Analysis of Near to Free Surface Located Concrete Dowels in Composite Structures

Over the last decades, composite structures made of steel and concrete have been developed in order to allow for the economic and competitive construction of buildings and bridges. A main challenge of such structures is the design of the connection between the concrete and steel sections because of high requirements for the load-bearing capacity and ductility. Currently, headed shear studs are the only shear connectors regulated in Eurocode 4. In addition to common vertical shear studs, other shear connectors have been tested over the past decades. Concrete dowels, which are novel and versatile shear connectors, have been most extensively investigated. For the application in slender concrete slabs, for example in sandwich constructions, vertical headed studs and concrete dowels are not suitable, as they are limited by their height. In these constructions, it is possible to apply horizontally positioned concrete dowels. This paper deals with the experimental results of horizontally positioned concrete dowels in push-out tests.