New Steel-Concrete Adherence Connections for Composite Bridges

Steel-concrete composite bridges with precast slabs are ideal when building new bridge structures or replacing existing bridges, due to the short duration of on-site work. However, the steel-concrete connections generally used in this construction method - groups of stud shear connectors - tend to slow down the erection procedure. New connections by adherence, whose resistance is due to friction between various interfaces, constitute a very promising and innovative solution to this question. The paper presents experimental and analytical research conducted on these connections. Results show that these connections exhibit a high resistance to shear forces and are very rigid, but have a limited ductility. A calculation model is developed which takes into account the kinematics of the connection deformation and the behaviour laws for the various interfaces. A simplified method for determining the resistance of these connections is also proposed.