Flexural resistance of Cold‐formed steel‐lightweight concrete (CFS‐LWC) composite beam

This paper discusses the flexural behaviour of innovative built‐up cold‐formed steel lightweight concrete (CFS‐LWC) composite beams through an experimental study. Two full‐scale CFS‐LWC composite beams were tested. The specimens included two distinct configurations of the innovative CFS composite beams. The tested CFS‐LWC composite beams consisted of a lightweight concrete slab supported by profiled metal decking, connected to a CFS built‐up using bolted shear connectors. Two degrees of shear connection were considered. The specimens were uniformly loaded, and the load was increased until failure occurred. The test procedure, setup, and results were recorded in detail, including load‐bearing capacity, deformation, and failure modes. The validity of the design predictions following EN 1994‐1‐1 for the innovative CFS‐LWC composite beams was investigated. Both equilibrium and simplified methods were used to predict the bending resistance of the CFS‐LWC composite beam. The results showed that the design predictions following EN 1994‐1‐1 (equilibrium method) accurately predicted the bending resistance of the CFS‐LWC composite beam, while the simplified method underpredicted the experimental results.