Investigation on the flexural behavior of an innovative U-shaped steel-concrete composite beam

Within the French CIFRE research project COMINO, an innovative type of composite beam was developed for buildings that need fire resistance with no additional supports in construction stage. The developed solution is composed of a steel U-shaped beam acting as a formwork in construction stage for a reinforced concrete part that provides the fire resistance. In the exploitation stage, the steel and the reinforced concrete are acting together as a composite beam. This paper presents the investigation made on the load bearing capacity of this new developed steel-concrete composite section. A full-scale test has been carried out at the Laboratory of Structural Engineering of the University of Luxembourg. The paper presents the configuration of the specimen, the fabrication process and the obtained test results. The beam behaved compositely and exhibited high ductility and bending resistance. The shear connection in the tension zone was effective. The beam failed by a separation between the slab and the beam at high deformations, excessive shear forces conducted to a failure of the stirrups in this zone. The test results are then compared with good agreement to analytical methods of design based on EN 1994 and design guidelines are given.