Flexural and eigen-buckling analysis of steel-concrete partially composite plates using weak form quadrature element method

Abstract

Flexural and eigen-buckling analyses for rectangular steel-concrete partially composite plates (PCPs) with interlayer slip under simply supported and clamped boundary conditions are conducted using the weak form quadrature element method (QEM). Both of the derivatives and integrals in the variational description of a problem to be solved are directly evaluated by the aid of identical numerical interpolation points in the weak form QEM. The effectiveness of the presented numerical model is validated by comparing numerical results of the weak form QEM with those from FEM or analytic solution. It can be observed that only one quadrature element is fully competent for flexural and eigen-buckling analysis of a rectangular partially composite plate with shear connection stiffness commonly used. The numerical integration order of quadrature element can be adjusted neatly to meet the convergence requirement. The quadrature element model presented here is an effective and promising tool for further analysis of steel-concrete PCPs under more general circumstances. Parametric studies on the shear connection stiffness and length-width ratio of the plate are also presented. It is shown that the flexural deflections and the critical buckling loads of PCPs are significantly affected by the shear connection stiffness when its value is within a certain range.