Experimental Study on Shear Strength

and Failure Mechanisms of Concrete

Dowel in Shallow-Hollow Composite
Beam

Ngoc-Duc Han, Anh-Tuan Vu, Dinh-Hoa Nguyen, Trung-Kien Nguyen,

and Van-Cuong Nguyen

Abstract Recently, many types of the composite shallow beam have been developed
in order to minimize the depth of floor-beam structures and to save the cost of
headed-shear studs. In this new type of composite structure, the shallow-hollow
composite beam consists of web openings, filled with in-situ concrete (concrete
dowel). This article presents an experimental study to investigate shear strength and
shear transferring mechanism of the concrete dowel with trapezoid shape. A series of
static push-out tests have been conducted. The tested results provide information on
the behavior and shear performance of the specimen. Shear transferring of concrete-
filled web opening connectors reveals that the concrete dowel behavior could be
divided into crushing, compression, and tension zones.

Keywords Concrete dowel · Shallow-hollow composite beam · Push-out test

1 Introduction

The principle of composite structure is the combination of two or more structural

materials in order to combine the advantages of each structural material and thereby
achieve better performance. Concrete, for example, is generally a “low-cost” mate-
rial with high compression but low tensile strength, brittle mechanical behavior,
whereas structural steel has high strength and ductile behavior. Both are of great in
the construction sector. To optimize the effectiveness of using concrete and steel,
steel-concrete composite structures is proposed. Steel-concrete composite structures
have a high bearing capacity, are fire resistant, anti-corrosion, and reduce construc-
tion time, among other benefits [1, 2]. Furthermore, this solution helps to decrease
the structure’s self-weight and, as a result, the force exerted on the foundation. Since

N.-D. Han · A.-T. Vu · D.-H. Nguyen (B) · T.-K. Nguyen

Department of Steel and Timber Structure, Faculty of Building and Industrial Construction,
Hanoi University of Civil Engineering, Hanoi, Vietnam
e-mail: hoand@nuce.edu.vn
V.-C. Nguyen
Hanoi University of Civil Engineering Consultancy Company, Hanoi, Vietnam

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 247
C. Ha-Minh et al., (eds.), CIGOS 2021, Emerging Technologies and Applications
for Green Infrastructure, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 203,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7160-9_24
248 N.-D. Han et al.

the weight of the floor structure has a direct effect on the total weight of the building,
affecting the span of the beam. Furthermore, in keeping with the trend of sustainable
growth, lowering the height of the floor system reduces the effect of horizontal loads
as well as construction costs.
Beside the traditional steel-concrete composite beam, in recent years, many types
of the composite shallow beam have been developed in order to minimize the depth
of floor-beam structures and to save the cost of headed-shear studs. The “new”
composite beam design is a beam with a small height, top (compression) flange of
the steel beam or the entire steel beam is embedded in the concrete slab, which
minimizes the use of shear stud in the composite beam, as opposed to conventional
composite beams with slabs connected to the top flange of steel beams by shear stud.
This beam has advantages such as raising the available space of the room, making
it simpler and more convenient to arrange electromechanical engineering systems,
lowering air-conditioning costs, increasing fire resistance, and lowering welding
fees on site, all of which are in line with the trend of sustainable growth. With the
introduction of the sustainable design trend to minimize the height of the floor beam
structure, thus reduce the total height of the building, and construction costs, avoid
the use of shear studs, and save energy. A series of small-height composite beams
such as Slimflor, ASBs, DELTABEAM, USFB, and COSFB have been proposed in
recent years [3–6].
One of the major issues in the composite beam research topic is the shear
connector. Unlike the conventional steel-concrete composite beam which use stud
as shear connector. In the shallow hollow composite beam, a concrete dowel filled
in situ via the opening web of the steel beam has been suggested as an alternative
to using shear connector. The shear transferring mechanism and failure have been
investigated by numerical/experimental methods [7–9]. So far, most of the current
research on concrete dowel has focused on rectangular or circular web openings.
However, when designing the shallow hollow composite beam, if the web opening
shape is similar to the decking shape ie. trough or bottom rib shape, the steel mate-
rial used and manufacturing cost could be reduced. Therefore, trapezoid-shaped web
opening seems a reasonable choice compared to circular or rectangular web open-
ings. In such case, concrete dowel section is of trapezoid type, and thus verifying the
shear resistance and shear transferring mechanism is an important task.
In this paper, we conducted a series of static push-out tests, aim at studying the
shear behavior of the concrete dowel with trapezoid shape. The push-out experi-
ments were divided into three groups by varying web-opening dimensions and the
web thickness of T-steel section. The results of the tests provide information on
the specimen’s behavior, shear performance and shear transferring mechanism. The
concrete dowel behavior can be divided into crushing, compression, and tension
zones. Moreover, the influence of web opening dimension and web thickness are
clearly shown and discussed.
Experimental Study on Shear Strength and Failure Mechanisms … 249

2 Methodology

2.1 Specimen and Materials

This experimental campaign’s specimen consists of a steel part (steel T-section) and
a concrete part. One trapezoid opening is included in the web of steel T-section.
Concrete dowel, which is filled in the web opening, acts as a shear connector in
composite action. Steel beam use S235 grade, its yield strength is of 235 MPa.
Standard concrete was used in the experimental works. A cylinder specimen with a
150 mm in diameter and a 300 mm in length was cast at the same time as the push-out
specimen to evaluate the compressive and splitting tensile strength of concrete. Three
cylinder specimens were made from the same batch of concrete for each concrete mix
of specimens. Uniaxial compression and splitting tensile tests were used to determine
the compressive and tensile strength of concrete after 28 days. It has a compressive
strength of 33.8 MPa and a tensile strength of 3.4 MPa, according to mechanical
properties. The concrete part is designed to have specimens with a cross sectional
of 230 × 150 mm. To allow the steel T-section to move downward, 40mm of the
bottom side of concrete is considered (Figs.1 and 2).
Three groups of specimens named T1G, T1GW and T1GT are prepared (3 spec-
imens per group). Table 1 summarizes the detail dimension of the specimens. All
specimens have the form of a column with one opening in the web of steel T-section.

Fig. 1 Specimen configuration

250 N.-D. Han et al.

Fig. 2 Specimens preparation process: steel T-section, formwork and concrete casting

Table 1 Specimens
Group of specimens Dimension of specimens (mm)
configuration
a b t
T1G 190 120 6
T1GW 250 180 6
T1GT 190 120 10

The trapezoid shape of the web opening is similar for all the group. T1G and T1GW
have similar web thickness but dimensions of trapezoid shape are different. The
dimensions of web opening in T1G and T1GT are similar but the web thickness in
T1GT is increased from 6 mm to 10 mm. The main characteristic of web opening
and web thickness are given in Table 1.

2.2 Push-Out Test: Set-Up and Procedure

The push-out tests were performed according to EC4 [10]. Hydraulic jack with
capacity of 1000 kN was used to control the loading. The load-slip relationship is
automatically recorded via loadcell and strain gauges system. In the present paper,
load-controlled push-out with static loading is applied. The load is applied to the
steel T-section thanks to transfer plate of 25 mm thickness which was welded on the
steel T-section 6 LVDTs (Linear Variable Differential Transformer) are positioned
as depicted in Fig. 4 to measure the slip between steel T-section and concrete part,
as well as to control the test’s eccentricity (Fig. 3).
Experimental Study on Shear Strength and Failure Mechanisms … 251

Fig. 3 Push-out test designation and strain gauges location

Fig. 4 Push-out test set-up (front view and side view)

3 Experimental Results and Discussion

3.1 Load-Slip Relationship

The applied load P was determined by a load cell while longitudinal slips were
measured using LVDT I5 and I6 located on the left and right sides of the specimen,
respectively. The load-slip relationships of specimens are determined for each group
test and displayed in Fig. 5. All the load-slip curves (Fig. 5a–c) indicate that three
groups of specimen are damaged while slip is relatively small (less than 1mm),
illustrating the brittle failure mode of concrete dowels.
252 N.-D. Han et al.

(a) Group T1G (b) Group T1GW

150 150

100 100
Load (kN)

Load (kN)
50 50
T1G1 T1GW1
T1G2 T1GW2
T1G3 T1GW3
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
slip (mm) slip (mm)

(c) Group T1GT (d) Mean comparison

150 150

100 100
Load (kN)

Load (kN)

50 50
T1GT1 T1G-Mean
T1GT2 T1GW-Mean
T1GT3 T1GT-Mean
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
slip (mm) slip (mm)

Fig. 5 Load-slip relationship for specimen group T1G, T1GW, T1GT

3.2 Failure Mechanism of Concrete Dowel

The failure trace is similar in all specimens (Fig. 6) and the concrete dowel’s behavior
is well consistent. Without any plastic deformation, the shear connectors are elasti-
cally deformed before the ultimate load is reached. It has been determined that the
concrete dowel’s failure mechanism is brittle.
The cross-sections of the shear connector demonstrate that the concrete dowel is
in compression at the corner zone where the steel T-section meets the web-opening
infilled concrete. Especially, at the acute angle of the trapezoid opening section, the
concrete is found in crushing zone. The cross-section is fairly smooth, with a small
amount of concrete is still adhered to the steel T-section at the upper corner of the
trapezoid hole (Fig. 7).
Experimental Study on Shear Strength and Failure Mechanisms … 253

Fig. 6 Damaged concrete cross-section and steel T-section after test

Fig. 7 Damaged concrete

cross-section and steel
T-section after test

Furthermore, Fig. 7 indicates that the lower part of the concrete in the trapezoid
section is convex (in the perpendicular direction of the web of the steel T-section),
suggesting that the tensile splitting failure occurred at lower part of the concrete
dowel. This is consistent with the findings of [7], who investigated the push-out test
for specimens with circular opening in steel T-section. It can be seen that the shear
connector’s bearing capacity is composed primarily of the compressive capacity of
the concrete part of the dowel that is in contact with the upper trapezoid’s edge in the
load direction and the tensile splitting load of the lower concrete part in the transverse
direction.
254 N.-D. Han et al.

Table 2 Push-out test result

Ultimate load (kN)
Group of specimens Numbered specimens Average Difference from T1G
1 2 3
T1G 120 112 107 113 –
T1GW 126 128 121 125 11%
T1GT 144 126 134 133 18%

3.3 Ultimate Load and Evaluation of Results

The values of ultimate loads of all specimens and their mean values for each group
test are shown in Table 2.
From the experimental results on the Table 2, it was found that the shear strength
of specimen group T1GW is 11% greater than specimen group T1G. This difference
is due to the tensile splitting force developed by the length of web opening (i.e.
increasing of tensile area of concrete section). The ultimate load of specimen group
T1GT increased 18% as compared to specimen group T1G. This is due to the crushing
strength produced by greater thickness of steel T-section web, which increased the
compression area of the concrete section.
For each test group, the mean load-slip curve for 3 specimens is calculated and
shown in Fig. 5d. It can be seen that the initial slope of the mean load-slip curve of
T1GT group is steeper than that of the other groups. In other words, we show that the
specimen group T1GT is stiffer than the classes T1G and T1GW due to the increasing
in thickness of steel T-section web (from 6 mm to 10 mm). Furthermore, as the length
of the trapezoid web opening increases, the mean load-slip curve of specimen group
T1GW showed a similar stiffness but a higher slip and ultimate strength value than
the group T1G.
The concrete dowel shows brittle behavior. The failure and shearing transferring
mechanisms are similar to those observed from [7, 8]. Compared to the results on
circular, square, and rectangular shapes concrete dowel [7, 8], the trapezoid shape
seems stiffer and provides a higher shear resistance. This is explained by the fact
that the shear strength of concrete dowel is primarily contributed by the tensile and
compressive strength of concrete while the trapezoid shape affects the distribution
of crushing, compressive and tensile zones.

4 Conclusions

This paper presented an experimental study on shear strength and failure mechanism
of concrete dowel in steel-concrete composite beam with steel T-section subjected to
longitudinal shear loading by push-out test. Nine specimens divided into three groups
were tested. Analysis of shear strength and failure mechanism were performed. We
Experimental Study on Shear Strength and Failure Mechanisms … 255

showed that the steel concrete composite specimens with one web opening in steel
T-section are likely to suffer brittle shear failure (slips are very small). That is directly
due to the brittle behavior of the concrete. The results also indicate that the failure
mechanism of the concrete involves crushing in small compression zone and tensile
splitting of concrete in tension area. Compared to T1G group, we found that the
ultimate load of T1GW group was increased by 11% when the trapezoid opening
length increased by 60 mm. Furthermore, the T1GT group with increased steel web
thickness (10 mm vs 6 mm of T1G) shows an 18% increase in ultimate load. The
stiffness of the specimen increases as the thickness of beam web increases, and the
slip of the specimen increases as the trapezoid opening lengthens.

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