Experimental study on steel-concrete composite plate girders

This paper is concerned with experimental investigations on steel-concrete composite plate girders subjected to combined shear and positive or negative bending. Details of the experiments are presented in the paper. The steel part of the composite girder being designed to fail in shear mode, the behavior of the composite girders subject to positive or negative bending is observed to be similar. The width of yielded tension band increases due to the composite action of slab with the steel girder and the action is more significant in the case of plate girders with slender webs. Increase in load carrying capacity is also observed for composite girders with thicker webs, but of smaller magnitude compared to the girder with slender webs. The composite action is more effective in the girders subject to combined shear and positive bending compared to those under pure shear loading.