Effects of transverse tension load on the static capacity and fatigue resistance of composite dowels

Abstract

Composite dowels are powerful shear connectors in steel‐concrete composite structures, especially for prefabricated composite bridges. The advantages of composite dowels over other shear connectors are their increased strength and sufficient slip capacity even in high‐strength concrete. The National Technical Approval for Germany , from 2013 allows the design of composite structures with composite dowels for hogging and sagging moments under static and cyclic loading. However, the design of structures with cyclic loading in combination with centric tension perpendicular to the composite dowels (transverse tension) is neglected. Therefore, one part of national project P967 ”External reinforcement for composite bridges“, funded by FOSTA, the Research Association for Steel Application, was to determine how transverse tension affects the static capacity and fatigue resistance of composite dowels. To investigate this effect, two test series, each with six push‐out tests, were carried out. The test setup and the results of the static and cyclic shear tests in combination with transverse tension are presented in this paper.

The new railway hybrid bridge in Dąbrowa Górnicza: innovative concept using new design method and results of load tests

“…The issues related to the design and construction of the bridge were first presented at the Wrocławskie Dni Mostowe (WDM) conference [10]. Attention is drawn to the fact that the transverse T-sections used in Spergau were abandoned in order to eliminate the problem of tension acting composite dowels in transversal element [20]. As a result, member characteristics (like the moment of inertia) can be assigned globally to the entire bridge cross section.…”

Composite Dowels for Bridges: Trends and Challenges for New European Design Rules

“…1) but the mechanical model does not quantify it. The active influence was analyzed only for the tensile force [17] and it was shown that the tension in the perpendicular direction does not have a significant impact on the ultimate load capacity (but mechanical model does not explain why it is so). The influence of the compressive force has not been analyzed anywhere, while in Poland structures (Figs.…”

The evolution of the shape of composite dowels

“…This shear connection is currently being proceeded to obtain European Technical Specification (consistent with rules of Eurocode 4), and appropriate rules have been proposed by the project team SC4.T1 [52], and for purposes of this work, a list of papers considered as "background documents" for the design procedure of composite dowels are investigated and referenced. The list contains publications that include design guides [8,16,23], practical applications (bridges) [2,18,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42], and research [5,6,7,9,13,14,17,20,21,22,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]. One can compare this list, which was compiled from the point of view of the author from Poland, with the papers being referenced in German publications [3] to obtain a wide and objective point of view (the first bridges were designed in these two countries as a cooperation between the first two co-authors).…”