CHAPTER 10

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY

10.0 GENERAL

The summary conclusions and recommendations for future work are presented in this chapter.
The present investigation on the Confined Steel Concrete Composite Beams (CSCC) includes the
following.

1. Experimental phase
2. Analytical phase
3. Numerical comparison
4. Discussion

10.1 SUMMARY

The experimental phase of investigation comprised of two parts namely material study and
element study. Material study is related to experimental work on materials used for confined
concrete beams and element study is the main experimental work on confined concrete beams.
The experimental phase consisted of 32 simply supported beams tested for pure bending, pure
torsion and combined bending and torsion. The crossection of the beams were 150 x 230 x
2300mm with 1.2mm thick sheets and 150 x 230 x 2300mm with 1.5 mm thick sheets and shear
connectors of 6 mm diameter and a shank of 50 mm .The bracings were provided with 100mm
and 150 mm spacing. All the beams were provided with 2 nos. of 8 mm diameter steel rods of
Fe415 grade of steel at bottom and no top reinforcement is provided. In the analytical phase,
three modes of failure were discussed. From the observations made in the experimental phase of
investigation, equations for the ultimate strength under combined bending and torsion was
developed. Comparisons were made between the experimental and theoretical results of the
various parameters considered. From the observations, the mode at which the beam failed was
noticed which agreed with the theoretical values.

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10.2 CONCLUSIONS
10.2.1 Experimental Investigation
a. Materials study
1. Experiments were conducted on cement, aggregates, reinforcement bars cold formed
sheet and plain concrete cubes were conducted to determine their properties.
2. The enhancement in strength due to confinement was observed from earlier literature.
3. The behaviour of shear connectors was observed from push out tests from earlier
literature.

b. Element Study
1. 32 beam specimens were designed fabricated and tested to investigate the behaviour of
CSCC beams.
2. These beams were divided into four groups. Group A beams tested for pure bending.
Group B beams tested for 30% torque and bending applied till failure Group C beams
tested for 60% torque and bending applied till failure and Group D for pure torsion.
3. Three sides of the beams were confined with cold formed sheet and at the top, the braces
are provided with suitable spacing which provides partial confinement.
4. The test results for pure bending indicated that braces provided at top at suitable spacing
delayed the separation of sheet from concrete. However, the spacing of braces does not
show any significant influence in the ultimate strength of the beam.
5. The failure of beams is caused by local buckling of sheet, formation of cracks and
crushing of concrete followed by yielding of steel under flexure.
6. The deflection varies linearly up to the yield point in pure bending.
7. Local buckling of sheet starts at 40-50% of the ultimate load at pure bending whereas in
pure torque and combined bending and torsion it starts at 25-30% of ultimate torque
value.
8. The bracings at top do not contribute significantly to the torsional strength of the beam.

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 9. The behaviour of the beam prior to cracking of concrete is not affected by the bottom
sheet and bond force at bottom under pure torsion and combined bending and torsion.
10. Failure occurs in a warped plane. The boundaries of the warped plane are defined by
spiral cracks on three sides and on the fourth side a rectangular compression zone which
joins the ends of the crack. The composite beams subjected to combined bending and
torsion is characterized by three modes of failure.
11. The ends of the spiral cracks joined by a compression zone at top face of the beam are
referred as Mode-1 failure.
12. The ends of the spiral cracks joined by a compression zone at vertical face of the beam
are referred as Mode-2 failure.
13. The ends of the spiral cracks joined by a compression zone at bottom face of the beam
are referred as Mode-3 failure.
14. The composite beams subjected to combined bending and torsion is characterized by
three modes of failure.
15. The mode of failure predicted in the analysis agrees with the observed mode of failure.
16. The beam subjected to constant twisting moment with linearly varying bending moment
deflects upward after cracking of concrete which is obviously seen in Group C beams.
17. In combined bending and torsion, both B and C group beam exhibits Mode 1 failure. This
may be due to the confinement of sheet on three sides and the interfacial bond between
the concrete and connectors.

10.2.2 Theoretical Investigation

1. Theoretical equations were developed for ultimate strength of CSCC beams under
combined bending and torsion based on three modes of failure.
2. From the fundamental laws of equilibrium, equating the internal and external moments
the equations for ultimate strength when subjected to combined bending and torsion and
neutral axis were developed for the three modes of failure.
3. The effect of shear connectors and the effect of bond force were also included in
estimating the ultimate strength of the beam.

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 4. The dimension of the beam spacing of bracing and thickness of sheet were used as
various parameters in this study.
5. The analytical expressions developed were in full agreement with the experimental
results in predicting the ultimate strength.

10.2.3 ANSYS
1. The Load-deflection curves for the beams analysed with ANSYS to that of Experimental
values, ANSYS gives less deflection.
2. ANSYS always predicts lesser deflection than the experimental work. In the
serviceability stage, the percentage of variation between the two is in the range of 5 -
20%. This is because of neglecting the strain-softening region in the stress-strain curve
for the material model in concrete.

10.3. SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY

1. The research can be extended to include the effect of shear and the shear strength
capacity of the connectors.
2. The effect of placing the shear connectors at salient locations of the beam must be
studied.
3. The equations can be developed for the beams subjected to constant bending moment and
applying twisting moment till failure.
4. The research can be extended with profiled sheeting as confinement.
5. Extension of analysis to formulate the design methodology of the composite beams under
pure torsion and combined bending and torsion can be made.
6. The beams can be tested for negative bending.
7. The crossection other than the rectangular cross sections can be tried for combined
loading in composite beams.
8. The practical significance of the this investigation is the development of Design Charts
using the equations and it can be used by the design engineers directly for calculating the
ultimate strength of CSCC beams under combined bending and torsion.

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