Development and assessment of sustainable steel-concrete composite beams with novel demountable shear connections

The design of sustainable steel-concrete composite beams (SSCCBs) with demountable shear connections (DSCs) for deconstructability can improve the problem of construction and demolition waste during these construction activities, and it also strengthens the sustainability of a building by allowing for easy dismantling and the reuse or recycling of structural components at the service load and easy replacing the damaged members to achieve the resilience capacity after earthquake. In this study, the structural configuration and concept design of novel SSCCBs using DSCs were firstly introduced. The nonlinear finite element models (FEMs) using the Abaqus software were validated in terms of the load versus mid-span deflection curves and failure modes of the similar composite beams given by the experimental data. A parametric study was implemented to identify the influence of the following variables: geometric size, strength grade, inclination angle and shape of concrete plug, diameter and strength grade of connected bolt, steel grade and width and grade of slab concrete. It was found that geometric size, grade and smooth shape of concrete plug could optimize the performance level of occupancy while bolt diameter and grade enhanced the reuse behavior at service loads. Additionally, increasing the bolt diameter and steel grade led to an increase by 8–10% in the equivalent ultimate strength and to decrease the ductility of the whole beams obviously. Bolt diameter, steel grade and slab width have quite influences on the stiffness due to increase the interaction degree of these prefabricated components. Based on the theoretical and parametric analysis results, simple design method of ultimate moment capacity for this SSCCBs with DSCs is proposed to facilitate design practice.