Flexural behaviour of steel plate-masonry composite beams

Steel plate-masonry composite structure is a newly-developed type of structural technique applicable to existing masonry buildings by which the load-bearing walls can be removed for large spaces. This kind of structure has been used in practice for its several advantages, but experimental investigation on its elements is nearly unavailable in existing literature. This paper presents an experimental study on the flexural behaviour of four steel plate-masonry composite beams loaded by four-point bending. Test results indicate that failure of the tested beams always starts from the local buckling of steel plate, and that the tested beams can satisfy the requirement of service limit state. In addition, the assumption of plane section is still remained for steel plate prior to local buckling or steel yielding. By comparative analyses, it was also verified that the working performance of the beam is influenced by the cross-section of steel plate, which can be efficiently enhanced by epoxy adhesive rather than cement mortar or nothing at all. Besides, it was also found that the contribution of the encased masonry to the flexural capacity of the composite beam cannot be ignored when the beam is injected with epoxy adhesive.