Numerical Study on the Behaviour of Composite Steel-Concrete Beams Utilising Innovative Blind Bolts

Recent research studies carried out on the condition of the existing infrastructure in Australia have revealed that the percentage of structures reaching the end of their useful life has increased. These structures need alternative structural solutions to extend their useful life to reduce the costs on ‘new builds’, which are required to replace them. Therefore, methods of strengthening of composite steel-concrete structures have become increasingly important. The flexural behavior of composite steel-concrete beams using blind-bolts was tested using full-scale beam specimens previously. The test results revealed that the ability of these new blind bolts to achieve composite action in composite beams was comparable with that of welded stud shear connectors. In addition, the behavior of the full-scale beam specimen during the flexural test was simulated using three-dimensional non-linear finite element (FE) models developed using ABAQUS. The FE models were validated using the load-deflection curves obtained from the experiment. This paper presents the FE results of composite beam models containing different shear connectors.