International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882

Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2015

Flexural Behaviour of Segmental Composite Skew Slabs with

Truss Shear Connector
S. Dhanush1, K. Balakrishna Rao2
Post Graduate Student, Structural Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering,
Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal
2
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal
1

ABSTRACT
In the recent times, use of concrete-concrete composite
slabs as bridge decks has become a common practice,
mainly due to the ease of construction and considerable
reduction in use of form work and labour. Most of the
recent designs for bridge decks are often skew, skew
shape of the slab facilitates a large variety of options for
an engineer in terms of alignment opportunities in case
of obstructions. Composite action of two concrete
members is achieved by the interface shear transfer
between the two members, this mechanism is of great
significance. The interface shear carrying capacity is
dependent on the surface properties and shear connectors
provided. In the present study we try to determine the
influence of truss shaped shear connectors on the
flexural load carrying capacity of slabs having various
degrees of skew-ness. Four series of slabs are modelled,
each corresponding to a certain degree of skew-ness,
each series in turn is sub-classified into sub-series based
on the number of shear connectors, and their layout.
Results show that the load carrying capacity of the slab
decreases as the angle of skew-ness increases, and the
load carrying capacity of all slabs increases as the
number of shear connectors in the longitudinal direction
increases. Shear connectors when provided in transverse
direction does not seem the influence the behaviour of
the slab. However, when transverse shear connectors are
provided along with longitudinal connectors the
behaviour improves slightly.
Keywords - Truss shear connector, Composite slab,
ATENA, Slab flexure test, Interface shear capacity.
I. INTRODUCTION
In view of infrastructure requirements across the country and
the emphasis for accelerating construction of bridges with a
view to reduce total construction time and minimize traffic
disruption, the fast construction of bridges using precast
segmental concrete-concrete composite construction has
assumed significance. In such a scenario, precast stay-in-place
deck panels would eliminate the need for form work and
staging which are main causes for traffic disruptions. The
remaining portion of the deck slab can be cast in place. Precast

slab that acts initially as a formwork is connected compositely

with in-situ concrete segments using shear connectors in order
to develop the required bending and shear resistance resulting
in composite slab.
In order for the composite slabs to exhibit monolithic
behaviour, the composite interface bond must remain intact. If
the bond is strong, the composite member will behave as a
single member when loaded as shown in Figure 1. and deform
similar to a solid member. The fully bonded interface lets the
horizontal shear developed to be transferred along the
interface. The complete composite behaviour is shown in
strains varying almost completely linear across the depth of
the slab as shown in Figure. 2(a).

Figure 1. Composite slab

(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 2. Elastic behaviour of composite slabs,
(a) Fully composite, (b) Non-composite, (c) Partially
composite.
Most of the recent designs for bridge decks are often skew,
skew shape of the slab facilitates a large variety of options for
an engineer in terms of alignment opportunities in case of
obstructions, the behaviour of a skew slab is different from
that of a rectangular slab in a lot of ways, in the present study
skew slabs are analysed and compared to a square slab.
Benoyane et al [1] (2008) studied the flexural behaviour of precast concrete sandwich composite panel having truss type
shear connector. The flexural test results showed that the
precast specimens had a load deflection profile similar to that
of one way and two way slab. The difference in load is less
than 4 %, when finite element result is compared to
experimental result of one way specimen. The difference in
deflection during elastic stage is less than 1.5 %. Therefore,
Finite element studies of the flexure test correlated with the
experimental values. Finite element studies were carried out

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2015

by varying number of shear connectors for the one way slab

specimen. It was observed that increasing the number of shear
connector increases the ultimate load of the specimen.
Thanoon et al [2] (2010) studied the structural behaviour of
ferrocement and brick composite slab panel. The slab is made
of two layers (precast ferrocement and brick mortar) joined
together using truss connectors. The slab was simply
supported and two line loads were created by applying load
through hydraulic jack. The peak load is about 30% of the
ultimate load. The concrete rib enhances the ductility of the
slab. The specimen with triple shear connector showed higher
experimental load. The increase in the number of shear
connector increased the compositeness, thereby increased the
load carrying capacity of the member.
Gowthami [3] (2014) studied the effects of different types of
shear connectors on one way and two way composite slabs
and found that two way slabs take much higher loads
compared to one way slabs for a given configuration of shear
connectors and that diameter of the bars does not have much
of a difference in the results of a one way slab, but shows
certain effects in the load carrying capacities of a two way
slab.
Sanjay Kumar [4] (2013) performed numerical and
experimental analysis on skew RCC slabs with centre point
loading and compared the values. They concluded that slabs
with length of the shorter diagonal smaller than span are
favourable to the slabs in which length of the shorter diagonal
is greater than span, since the uplifts are lesser.
A Kabir et al [5] (2002) studied the influence of reinforcement
pattern on the load carrying capacity simply supported skew
slabs and concluded that when reinforcement is provided
parallel to the edges is widely adopted due to ease in
fabrication and the ultimate load is not much lesser compared
to other patterns.
The authors in their previous study [6][8] have studied the
effects of the size and shape of the truss connector on the
flexural load carrying capacity using beam models. It is found
that angles of inclination between 60o and 75o show the best
results, it is also found that the influence of diameter of the
connector and depth of embedment is almost negligible.

II. NON LINEAR FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS

ATENA, a nonlinear finite element analysis software was
employed to analyse the flexural load carrying capacity of the
composite slabs. In ATENA, the interface parameters between
materials can be modelled to a great level of detail. Numerical
analysis would be very much helpful, to simulate the
experimental results. It helps to reduce the number of
experiments to be conducted.
In ATENA, steel plates are used as bearings where there is
a need to apply loads and supports, this is to eliminate the
influence of localization of stresses at immediate region under
the point of application. The mesh size adopted is 50mm and
brick elements are used for concrete modeling, whereas
tetrahedral elements are used for steel plates. The type of
solution adopted is modified Newton-Raphson method, to
optimize the node numbers Sloan iterations are used. The

stiffness used is the tangent stiffness and the values of the

stiffness is updated after each iteration. The number of
iterations under each load step is limited to 40.
The models are analysed under load controlled method,
the post peak behaviour is not studied. Displacement
controlled analysis is not performed.
Material modeling
The input properties for the different materials are as
described below:
Concrete
Concrete is modelled as 3D-Nonlinear cemetitious material,
with the following properties
Cube Strength (fcu)

30 MPa

Elastic modulus (E)

Poissons ratio(m)

3.032 x 104 MPa

0.2

Tensile strength
Compressive strength
Specific weight ()

2.317 MPa
-25.5 MPa

Coefficient of thermal expansion()

1.2 x 10-5 /K

23 kN/m3

Steel
Steel plates are used as bearings under supports and loads
only. It is modelled as a 3D-elastic-isotropic material, with
following properties
Elastic modulus (E)
Poissons ratio(m)
Specific weight ()

2 x 105 MPa
0.3
78.5 kN/m3

Reinforcement
Reinforcement bars are modelled as reinforcement elements
with bilinear, elasto-plastic behaviour, with the following
properties
Elastic modulus E

2.1 x 105 MPa

Yield strength (fy)

Specific weight ()

415 MPa
78.5 kN/m3

Coefficient of thermal expansion()

1.2 x 10-5 /K

Concrete-Concrete Interface
The interface region between the two concrete elements is
modelled using 3D-interface model with following properties
Normal stiffness
Tangential stiffness

2 x 105 kN/m3
2 x 105 kN/m3

Cohesion

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2015

Geometric modeling
All the slabs have a constant width and span of 1m and
depth of 100 mm. The skew angle of the slab is varied as
shown in the Figure 6. The values assigned to are 0o (square
slab), 30o, 45o, 60o. The slab is simply supported on opposite
sides and is reinforced with 5 bars of 8mm at a spacing of 240
mm in both longitudinal and transverse directions. Same
reinforcement is provided at the top as well. In both cases
effective cover given is 15mm. In case of composite slab two
slabs of 50mm depth are modelled one above the other with an
interface layer. The depth of embedment of the shear
connector is between the top and the bottom reinforcement i.e.
70mm. The slab is loaded with line loads of 4kN per step for
all steps at the 1/3rd span of the slabs in the transverse
direction.

(a)

Figure 6. Typical slab showing supports

(all dimension in mm)

Figure 7. Truss type shear connector with 60o inclination,

70mm depth of embedment and 8mm diameter

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table1: Nomenclature for slab models
(b)
Figure 3. (a) Solid slab (b) Composite slab

Solid
NonComposite
2L
3L
2T
3T
2L-2T
3L-3T

Full depth solid slab

Two-half slabs, without any shear
connector
Two connectors in longitudinal
direction
Three connectors in longitudinal
direction
Two connectors in transverse direction
Three connectors in transverse
direction
Two connectors in both direction
Three connectors in both direction

Results and discussions for 0o slab

Figure 4. Square slab showing supports and loading

Figure 5. Typical slab showing supports, loading,

reinforcements and shear connector.

Figure 8. Load v/s Deflection graph for solid and noncomposite slab for = 0o
Figure 8. shows the load v/s deflection behavior of the solid
slab when compared with a non composite slab for a sqaure

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2015

slab. From the figure it is seen that the load carrying capacity
of non- composite slab is much lower than solid slab. This is
due to the absence of monolithic action between the two
composite members in the non-composite slab.
Figure 9. and Figure 10. show the load v/s deflection for 0
degree slab with shear connectors in transverse and
longitudinal directions respectively. It is evident that shear
connectors when provided in transverse directions does not
improve the behaviour in anyway, whereas in longitudinal
direction they increase the load carry capacity to a great
extent, when two connectors are provided in longitudinal
direction, it is as good as a solid slab, when three connectors
are provided the load carrying capacity is much higher than
the solid slab itself.

Figure 14. and Figure 15. show the load v/s deflection for 30
degree slab with shear connectors in transverse and
longitudinal directions respectively. When compared to the 0
degree slab, it can be seen that the load carrying capacity has
decreased. However, the rest of the behaviour is similar.
Transverse connectors have no much influence; longitudinal
connectors improve the load carrying capacity.

Figure 11. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in both the directions for = 0o

Figure 9. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with connectors

in transverse direction only for = 0o

Figure 12. Load v/s Deflection graph for all the slabs for =
0o

Figure 10. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in longitudinal direction only for = 0o
Figure 11. shows the load v/s deflection comparison of
composite slabs, when shear connectors are provided in both
longitudinal and transverse directions. When compared to
Figure 9. It can be seem that transverse connectors when
provided independently do not affect the load carrying
capacity, however when provide along with longitudinal
connectors it does improve the behaviour slightly.

Results and discussions for 30o slab

Transverse connectors when provided with longitudinal
connectors improve the behaviour slightly, Figure 16. It must
also be noted that the window between the solid and noncomposite slab is reduced when compared to 0 degree slab as
seen in Figure 13.

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2015

Figure 16. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in both the directions for = 30o
.

Figure 13. Load v/s Deflection graph for solid and noncomposite slab for = 30o

Figure 14. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in transverse direction only for = 30o

Figure 17. Load v/s Deflection graph for all the slabs for =
30o
Figure 12, Figure 17, Figure 22 and Figure 27. shows the load
v/s deflection comparison of all the slabs for 0 degree, 30
degrees, 45 degrees and 60 degrees respectively. By
compassion it can be seen that, irrespective of the degree of
skew-ness of the slab, the general trend is the same. Solid
slabs performs much better than a Non-Composite slabs. It has
a much higher failure load. Transverse connectors do not alter
the load carrying behaviour; longitudinal connectors improve
the behaviour significantly. Transverse connectors when
provided along with longitudinal connectors does improve the
load carrying capacity, although not significantly

Figure 15. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in longitudinal direction only for = 30o

Results and discussions for 45o slab

Figure 18. shows the load v/s deflection for solid and
non-composite slab for 45 degrees slab. Figure 19, Figure 20,
and Figure 21. shows the load v/s deflection comparison for
45 degree slab when connectors are provided in transverse
direction, longitudinal direction and both transverse and
longitudinal directions respectively. Here again, the behaviour
is similar, as for 0 degree slab and 45 degree slab, however the
load carrying capacity has further reduced

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2015

composite slab has reduced. Figure 23. shows the load v/s
deflection for
solid and non-composite slab for 45 degrees slab. Figure 24,
Figure 25, and Figure 26. shows the load v/s deflection
comparison for 60 degree slab when connectors are provided
in transverse direction, longitudinal direction and both
transverse and longitudinal directions respectively.

Figure 18. Load v/s Deflection graph for solid and noncomposite slab for =45o

Figure 21. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in both the directions for =45o

Figure 19. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in transverse direction only for =45o
.

Figure 22. Load v/s Deflection graph for all the slabs for
=45o

Figure 20. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in longitudinal direction only for =45o
Results and discussions for 60o slab
Behaviour of 60 degree slab is very similar to that of all
the other slabs, except the load carrying capacity has reduced
to a great extent; the window between the solid and the non-

Figure 23. Load v/s Deflection graph for solid and noncomposite slab for =60o

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2015

Figure 24. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in transverse direction only for =60o

Figure 27. Load v/s Deflection graph for all the slabs for
=60o
Ansuman [7] (2012) studied the influence of angle of skew
ness on the performance of skew bridges. It was found that
when the length of the shorter diagonal was less than the span
of the slab it behaved like a one-way slab and when length of
shorter diagonal was larger than the span it behaved like a
two-way slab and Gowthami [3] (2014) studied the effects of
different types of shear connectors on one way and two way
composite slabs and found that two way slabs take much
higher loads compared to one way slabs for a given
configuration of shear connectors.

Figure 25. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in longitudinal direction only for =60o

Figure 28. Load v/s Deflection graph for all the solid slabs for
different values of

Figure 26. Load v/s Deflection graph for slabs with

connectors in both the directions for =60o

In our present study all the slabs except the 0 degree

slab have length of shorter diagonal less than span of the slab,
the reduction in the load carry capacity can be explained due
to this. For better understanding and for comparison the load
v/s deflection results for solid slab, slabs with 2 longitudinal
shear connectors and 3 longitudinal shear connectors are
plotted in Figure 28, Figure 29 and Figure 30 respectively. It
can be seen that irrespective of the configuration or the
presence of shear connectors for a given type of slab the load
carrying capacity decreases as the angle of skew-ness of the
slab increases.

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 4, Issue 3, March 2015

College of Engineering, Bangalore, for letting us avail the

facilities of the software ATENA.

REFERENCES
[1] Benoyane, A.A. Abdul Samad, D.N. Trikha, A.A. Abang
Ali, S.H.M. Ellinna, Flexural Behavior of pre-cast
concrete sandwich composite panel Experimental and
theoretical investigations, Construction and Building
Materials, 2008, 22, PP 580-592.

Figure 29. Load v/s Deflection graph for all slabs with 2L
connectors for different values of

[2] Waleed A. Thanoon, Yavuz Yardim, M.S. Jaafar, J.

Noorzaei, Development of interlocking mechanism for
shear transfer in composite floor , Construction and
Building Materials, 2010, 24, PP 2604-2611.
[3] N. R. Gowthami, K. Ramanjaneyulu
Segmental
Composite Bridge Decks, MTech Thesis, JNTU
Ananthapur, 2014.
[4] Sanjay Kumar, Finite Element Modelling of Skew Slab
With Edge Supports, MTech Thesis, Thapar University,
Patiala, July-2013
[5] A Kabir, S M Nizamud-Doulah, M Kamruzzaman,
Effective Reinforcement Layout For Skew Slabs, 27th
Conference on our World in Concrete & Structures: 29 30 August 2002, Singapore, PP. 271-276

Figure 30. Load v/s Deflection graph for all slabs with 3L
connectors for different values of

IV. CONCLUSIONS
a)

The load carrying capacity of the slabs decreases as the

angle of skew-ness of the slab increases.
b) The load gap between the solid and the non-composite
slab decreases as the angle of skew-ness of the slab
increases.
c) In a slab, shear connectors provided in the transverse
direction does not improve the behaviour in any
significant way.
d) As the number of connectors in the longitudinal direction
is increased, the load carrying capacity of the slab also
increases.
e) Transverse connectors when provided with longitudinal
connectors influence the load carrying behavior,
increasing it slightly.

[6] S. Dhanush , K. Balakrishna Rao, Truss Type Shear

Connectors Used in Segmental Composite Slab,
Proceedings of The International Conference on
Advances in Civil Engineering Materials and Processes,
Coimbatore, Jan-2015
[7] Ansuman kar, Vikash Khatri, P. R. Maiti, P. K. Singh,
Study on Effect of Skew Angle in Skew Bridges,
International Journal of Engineering Research and
Development, Volume 2, Issue 12 (August 2012), PP. 1318
[8] S. Dhanush , K. Balakrishna Rao, Behaviour of
Segmental Composite Skew Slabs Subjected to Flexure
Loading, Proceedings of The National Conference on
Technological Innovations for Sustainable Infrastructure,
National Institute of Technology, Calicut, March-2015

V. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to The
Director, and H.O.D, Civil engineering, Manipal Institute of
Technology, Manipal, for providing necessary facilities
required for the present study and also express their deepest
gratitude towards the Department of civil engineering, BMS

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