing capacity and ductility in the test. The strain of concrete in the slabs is linearly distributed along the section height, which conforms to the plane section assumption. Mechanical performance of the three-hole slab is better than that of the two-hole slab. Together with finite element simulations, the numerical results of flexural capacity are compared to the test results; the comparison indicates that they are in good agreement, which lays a foundation for the subsequent parametric analysis.