Shrinkage Effects In Composite Beams With Flexible Connection

Shrinkage effects in composite steel-concrete beams with flexible shear connectors are investigated. The analysis is performed for simply supported and continuous beams first by taking into ''count the shrinkage only and then the simultaneous creep effects. The mathematical formulation of the shrinkage problem for continuous beams with r redundant reactions leads to a system of r+5 equations, one of which is a differential type equation; the solution is obtained numerically by performing a discretisation along the beam axis. The creep and shrinkage analysis introduces two integral-differential equations in the above system and the solution is obtained by applying the numerical step-by-step procedures. Finally, a parametric analysis is performed in order to evaluate the influence of the main parameters involved.