Experimental study on the longitudinal shear bond behavior of lightweight aggregate concrete – closed profiled steel sheeting composite slabs

Composite slabs with ordinary concrete and typical profiled steel sheeting are quite common in construction industry. This paper presents full-scale experiments conducted on a new type of composite slab produced from lightweight aggregate concrete and closed profiled steel sheeting (LCCS). A total of 11 simply supported specimens were tested to investigate the structural behavior of this new type of composite slab with special emphasis on their failure modes. Whilst shear bond failure is the common failure type for typical composite slabs with sheet sheeting, a new type of failure was observed herein where slabs failed with showing remarkable bending capacity, and significant end slips was observed in long-span slabs. In addition to m-k method and PSC method, which are typically used for composite slabs with normal weight concrete, three other techniques such as slenderness method, PSC composite beam method and force equilibrium method were used to assess the longitudinal shear bond strength of LCCS. The ultimate carrying capacity and the shear bond stress predicted using slenderness method and force equilibrium method showed very good agreement with test results; PSC composite beam method may underestimate the longitudinal shear bond strength, but still can be used as an optional method.