Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889

www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Experimental study on steel-concrete composite beams curved in

plan
V. Thevendran *, N.E. Shanmugam, S. Chen, J.Y. Richard Liew
Department of Civil Engineering, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260

Received 5 January 1999; received in revised form 1 April 1999; accepted 15 April 1999

Abstract

This paper is concerned with experimental study on the ultimate load behaviour of steel-concrete composite beams curved in plan.
Five beams of realistic dimensions built from rolled steel beam and concrete slab were tested to failure. Extensive measurements of
strain in both concrete and steel, and of displacements were made in order to obtain a complete picture of elastic and ultimate load
behaviour. Each of the beams was simply supported at the ends and was subjected to a concentrated load applied at mid-span. All
the beams tested were analyzed by using the finite element method and the results were compared with those obtained experimentally.
The test results indicate that the load-carrying capacity decreases with the increase in the “span/radius of curvature” ratio. The
experimental results for deformations, for stress distributions and for ultimate strengths were found to be in good agreement with
the corresponding values predicted by finite element analysis.  2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Experimental study; Steel–concrete composite beams; Beams curved in plan; Ultimate load behaviour; Finite element analysis

1. Introduction theoretical investigations on beams with different curva-

Composite construction is used extensively in the con-
struction of modern buildings and highway bridges. The
advantages of composite construction are (1) saving in
weight of steel of between 30% and 50%; (2) on a static
ultimate load basis, an increase in the overload capacity
over that of a non-composite beam; and (3) for a given
load, a reduction in construction depth with consequent
saving in embankment costs for bridges or storey height
in buildings. In some structures such as balconies, high-
way bridges and interchanges in large urban area, I-gir-
ders curved in plan are frequently employed. With the
above advantages, such a composite structure curved in
plan should perform better than an isolated I-girder sys-
tem curved in plan. Both theoretical and experimental
studies have been carried out in the past to investigate
the behaviour of composite straight beams and curved
I-girders. However, few studies have been published on
the behaviour of composite curved beams. The present
study is, therefore, concerned with experimental and
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +65-874-2158; fax: +65-779-1635.
E-mail address: cvetheve@nus.edu.sg (V. Thevendran).
tures.
Tests on composite straight beams had been carried
out in the early 1920’s. Scott [1] conducted experiments
and used the test results thus obtained to derive an equ-
ation which could be used to design filler joist floors.
Caughey and Scott [2] extended the earlier design
method to deal with the problem of a concrete slab
resting on the top flange of a steel beam. By 1930, it
could be said that the initial test work establishing the
composite strength of steel beam and concrete slab sys-
tem was complete. Design methods based on the conven-
tional beam theory and rectangular-stress-block theory
had been developed. In USA, the first national code—
the American Association of State Highway Officials
(AASHO) specification for composite highway
bridges—was published in 1944. In 1964, Chapman and
Balakrishnan [3] reported the results of their tests on
seventeen simply supported straight composite beams.
Beams were tested to failure under static concentrated
and distributed loading applied on the axis of the beam.
The number of shear studs was varied within the range
which might be contemplated for design purposes, and
the effect of slip on elastic and ultimate load behaviour
was observed. In 1968, Yam and Chapman [4] proposed

0141-0296/00/$ - see front matter  2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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878 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889

a numerical method of analysis to take account of inelas- Table 2

ticity of steel, concrete and shear connector. This analy- Average material properties of steel
sis was used to explore the effects of cross-sectional Coupon Modulus of Yield stress Ultimate
properties, span, connector distribution, strength and Specimen
location elasticity Es (GPa) (MPa) stress (MPa)
stiffness, type of loading and strain hardening on the
beam-slab interaction and ultimate load behaviour. (E)bba (E)abb (sy)bbc (s)abd (su)bbe (su)abf
Research work had also been carried out on I-girders
SP1 flange 206.5 – 365 – 505 –
curved in plan over the past decades. In the early-sev- web 210.0 – 390 – 542 –
enties, Heins and Spates [5] carried out laboratory tests SP2 flange 220.0 225.0 371 385 522 537
on a curved I-girder subjected to a combination of con- web 205.0 210.0 380 409 495 542
centrated loads and torsional moments. The model con- SP3 flange 200.0 210.0 370 388 491 529
structed by them was embedded in concrete blocks to web 210.0 220.0 401 401 502 530
SP4 flange 212.5 217.5 352 391 535 549
provide a fixed support and loaded within the elastic web 203.0 210.0 363 429 531 540
range. Fukumoto and Nishida [6] used the transfer SP5 flange 190.0 210.0 345 383 518 520
matrix method to solve the equilibrium equations of a web 199.0 220.0 338 400 520 525
single curved I-girder subjected to bending and torsional
moments in both elastic and inelastic ranges. They also
a
(E)bb=Modulus before bending.
b
(E)ab=Modulus after bending.
investigated the behaviour of curved flexural members c
(sy)bb=Yield stress before bending.
under large torsional deformation. In addition, six simply d
(sy)ab=Yield stress after bending.
supported curved I-girders of practical size were tested e
(su)bb=Ultimate stress before bending.
to failure under a concentrated load applied at the mid- f
(su)ab=Ultimate stress after bending.
span. Longitudinal residual stresses and initial out-of-
straightness were measured for all the fabricated curved
beam specimens with “span-length” to “radius of curva-
ture” ratio ranging from 0.008 to 0.08. Tests on 27 mod- Table 3
els by Nakai and Yoo [7] provided some explanations Average material properties of concrete
on the effect of local buckling on the strength of bridge
girders curved in plan. These model girders were sub- Modulus of
Age at testing Cube strength
jected to pure bending moment. Based on these experi- Specimen elasticity
(days) fcu (MPa)
Ec(N/mm2)
mental studies, an analytical method for evaluating the
lateral buckling strength of curved I-girders has been SP1 10 39.1 18350
developed in accordance with the second-order buckling SP2 8 29 21480
analysis. Shanmugam et al. [8] carried out tests on two SP3 10 35.7 21000
sets of I-beams, one set comprising rolled sections and SP4 8 39 18280
SP5 9 35.4 18110
the other comprising built-up sections. The beams were
tested to failure under a concentrated load applied at an
intermediate point where the beam was laterally
restrained. The object of the present study is to investi-
gate the failure modes, stress distribution at salient sec-
tions along the span, and load-carrying capacity of com- at mid-span. Finite element analyses using ABAQUS
posite beams curved in plan and to examine the effects software have been carried out on the tested beams and
of curvature on the ultimate strength of such beams. The the results are compared with those obtained experimen-
specimens were tested under a concentrated load applied tally.

Table 1
Dimensions of test specimens

(Uo)N (Uo)M
Specimen B (mm) Ds (mm) b (mm) D (mm) tf (mm) tw (mm) Ls (mm) L (mm) R (mm) L/R
(mm)a (mm)b

SP1 1500 100 171 358 12.9 8 6200 6000 – 0 0 0

SP2 1500 100 171 358 12.9 7.9 6200 6000 120000 0.05 37.5 38
SP3 1500 100 171 358 13 8 6200 6000 60000 0.1 75 75
SP4 1500 100 171 358 12.9 8 6200 6000 24000 0.25 187.5 186
SP5 1500 100 171 358 12.8 8 6200 6000 12000 0.5 375 374

a
(Uo)N=L2/(8R)=Nominal initial lateral displacement of the centroid from the original position.
b
(Uo)M=Max lateral displacement at mid-span from the line joining the supports.
 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889
2. Experimental investigation
2.1. Details of test specimens
A total of five composite beams, consisting of one
straight beam designated as SP1 and four curved beams
designated as SP2, SP3, SP4 and SP5 have been tested.
The typical geometry of specimens is shown in Fig. 1.
The dimensions of all specimens are summarized in
Table 1. Each of the specimens was 6.2 m long simply
supported on a span of 6 m and consisted of a main
girder and three secondary beams. Both main girder and
three secondary girders were made of UB356×171×57
kg/m (rolled steel beam having overall depth of approxi-
mately 356 mm, flange width of 171 mm and self weight
of 57 kg/m). The concrete slab of all specimens is a
normal weight concrete slab with an overall thickness of
100 mm. The width of the slab is 1500 mm complying
with the specification of effective width in BS 5950, Part
3. The bond between steel beams and concrete slab was
achieved by means of shear studs. The L/R ratios of SP1,
SP2, SP3, SP4, SP5 are 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5 respect-
ively.
2.2. Material properties
Tensile test coupons cut from the flanges and webs of
the steel beam segments before and after cold-bending
were tested in order to obtain the material properties.
For each specimen, four tensile coupons —two from the
flange part and two from the web part—were cut out for
the material tests. They were tested in an INSTRON 500
kN Universal Testing Machine in accordance with the
ASTM specification (1979). The values obtained from
the test for the modulus of elasticity and yield stress,
before and after cold bending of steel girders are summa-
rized in Table 2. The material properties of concrete
were measured by cube and cylinder tests. A summary
of the concrete properties on the day of testing of the
respective beam specimens is presented in Table 3.
2.3. Fabrication of test specimens
The I-girders were fabricated by welding the second-
ary beams to the main girder in a factory. Headed shear
studs (19 mm diameter, 75 mm long) were welded onto
the top flanges of the main girder and of the secondary
beams by a stud welding machine, and were checked by
regular bend testing. The formwork for the slab was built
in the laboraory using structural grade lumber and ply-
form. The plyform was cut according to the curvature
of specimens and moved into position. The top of the
plyform was adjusted to be in close contact and flush
with the top flange. The joints in the formwork were
caulked and the formwork was oiled. Two layers of
welded mesh (8 mm diameter bars spaced at 150 mm
879
centre to centre in orthogonal directions) were used
along the entire length of the concrete slab in all speci-
mens. Normal weight concrete designed for a seven day
cube compressive strength of 30 MPa was used for the
concrete slabs. Ordinary Portland Cement, sand and
coarse aggregates of 25 mm maximum size were mixed
in proportions of 1.00:2.48:3.78. Before pouring of the
concrete, calcium chloride under the trade name of Rapi-
dard was added at the rate of 2.273 l per 50 kg of cement
to obtain a cube strength of 30 MPa in seven days. A
summary of the properties of the concrete used is found
in Table 3. The concrete was vibrated into place in the
formwork starting from one end. When the concrete had
achieved its initial set, the top surface of the concrete
was given a trowelled finish, and then the slab was
covered with a layer of damp sacking. Two days after
casting, the side mould of the test beam and the mould
of cube and cylinder were demoulded. Polystyrene
sheets were used to wrap the specimens in order to main-
tain the moist environment. The development of concrete
strength was monitored closely by testing the control
specimens at regular intervals. Bottom mould and timber
props were removed after the concrete reached its 70%
design strength. The specimens were then air-dried in
the laboratory until the time of testing.
2.4. Test setup and instrumentation
The test setup was basically same for both straight
and curved specimens. A test rig built on a strong floor
and capable of applying up to a maximum load of 2000
kN was used for testing the specimens. Specimens
longer than 6 m could be tested on the rig. Roller sup-
ports were inserted between the ends of the specimen
and the rig to provide simply supported conditions.
Transverse beams were provided at the ends of the speci-
men to simulate the existence of transverse diaphragms
at supports in practice. A transverse beam was also
attached at the mid-span of the specimen for transmitting
concentrated load to the specimen. The specimen was
mounted on roller supports set at 6 m apart on the testing
rig. The test setup is shown in Fig. 2.
For the straight beam, instrumentation was provided
by means of transducers and strain gauges for measure-
ments of vertical deflections along the length of the
specimen, steel and concrete strains at mid-span and the
slip between concrete slab and steel beam. For the
curved beams, additional transducers were mounted to
measure the horizontal deflection. Transducers were
mounted on specially prepared brackets. Concrete strains
at quarter span were also measured for the specimens
SP3, SP4 and SP5. Fig. 3 shows the locations of trans-
ducers and strain gauges for the specimens. The readings
from these strain gauges were recorded using a data-
logger (TD-301) connected to a personal computer. The
load-displacement plot displayed by the computer
880 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889

Fig. 1. Details of a typical specimen; (a) Structural steel components; (b) Detail A; (c) Detail B.

enabled the yielding of the steel and the onset of failure
of the specimen to be monitored.
2.5. Test procedure
The tests were carried out at the age of seven days or
more (after the casting of slab). The test procedure
applied to test all specimens was the same. The specimen
was carefully positioned in the test frame such that the
midpoint of the beam was under the actuator. Before
applying any load on the specimen, all the electrical
resistance strain gauges and transducers were connected
to a data acquisition system (TDS-30) which had been
programmed to record the outputs on a floppy diskette
 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889
Fig. 2. An overall view of the test setup and instrumentation.
with simultaneous printout of the data at every load
increment of 5 kN. Concentrated load was applied
through a short box section welded onto the steel beam
at mid-span in order to avoid the possibility of concrete
crushing at the point of application of load. Load-dis-
placement and load-strain curves were plotted automati-
cally using a computer. Before the actual test, a small
preload of 50 kN was applied slowly on the specimen
and removed gradually. This operation was repeated in
order to remove any slack in the support system and to
ensure the specimen was properly seated on the supports.
At the same time, readings of strain gauges and trans-
ducers were checked to ensure that they functioned prop-
erly.
After ensuring that all the instruments were working
Fig. 3.
881
satisfactorily, the strain gauges and transducers were
initialized. The load was then applied to the specimen
in increments. When the loading reached the 80% of the
predicted ultimate load, the specimen was unloaded and
then reloaded gradually until failure occured. After every
50 kN, the load was kept constant for a while to allow
the specimen to stabilize. At every 5 kN load increment,
the strain gauge readings and displacements from trans-
ducers were recorded, the steel beam was examined for
yielding and the surface of concrete was carefully
inspected for development of cracks. Close observations
were made to locate the first crack, and the correspond-
ing load was marked. Testing was terminated when sig-
nificant crushing of the concrete had occured or the
deflection became excessively large with excessive crack
widths. The ultimate load and mode of failure were
recorded for each specimen. After the specimen had
failed, the loading system and transducers were
removed, and additional cracks were marked.
3. Theoretical analysis
The finite element software ABAQUS was used to
analyse the behaviour of test specimens. Full composite
action between steel beam and the concrete slab was
assumed. Fig. 4 shows a typical finite element mesh
(with 1257 elements) used in the analysis. A three
dimensional finite element model had been used. In the
finite element model, the concrete slab was modelled by
four-node isoparametric thick shell elements with the
Details of instrumentation.
882 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889
Fig. 4. Finite element model of a typical composite beam curved in plan.
coupling of bending stiffnesses while the steel flange and
web were modelled by four-node isoparametric thin shell
elements with the coupling of bending and stiffnesses.
The shear connectors between concrete slab and steel
flange were modelled by rigid beam elements. Rigid
connection beam elements were used to model the shear
studs based on the assumption that no slip occurs
between the concrete slab and the steel girder. During
the experiments, the interfacial slip between the slab and
the top flange of the steel girder was measured at both
ends. The relative displacements at failure were found
to be negligibly small in all specimens and the maximum
value recorded was 0.09 mm and hence the slip could
be ignored. The assumption of perfect bonding between
concrete slab and steel beam is thus justified.
Steel was assumed to behave as an elastic-plastic
material with strain hardening in both tension and com-
pression. The idealised stress-strain curve adopted for
steel in the finite element analysis is shown in Fig. 5(a).
The stress-strain relationship of concrete was input by
the concrete option in ABAQUS. The constitutive
relation curve adopted for concrete both in compression
and in tension is shown in Fig. 5(b). Concrete in com-
pression is considered to be elasto-plastic and strain
hardening material. Its uniaxial compression stress-strain
curve is assumed to follow the expression [9]
fc⫽f⬘ 冋 冉 冊册
2⑀c ⑀c
⑀0
⫺
⑀0
2
,
where f⬘ is the cylinder compressive strength of concrete
in MPa. The strain, ⑀0, at which the maximum compress-
ive stress is reached, has been taken as 0.002, while the
strain, ⑀cu, at which the concrete crushes, has been taken
as 0.0038. A bilinear approximation was used to model
the tensile behaviour of the concrete. The first part joins
the origin (zero stress at zero strain) to the maximum
uniaxial tensile stress, ftu, at strain at which the concrete
cracks. Beyond this strain value the tensile stress is
assumed to decrease linearly from ftu in order to reflect
the softening of concrete due to crack. The loss of shear
modulus due to cracks was accounted for by using a
multiplying factor, which defined the modulus for shear-
ing of cracks as G=rGc, where Gc is the elastic shear
modulus of the uncracked concrete. The shear retention
model assumes that the shear stiffness of open cracks
reduces linearly to zero as the crack opening increases.
The multiplying factor, r, is given by
冋 册
冦 冧
⑀
1− for 0ⱕ⑀ⱕ⑀max
r⫽ ⑀max
0 for ⑀ⱖ⑀max
where ⑀ is the direct strain across the crack and ⑀max is
the value given on the data card of the option. Cedolin
and Poli [10] proposed that the slope of the shear stress-
shear displacement curve decreases with crack width.
The crack width for which the slope becomes zero is
given as cw=0.75 mm. Referring this magnitude to a typi-
cal distance between cracks in the real structures, lc=150
mm, ⑀max=cw/lc=0.005. The model also assumes that
cracks that subsequently close have a reduced shear
modulus where r is assumed as 0.95. The nonlinear
response of the beam in the loading path is solved by
using the Newton iterative technique. Further details of
 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889 883

Fig. 5. (a) Idealised uniaxial stress-strain relationships for steel; (b) Idealised uniaxial stress-strain relationships for concrete.

the finite element analyses for all the specimens may be
found elsewhere [11].
4. Results and discussion
Experimental failure loads along with the correspond-
ing analytical values are summarized in Table 4 for all
test specimens. The load-vertical displacement curve and
load-lateral displacement curve at mid-span of the beams
are plotted against the applied load in Figs. 6 and 7
respectively. Maximum lateral displacement in the case
of SP2 was very small, less than 2 mm and its variations
with load is not presented in Fig. 7. In the nonlinear
region, the stiffness of SP5 reduces comparatively at a
quicker rate than that for the other beams. Comparing

Table 4
Comparison of ultimate loads predicted by ABAQUS with experimental values

Specimen L/R Ultimate load Pu (kN) (Pu)EXPT−(Pu)ABAQUS

×100
(Pu)EXPT
(Pu)ABAQUS (Pu)EXPT

SP1 0.00 450 490 8.0

SP2 0.05 422 448 6.0
SP3 0.10 430 460 7.0
SP4 0.25 378 438 14.0
SP5 0.50 205 235 13.0
884 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889

and upwards at the inner edge side as shown in Fig. 8(a)

Fig. 6. Experimental curves of load vs vertical displacement at
mid-span.
in which the view after failure of the specimen SP5 is
shown; the rate of deformation increased considerably
and inclined cracks developed in the concrete slab with
increase in load as can be seen in Fig. 8(b). Therefore,
the failure of the composite curved beam with a high
L/R ratio was caused by bending and twisting. The twist-
ing effects associated with geometrical nonlinearity are
higher for beams with larger in-plan curvature and hence
these beams have lower ultimate strength and larger lat-
eral deformation. However, when the L/R ratio is small,
the twisting effects are small and do not affect much the
ultimate strength.
The experimental tangential stress and radial stress
variation across the mid-span sections when the beams
were subjected to a load of 200 kN for all specimens
are shown in Figs. 9(a), 10(a) and 11. The corresponding
values at quarter span sections are plotted in Figs. 9(b)
and 10(b). It can be seen that the tangential stresses at
the top of the concrete slab in the outer edge side at
midspan are greater than those at the inner edge except
as expected for the straight beam SP1. As the L/R ratio
increases, these stresses at the outer edges increase

Fig. 7. Experimental curves of load vs vertical displacement at

mid-span.

the ultimate loads, it can be seen that the ultimate load

of the specimens SP2, SP3, SP4 and SP5 are, respect-
ively, 8.6%, 6.1%, 10.6%, and 52% less than that of SP1.
The ultimate load of SP3 was slightly higher than SP2
because of the influence of the concrete cube strength
which in SP3 was 23.1% higher than that of SP2. The
effects of L/R ratio on the ultimate strength can be ident-
ified distinctly with the ultimate load decreasing with an
increase in curvature. It can also be seen in the test that
the failure mode of beams changed with increasing L/R
ratio. In the case of SP1, SP2 and SP3, the upper part
of concrete slab at mid-span in both the inner side and
outer side crushed at the time of failure and no other
cracks were observed in other parts of the concrete slab;
the failure was, therefore, mainly due to bending. How-
ever, in the case of SP4 and SP5, it was observed that Fig. 8. (a) Twisting of SP5 at failure; (b) Pattern of cracks of SP5
the specimens bent downwards at the outer edge side at failure.
 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889
Fig. 9. (a) Variation of tangential stress across width of concrete
slabs at mid-span of specimens at the load of 200 kN; (b) Variation
of tangential stress across width of concrete slabs at quarter-span of
specimens at the load of 200 kN.
whereas those at the inner edges decrease. At quarter
span, the stress distribution across the slab width is the
reverse of the above except in the case of SP5, i.e. the
tangential stresses at the outer edges were less than those
at the inner edges. In the case of SP5, the specimen
inclined significantly downwards at the outer edge and
upwards in the inner edge due to twisting. The larger
torsional moments due to the larger curvature affected
stress distribution not only at the mid-span but also at
the quarter span and induce the tangential stress distri-
bution. It can be seen from Fig. 9(a) that the radial stress
distribution at mid-span does not change much in the
case of SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, but changes a lot in SP5.
Fig. 10(b) shows that the radial stress distribution at
quarter span does not change much in SP3 and SP4, but
does change in SP5. This shows the influence of increas-
ing torsional moments with the increase in L/R ratio. In
885
Fig. 10. (a) Variation of radial stress across width of concrete slabs
at mid-span of specimens at the load of 200 kN; (b) Variation of radial
stress across width of concrete slabs at quarter-span of specimens at
the load of 200 kN.
the steel girder, it can be observed that the tangential
stresses at the bottom flange edge at the outer side are
greater than those in the inner side, and the tangential
stress distribution at the top flange is reversed similar to
that in the bottom flange but there is not much difference
between the outer side and inner side. For a small L/R
ratio as in the case of SP2, the tangential stresses are
almost constant across the width.
The comparison between the ultimate loads predicted
experimentally and by the finite element method is
presented in Table 4. It can be seen that the finite
element solutions are in relatively close agreement with
the corresponding experimental results. It is found in all
cases that the analytical prediction underestimates the
load carrying capacity. The maximum deviation is about
14%. It would therefore appear that the ABAQUS analy-
886 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889

Fig. 11. Variation of tangential stress in steel beams at mid-span of specimens at applied load of 200 kN.

sis is reliable in predicting the ultimate strength of com-
posite curved beams.
A comparison between typical load-deflection curves
(of specimens SP3, SP4 and SP5) obtained from the
finite element analysis and experiments is shown in Fig.
12. Satisfactory agreement between the analytical and
experimental values for deflections is observed. Slight
discrepancies between experimental curves and analyti-
cal curves may be due to the approximation in concrete
modeling by ABAQUS. The concrete is not a homo-
geneous material. The concrete model in ABAQUS sim-
plifies significantly the actual behaviour. Furthermore,
the smeared “crack” concept is used for numerical mode-
ling of crack initiation and crack propagation. This sme-
ared “crack” model does not track individual “macro”
cracks. Instead, constitutive calculations are performed
independently at each integration point of the finite
element model. However, when the crack developed in
the concrete during the experiment, the moment of iner-
tia of the whole section decreased and the ratio of defor-
mation to loading increased considerably.
A comparison of initial crack loads and yield loads
 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889 887

A detailed study of the comparisons between experi-

Fig. 12. Comparison of load vs vertical displacement curves from
experiment with those from ABAQUS analysis for SP3, SP4 and SP5.
mental and analytical values of deflection profiles, tan-
gential stress distributions across the width of all the
specimens has been made. However, only the results for
SP4 are presented in Figs. 13 and 14 for brevity.
Deflected profiles along the curved length for three dif-
ferent loading cases (150 kN, 200 kN, 250 kN) for SP4
are shown in Fig. 13. The curves were plotted from the
results obtained by ABAQUS analysis and the corre-
sponding experimental values are superimposed. Gener-
ally good agreement is observed between the experi-
mental and ABAQUS curves for the three loading cases.
Figs. 14(a), (b) and (c) show the comparison between
the experimental and analytical values of tangential
stress across the concrete slab width and steel section at
mid-span and tangential stress across the concrete slab
width at quarter span for an applied load of 200 kN for
SP4. Good agreement between the experimental and
ABAQUS values is observed in the steel girder. The pre-
dicted stress values in the steel are somewhat smaller
compared to experimental values. In the concrete, larger
discrepancies between the values predicted by ABAQUS
and by experiment are observed. Though there is some
discrepancy between the experimental and analytical
results, the trend in stress variation is the same in most
cases. It can be seen that the tangential stresses at the
top surface of the concrete slab at the outer edge at mid-
span are greater than those at the inner edge. At quarter
span, the stress distribution across slab width is reversed,
the tangential stresses at the outer edge are less than
those at the inner edge.

Fig. 13. Comparison of vertical displacement traces from experiment

with those from ABAQUS analysis for SP4. 5. Conclusions

obtained experimentally with the corresponding values
obtained from the finite element analysis is shown in
Table 5. It can be observed that the yield loads predicted
by ABAQUS are somewhat larger than the values pre-
dicted experimentally and the maximum deviation is
about 10%. The deviation for initial cracking load is
between ⫺29% and 23%. The deviation is due to the
fact that the cracking model in ABAQUS is not meant
to trace the development of individual cracks.
Experiments carried out on steel-concrete composite
beams that are curved in plan are described. Beams with
different values of radius of curvature have been tested
to failure. Test results show that the ultimate load
capacity decreases with increase in the L/R ratio. Failure
modes are obviously different for each of the specimens.
With the increase in the L/R ratio, the main cause of
failure changes from bending to the combined action of
bending and twisting. Crack patterns observed on the

Table 5
Comparison of initial crack loads and yielding loads predicted by ABAQUS with experimental values

Specimen Yielding load Py (kN) Initial crack load Pc (kN)

Py(EXPT) Py(ABAQUS) Py(ABAQUS)/Py(EXPT) Pc(EXPT) Pc(ABAQUS) Pc(ABAQUS)/Pu(EXPT)

SP1 325 350 1.07 440 412 0.93

SP2 315 340 1.08 405 410 1.01
SP3 310 320 1.03 325 400 1.23
SP4 305 300 0.98 280 250 0.89
SP5 220 200 0.91 140 100 0.71
888 V. Thevendran et al. / Engineering Structures 22 (2000) 877–889

Fig. 14. (a) Comparison of experimental and theoretical tangential stress distributions across width of concrete slab at mid-span of SP4 at the
load of 200 kN; (b) Comparison of experimental and theoretical tangential stress distributions across width of concrete slab at quarter-span of SP4
at the load of 200 kN; (c) Comparison of experimental and theoretical tangential stress distributions in steel beam at mid-span of SP4 at the load
of 200 kN.

concrete slab showed the significant effect of twisting References

on the failure of the curved beams. A comparison of the
experimental and theoretical ultimate loads shows that
the finite element analysis using the ABAQUS software
is capable of predicting the ultimate load of composite
beams curved in plan with reasonable accuracy. The
load-deflection curves, deflection profile, and tangential
stress distribution along cross section obtained by finite
element analysis also compare well with the correspond-
ing results from the laboratory experiments.
Acknowledgements
The investigation reported in this paper was funded
by a Research Grant (RP940660) from the National Uni-
versity of Singapore.
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