Strength Capacity and Failure Mode of Shear Connectors Suitable for Composite Cold Formed Steel Beams: Numerical Study

In this paper, the findings of numerical modeling of the composite action between normal concrete and Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) beams are presented. To obtain comprehensive structural behavior, the numerical model was designed using 3-D brick components. The simulation results were correlated to the experimental results of eight push tests, using three types of innovative shear connectors in addition to standard headed stud shear connectors, with two different thicknesses of a CFS channel beam. The proposed numerical model was found to be capable of simulating the failure mode of the push test as well as the behavior of shear connectors in order to provide composite action between the cold-formed steel beam and concrete using the concrete damaged plasticity model.