Partial Replacement of Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) by Light-Weight Concrete (LWC) in Composite Beam Utilising High Strength Steel I-Section

The development of composite beam utilizing engineered cementitious composites (ECC) slab and high strength steel (HSS) I-section have demonstrated the effectiveness of using advanced materials to enhance the flexural capacity and ductility of composite structures. However, ECC is well-known for its high-cost and difficulty in handling. Reducing the ECC volume while still keeping strength capacity and ductility of composite beam is essentially demanded. Thus, this study proposes a novel form of composite beam named LWC-ECC-HSS beam, in which light-weight concrete (LWC) is employed to partially replace the ECC at the bottom layer of slab to reduce the weight and cost of ECC-HSS beam. A numerical simulation using ABAQUS package has been developed to study the bending behavior of this type of beam. The numerical results obtained showed that LWC-ECC-HSS beam performed even better than ECC-HSS counterpart in terms of bending strength and stiffness. A parameter study was also carried out to investigate the effect of ECC/LWC layer on the bending performance of LWC-ECC-HSS beam. The results indicated that the thicker the LWC layer/thinner the ECC layer, the higher the bending stiffness but the lower the load-carrying capacity of the LWC-ECC-HSS beam.