experimental investigation of steel-concrete-steel slabs with stud bolt connectors subjected to punching loading

Steel-concrete-steel (scs) sandwich structures are composed of two steel face plates and one concrete core. scs as slab has more advantages than reinforced concrete (rc) slab that their most important are impermeability and higher resistance against impact loads. scs sandwich slabs are widely employed in civil engineering and onshore and offshore structures due to their better performance and advantages. mechanical connectors are used for better performance of the slabs. in the present research, stud bolt connectors are used together with nuts. the core is composed of ordinary concrete. nine test samples of scs slabs are made with stud bolt connectors and are put under concentrated load at the center of the slab. the observed failure modes included concrete core crack, lower plate slip and upper plate buckling, and stud bolt separation. to study load vs. displacement at the center and load vs. interlayer slip behavior, stud bolts diameter and concrete thickness were varied. the results of the tests were compared with the results of sandwich slabs with j-hook connectors and a better behavior was observed. one theoretical model was used to predict the bending strength of the slabs. the results of the theoretical model were consistent with test results.