Experimental and Numerical Evaluation of a Welded

Demountable Shear Connector through Horizontal

Pushout Tests
Ahmed S. H. Suwaed, Aff.M.ASCE 1; Jun He 2; and George Vasdravellis 3

Abstract: A novel welded demountable shear connector for sustainable steel-concrete composite structures is proposed. The proposed
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connector consists of a grout-filled steel tube bolted to a compatible partially threaded stud, which is welded on a steel section. This connector
allows for an easy deconstruction at the end of the service life of a building, promoting the reuse of both the concrete slabs and the steel
sections. This paper presents the experimental evaluation of the structural behavior of the proposed connector using a horizontal pushout test
arrangement. The effects of various parameters, including the tube thickness, the presence of grout infill, and the concrete slab compressive
strength, were assessed. A nonlinear finite element model was also calibrated against the experimental results, and the validated numerical
model was used to extend the validity of the experimental results and to perform further parametric studies. The experimental and numerical
results show that the tested connectors have similar stiffness, but higher shear resistance and slip capacity compared with traditional welded
shear studs and can be classified as ductile according to Eurocode 4. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0003269. © 2021 American
Society of Civil Engineers.

Introduction
The urgent need for sustainable development and the ambitious
sustainability targets set by many countries recently have acceler-
ated research efforts on the development of demountable shear
connectors (DSCs) for steel-concrete composite floors. DSCs en-
able the separation of the concrete elements from the steel sections,
thus promoting the reuse of the components at the end of the ser-
vice life of a building as opposed to demolition. Reusing structural
components can play a significant role to a drastic reduction of CO2
emissions, elimination of waste going to a landfill, and a more
responsible use of natural resources. Moreover, demountability
enables a structure to be upgraded without the need to replace
all the structural members, thus reducing the socioeconomic impact
associated with traffic congestions in urban road networks. In
addition, demountability can facilitate the efficient construction
of portable or temporary structures, for example, portable buildings
and bridges for military actions (Russell and Thrall 2013), human-
ity needs after natural disasters like floods, and temporary buildings
for one-off events, e.g., Olympic games (IStructE 2017). The
environmental benefits arising from the application of demountable
composite buildings have been quantified in various previous
1
Lecturer, Dept. of Reconstruction and Projects, Univ. of Baghdad,
Baghdad 10071, Iraq (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org
/0000-0002-9783-6335. Email: ahmed.shakir@uobaghdad.edu.iq
2
Marie Curie Research Fellow, Institute for Infrastructure and Environ-
ment, Heriot-Watt Univ., Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK; Professor, School of
Civil Engineering, Changsha Univ. of Science and Technology, Hunan
410205, China. Email: hejun@csust.edu.cn
3
Associate Professor, Institute for Infrastructure and Environment,
Heriot-Watt Univ., Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK. Email: g.vasdravellis@
hw.ac.uk
Note. This manuscript was submitted on June 15, 2021; approved on
October 15, 2021; published online on November 26, 2021. Discussion
period open until April 26, 2022; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Structural En-
gineering, © ASCE, ISSN 0733-9445.
research works, e.g., in Brambilla et al. (2019) and Tingley and
Davison (2011).
A number of different DSC types have been proposed in the
literature. Most of the DSCs are based on using bolts to transfer
the shear at the interface between the slab and the steel sections.
Threaded studs as DSCs were evaluated in Dai et al. (2015) and
Rehman et al. (2016) in conjunction with solid slabs and composite
slabs with profiled metal decking. The threaded studs include a
reduced shank at the base of the stud instead of having a welded
collar. When dismantling the composite floor, threaded studs pro-
trude out of the slab, because they are embedded in it, and this may
be problematic in reusing the slabs. In addition, threaded studs have
been shown to have tolerance issues with the holes on the steel
sections. Pathirana et al. (2016) proposed commercial blind bolts
for rehabilitation of composite beams. Pushout tests on blind bolts
showed comparable shear resistance, but less slip capacity as com-
pared with welded studs, with some types exhibiting brittle load-
slip behavior. High-strength preloaded bolts inside drilled through
holes were proposed as DSCs in Ataei et al. (2016). Due to reliance
on friction forces, loss of shear resistance due to sudden slip was
observed. In Kozma et al. (2019), pretensioned high-strength
bolts in metallic cylinders were tested, and epoxy resin injections
were used in bolts with couplers to overcome the tolerance issues.
Pushout tests showed higher shear resistance than traditional
studs and a monotonically increasing load-slip response reaching
6–10 mm of slip. Further, pushout tests on bolts with couplers
(Yang et al. 2018) showed that a ductile behavior can only be
achieved using 27-mm diameter bolts or larger. Note that, as per
the definition in Eurocode 4 (BSI 2004), a shear connector is
characterized as ductile if it can reach a slip capacity of 6 mm
or more. High-strength bolts in precast slabs have also exhibited
limited ductility (Pavlović et al. 2013). DSCs based on friction
or using a locking-nut mechanism were promoted for precast
bridges (Suwaed and Karavasilis 2017, 2018, 2020). Two types
of steel-yielding DSCs (Feidaki et al. 2019; He et al. 2018) were
proposed for composite buildings using precast hollow-core slab
units. The steel-yielding DSCs possess very large ductility and

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 shear resistance, but their deconstruction process can be time con-
suming. More recently, bolted connectors were evaluated in prefab-
ricated steel bar truss slabs in Du et al. (2020) and clamping shear
connectors were evaluated in Wang et al. (2019, 2020).
This paper presents a novel welded demountable shear connec-
tor (WDSC). The WDSC uses industry-standard techniques to in-
stall it and does not require alterations in the way a steel-concrete
composite floor is fabricated, i.e., no holes in the flanges of the steel
sections need to be drilled. In addition, the behavior of the proposed
connector follows, in principle, the well-established behavior of
the traditional welded studs with all the desirable characteristics
(e.g., very high initial stiffness and no tolerance issues). Ten hori-
zontal pushout tests were carried out to evaluate the stiffness, shear
resistance, slip capacity, uplift capacity, and failure modes associ-
ated with the new connector. A nonlinear finite element method
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investigate the effect of various parameters on the structural perfor-
mance of the WDSC. Due to the specific horizontal test setup that
was used to conduct the pushout tests, relatively high uplift forces
were imposed to the connectors, and the potential implications are
discussed.
Description of WDSC and Deconstruction Procedure
Fig. 1 shows the details of the proposed shear connector, which
contains two main components: a steel tube and a partially threaded
stud. The tube is machined to its final shape from a solid steel
cylinder. Fig. 1(a) shows a photo of the two components (next
to a ruler to provide perspective), and Fig. 1(b) shows a 3D cut
of the tube. To resist the separation of the concrete slab from the

(FEM) model, using the Abaqus software, was also created and steel beam, the top part of the tube is shaped as an external hat.
calibrated to the experimental results. The validated FEM model Fig. 1(c) shows indicative geometric details of a 150-mm long tube.
was subsequently used to conduct a series of parametric studies The tube’s external diameter is 34 mm, and its wall thickness is
to expand the validity of the experimental results and to further 2 mm. Although it has a cross-sectional area equal to 85% of that

Fig. 1. Geometric details of the WDSC: (a) photo of tube and stud; (b) 3D cut of the tube; and (c) exploded view of a section through opposite
longitudinal holes.

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 of a 19-mm-diameter traditional stud, the tube’s second moment of
area is 4.4 times higher; therefore, the tube is stiffer as compared
with the stud against flexural and shear deformations and, hence,
most of the deformations will occur on the threaded stud. The
height of the tube should be equal to the thickness of the concrete
slab to facilitate deconstruction of the floor from above the slab.
Working below the slab to release the bolts is time-consuming
and is generally considered as a substandard and unfavorable prac-
tice. At the lower part of the tube, the wall thickness is increased
and consists of the following parts starting from top to bottom
[referring to Fig. 1(c)]: (1) A 15-mm-long M20 threaded part that
is used to connect the tube to the welded stud. (2) A 10-mm-long
unthreaded Ø21 mm hole to secure the M20 stud. Thus, stud
threads are protected against shear and moment. (3) A 20-mm-long
transition chamfered hole that is changing from Ø21–Ø31 mm,
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to ensure uniform distribution of stresses and to give the stud
space to deflect and achieve adequate slip capacity before failure.
(4) Six Ø4 mm longitudinal through holes that serve as passages for
flowable grout to be casted inside the tube. These holes are distrib-
uted axisymmetrically in the circumferential direction, and they
start from the beginning of the threaded hole and finish at the end
of the transition hole. In this way, the space between the stud and
the inner tube, explained in (3), will be filled with grout.
The geometric details of the tube should be compatible with a
partially threaded headless stud, as shown in Fig. 1. The stud con-
sists of three parts from top to bottom: a 25-mm-long M20 threaded
part with pitch of 2.5 mm (coarse threads); a 39-mm-long un-
threaded blank part; and a 5-mm-long conical tip equipped with
a flux in the form of a press-fitted aluminum ball according to
BSI (2018).
The combination of the grout-filled steel tube and the compat-
ible partially threaded stud creates a large diameter shear connector
(i.e., 35 mm) as compared with the Ø16–25 mm traditional studs
prescribed in Eurocode 4. This reduces the concentrated forces that
cause longitudinal splitting cracks in concrete slabs usually related
to traditional studs (BSI 2004; Oehlers 1989).
The WDSC can be used in both composite bridges and buildings
using: (1) cast-in-place slabs with or without profiled decking; and
(2) precast solid slabs or hollow-core precast slabs. For example,
according to the SCI P401 (Couchman 2014), the minimum gap
between the ends of the precast units should be not less than
70 mm. Thus, the WDSC with maximum hat diameter of 45 mm
can easily fit inside this gap. The welding technique used for the
partially threaded stud is in accordance with BS EN 13918 (BSI
2018) and BS EN ISO 14555 (BSI 2017) for traditional studs,
namely, drawn arc welding. This technique creates a welded collar
at the base of the stud as shown in Fig. 1(b). From welding trials on
M20 studs, the welded collar is fused to the shank of the stud in a
way that the collar diameter and height are larger than the shank
diameter by 5–6 mm. This is important because it is known that for
studs with such weld collars, 70% of the shear is resisted by the
collar (Johnson 2012). The welding trials also show variations
in the quality of the collar of some studs which prove that profes-
sional technicians are essential to ensure a complete collar around
the shank of studs. The inner diameter of the tube is larger than the
diameter of the welded collar by 5–6 mm. This gap is essential for
the following reasons: (1) to overcome any construction or manu-
facturing tolerances; (2) to create a confined space for the flowable
grout (the triaxial stress of grout is several times its cube strength);
(3) to promote combined bending-shearing performance of the stud
and eventually increase slip capacity; and (4) to ensure that the gap
is grouted to avoid a sudden initial slip under the serviceability limit
state (SLS).
© ASCE
J. Struct. Eng., 2022, 148(2): 04021274
Fig. 2. 3D demountable steel-concrete composite floor/deck.
Fig. 2 shows a three-dimensional view of a composite deck
using WDSCs. The construction procedure of a steel-concrete
composite floor using WDSCs and cast in place slab is as follows:
the studs are first welded on the top flanges of the steel sections
[Fig. 3(a)]. Then, the tubes are fastened over the studs by hand until
the tube base is attached to the steel flange [Fig. 3(b)]. Next, flow-
able grout is poured inside the tube. Last, the reinforcement is
placed in position [Fig. 3(c)], and the concrete slab is cast.
The slab can be disassembled when maintenance, upgrade, or
retrofit is needed, and separated from the steel sections at the end
of its service. The deconstruction is achieved by simply unfastening
the tubes using any suitable mechanical tool; for example, the tube
may have three or four circumferentially drilled holes penetrating
inside the top side of the hat, and a mechanical or electric wrench
with compatible geometry can be used to unfasten the tubes from
the studs and remove them. Then, the concrete slab can be sepa-
rated from the steel sections, and main components may be reused
in other sites after minor modifications. The studs [Fig. 3(a)] can be
taken-off the steel sections by grinding. The tubes should be
cleaned from grout especially inside the longitudinal six holes; this
operation is simple and does not require any special tool. However,
the authors recommend that both studs and tubes are recycled and
not reused again because of the possibility of high residual stresses
during the service life of a composite structure. Note that the de-
construction procedure is not assessed experimentally in the present
study because the focus is on the structural behavior of the WDSC.
Experimental Program
Table 1 lists the pushout test specifications. The experimental pro-
gram was comprised of 13 pushout tests in total: 10 using WDSCs
and three using traditional headed studs [Fig. 4(c)]. The WDSC
specimens were divided into two groups: W-CFT specimens
[Fig. 4(a)], which had the tube filled with grout, and W-T speci-
mens [Fig. 4(b)], in which the tube was left empty. The parameters
varied in the tests were the tube thickness, the grout compressive
strength, and the concrete slab compressive strength. A pilot test
was also performed, which will be explained later. Three pushout
tests (S1–S3) on traditional studs were also conducted for compari-
son purposes.
Test Setup
The test setup is shown in Fig. 5. A horizontal arrangement was
used following the recommendations from various researchers (Lam
2007; Al-Shuwaili et al. 2018; Badie et al. 2002; Heng et al. 2017;
04021274-3 J. Struct. Eng.
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Fig. 3. Installation process of WDSCs.

Table 1. Test matrix and pushout tests results

Specimen Overview Slab, Grout, Tube, Shear resistance Slip capacity Uplift capacity Stiffness
name sketch f c (MPa) fg (MPa) t (mm) (kN=stud) (mm) (mm) (kN=mm)
W-CFT1 Fig. 4(a) 27 45 1.5 128.9 9.5 0.5 88.5
W-CFT2 Fig. 4(a) 29 45 2.0 130.3 8.3 0.4 96.8
W-CFT3 Fig. 4(a) 31 45 2.5 124.2 8.6 0.4 66.1
W-CFT4 Fig. 4(a) 22 54 2.5 136.2 9.7 0.7 102.9
W-CFT5 Fig. 4(a) 20 50 2.0 123.1 9.7 0.6 102.0
W-T1 Fig. 4(b) 23 — 1.5 113.3 8.3 0.6 54.3
W-T2 Fig. 4(b) 12 — 1.5 99.2 13.6 0.7 43.3
W-T3 Fig. 4(b) 19 — 2.5 121.1 11.9 0.5 47.4
W-T4 Fig. 4(b) 18 — 2.0 114.8 9.8 0.4 69.3
S1 Fig. 4(c) 39 — — 99.8 4.4 0.1 166.7
S2 Fig. 4(c) 27 — — 107.4 6.1 0.4 114.3
S3 Fig. 4(c) 21 — — 94.9 7.8 0.6 89.8

Lowe et al. 2020; Russell et al. 2021; Wang et al. 2019). This setup
still permits the use of a two-by-two connector arrangement as rec-
ommended by Eurocode 4, whereas it requires a smaller capacity
actuator.
A hydraulic actuator containing a built-in load cell attached to a
hinge then to a spreader beam was used to push the concrete slab
against the steel beam, which was fixed to the strong floor, as in-
dicated in Fig. 5. The other end of the actuator was attached to a
Fig. 4. Overview sketches of (a) W-CFT; (b) W-T; and (c) S specimens.
stiff reaction frame bolted to the strong floor using eight 8.8 M28

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Fig. 5. Test setup and instrumentation.

high strength bolts. To fix the steel beam to the strong floor, four Table 2. Mechanical material properties of steel
30-mm-thick steel plates tied-down to the bottom flange using M28 Tensile
bolts pretensioned to proof load. In the longitudinal direction, the Modulus of Yield stress strength Strain at tensile
specimen was locked using two large M75 bolts linked together by Specimen elasticity (GPa) (MPa) (MPa) strength (MPa)
an 80-mm-thick plate. This thick plate was attached close to the WDSC stud 202.5 442.0 623.0 0.058
upper flange of the steel beam to minimize the eccentricity in load- Tube 194.8 186.4 653.3 0.161
ing. The spreader beam was constrained against the upward direc-
tion by two M28 bolts connected to it through slotted holes to allow
the horizontal movement.
(fc and f g , respectively) were evaluated on the same day of the
pushout test as listed in Table 1.
Specimen Specifications The tube was machined from solid bars grade 150M19-S355
Ten specimens using WDSCs were prepared as shown in Fig. 3. according to BS EN ISO 898-1 (BSI 2013), whereas the studs
Welding of four studs on each steel section is shown in Fig. 3(a); are in accordance with BS 4190 property class 4.8 (BSI 2014b).
placing of timber moulds, reinforcement positioning, and tube in- The material properties of the stud and tube were obtained from
stallation are demonstrated in Fig. 3(b); and casting of the concrete standard tensile coupon tests. The results are given in Table 2 as
slabs can be observed in Fig. 3(c). Each specimen consisted of one average values of three coupon specimens.
concrete slab (650 × 600 × 150 mm3 ) connected to a 1-m-long
steel section UB533 × 210 × 92 of steel grade S355. Tolerances Instrumentation and Loading Procedure
accepted in specimens are deduced from BSI 4190 (BSI 2014b), Two linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs) were used to
for example, nominal diameter of shank ¼ 20 mm  0.84 mm. monitor the structural behavior of the specimens. Fig. 5(a) shows
The reinforcement details are in accordance with Eurocode 4 (BSI the Slip LVDT that was used to measure the relative displacement
2004). QuickCEM was used to give the grout quick setting and between the steel beam and the concrete slab. The Uplift LVDT
hardening characteristics. shown in the same figure was used to measure the separation of
the slab from the steel beam. Fig. 5(b) shows the loadcell that
was used to measure the applied load of the actuator of maximum
Material Properties
capacities of 1,000 kN force and 500 mm displacement. Twenty-
Material tests on both concrete and steel were carried out and five cycles between 5% and 40% of the expected maximum
documented in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. Standard compression load were recommended by Eurocode 4 (BSI 2004) to ensure that
tests were conducted on the concrete and grout for each specimen. the tested shear connector is not susceptible to progressive slip
Three cubes (100 × 100 × 100 mm3 ) were taken from the fresh (Johnson 2012). However, the pilot test has shown that the WSDC
concrete. The concrete and grout average compressive strengths is secure against such failure; therefore, the 25 cycles were omitted.

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 The load was applied under displacement control at a rate of
0.01 mm=s until yielding then reduced to 0.005 mm=s until failure.
Experimental Results
Pilot Test
A pilot test was performed at the beginning of the experimental
program as a proof-of-concept. Following the procedure in Dallam
(1968), the load protocol for this test consisted of six load cycles
(LCs) to check the behavior of the WDSC against premature or
progressive failures. The results are shown in Fig. 6. LC1 and
LC4–LC6 load-slip curves show that the WDSC did not experience
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sudden slip before the SLS load level, and it can approach the ul-
timate limit state (ULS) several times in a ductile way. Fig. 6 shows
that the slip is increasing drastically due to approaching the ULS
several times in LC1, and LC4–LC6. However, load cycles LC2
and LC3 show that even after reaching the ULS, the WDSC is
capable of behaving elastically and without residual slips when
the applied load is below ULS, which justify the aforementioned
decision of omitting the 25 load cycles recommended by Eurocode
4. Finally, the results show that the slip capacity, which is defined
(BSI 2004) as the slip when the load has fallen to 80% of the maxi-
mum value, is 7.7 mm which is larger than the minimum limit
(6 mm) of Eurocode 4 for ductile connectors and the uplift capacity,
defined in BSI (2004) as the uplift when the load reached 80% of
the maximum value, is 0.7 mm which is less than the maximum
limit of Eurocode 4 (i.e., 50% of slip capacity). It is noted that
the description of the WDSC in the pilot test is exactly as shown
Fig. 6. Six load cycles in Pilot pushout test.
Fig. 7. Load-slip behavior of (a) W-CFT; and (b) W-T specimens and comparison with FEM results.
© ASCE 04021274-6
J. Struct. Eng., 2022, 148(2): 04021274
in Fig. 1(c) but with a shorter stud (32 mm). It was decided to in-
crease the length of the stud to 69 mm to amplify the bending per-
formance in addition to the shear performance and consequently to
increase the slip capacity.
Behavior of the WDSC
Figs. 7 and 8 show the force versus slip responses of all specimens
listed in Table 1. A typical load-slip curve can be divided into three
stages. The first stage, which starts from zero slip to about 0.5 mm
slip, corresponds to loads approximately 60 kN (i.e., about 50% of
the shear resistance). The load increases almost linearly with the
slip, indicating that the slab and the WDSC are in the elastic state.
Fig. 7 also shows that the slip occurs immediately even at small
loads. This is similar behavior to traditional studs, and therefore
full interaction of a composite beam using WDSCs cannot be as-
sumed at the SLS. As the load further increases, the slip increases
substantially due to stud bending and shearing deformations, which
represents the second stage. As a consequence, the deformed stud
creates a combination of compressive and shear stresses in the sur-
rounding grout inside the tube, the adjacent concrete outside the
tube, and tensile stresses in the tube itself. This reduces the stiffness
of the connector, and thus, the load increases nonlinearly versus the
slip until reaching the maximum load which represents the shear
resistance of the connector. The shear resistance is in the range
of 115–136 kN; see Table 1, with an average of 126 kN. Stage three
starts after the maximum load. The load decreases until failure by
either shearing-off of all studs at the same time as seen in W-CFT5
Fig. 8. Load-slip behavior of traditional stud pushout tests.
J. Struct. Eng.
 or shearing-off of the studs one by one as seen in the rest of curves.
Each staggered drop shown after the maximum load represents ap-
proximately 25% of shear resistance and corresponds to one stud.
There is appreciable scatter in the behavior of W-CFT3 in Fig. 7(a)
which is believed to be due to the effect of nonuniform collars of
some studs. Similar scatter was recorded in pushout tests of tradi-
tional studs S1, S2, and S3 in Fig. 8 which agrees with findings
from other researchers who estimated the scatter to be up to 30%
of the shear strength (Oehlers 1980). Fig. 8 also shows that as the
concrete compressive strength increases, slip capacity decreases
(even below 6 mm). In reality, many of pushout tests on traditional
studs were stopped before reaching 3 mm (Johnson 2012). It is be-
lieved that the scatter is highly affected by several arbitrary effects
activated in the failure zone near the base of the studs, for example, Fig. 9. Typical failure mode of WDSC: (a) upper flange; and
arrangement of aggregates, existence of voids, and shape of the (b) concrete slab.
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collar (Johnson and Young 2018). The uplift capacities account

for 5%–7% of the corresponding slip capacities. This proves the
effectiveness of the hat [Fig. 1(a)] to prevent separation of the slab
from the steel section. Another reason for nonsimultaneous fracture
of all bolts is the fact that in W-T specimens, despite the fact that
there was no grout in the tube, there was in some cases wet concrete
leaking inside the bottom of the tube during the casting due to
hydrostatic forces—the amount of concrete was not equal, and
so this may have resulted in some studs shearing off earlier than
the others.

Stiffness of the WDSC

The stiffness of WDSC, kWDSC , is based on Eurocode 4 Clause
A.3.3 and may be taken as kWDSC ¼ 0.7PRk =s, where: PRk is the
characteristic shear resistance of a WDSC and should be taken as
0.9=γ v of the experimental shear resistance of the WDSC, Ptest ; s is
the slip, determined from pushout tests (deviation of any test from
the mean does not exceed 10%) in accordance with Annex B of
Eurocode 4, at a load 0.7PRk ; and γ v is the partial safety factor
for shear connection equal to 1.25. Therefore:
0.7PRk 0.7 × 0.9 × Ptest P P
kWDSC ¼ ¼ ¼ 0.504 test ≅ 50% test
s 1.25 × s s s
ð1Þ
The last column of Table 1 lists the stiffnesses of all speci-
mens. Ignoring the low stiffnesses achieved when using low-
strength grout or an empty tube, the stiffness of the WDSC is
ranging from 88–103 kN=mm and the stiffness of traditional studs
is 90–167 kN=mm.
Failure Modes
Fig. 9 shows typical failure modes of the WDSC. Fig. 9(a) shows
the weld collar side of the failure zone, and Fig. 9(b) shows the stud
shank side of the failure zone. Fig. 9(a) documents that the steel
failure zone occurred immediately above the weld collar. The zone
of damaged concrete can clearly be seen in Fig. 9(b). This concrete
failure zone was confined to a small region in front of the stud. As
the load increased beyond the elastic stage, yielding of the stud
accompanied with local crushing of the concrete in front of the stud
base was amplified. The bottom-left photo of Fig. 9(a) shows that
the collar of height 5–6 mm has protected the shank of the stud in a
way that the shear plane occurred just above the collar. The shear
plane was inclined by about 1:13 creating a wedge shape of the
crushed concrete. This inclined shear plane and wedge shape con-
crete represent the slab sliding and riding up on the weld collar.
This is seen in Fig. 10 that shows the uplift-load behavior of push-
out test W-CFT1 which represents typical behavior of all tests.
Fig. 10. Uplift behavior of W-CFT1 pushout test.
As illustrated in the figure, the uplift that happened after 80%
of the ultimate load was more than 2/3 of the total uplift in the test.
Such uplift, however, is unlikely to occur in beam tests because the
applied load counteracts the uplift in normal applications. However,
under some special cases like when the load is applied on the bot-
tom flange of the steel profile (HVAC, or suspended ceiling), sup-
plementary anchoring devices against uplift are needed according
to Clause 6.6.1.1 of Eurocode 4.
WDSC versus Traditional Studs
Fig. 11 shows comparisons in load-slip behavior between the
WDSC and traditional studs. Fig. 11(a) shows that the behavior
is almost identical until about 80% of shear resistance of WDSC.
However, the shear resistance and slip capacity of WDSC are larger
than those of studs by 21% and 46%, respectively. The initial sim-
ilarity in the load-slip response is because both connectors are
based on welding. However, the traditional stud imposes higher
concentrated stress in the concrete medium due to its smaller diam-
eter which causes earlier concrete failure that leads to less shear
resistance and slip capacity. The WDSC has a tube of 35 mm diam-
eter, which results in a larger contact area for the stress dispersion in
the concrete and, thus, delays concrete failure leading to higher
shear resistance and slip capacity. Fig. 11(b) shows that the shear
resistance and slip capacity of the WDSC are larger than those of
the studs by 30%–44% and 24%, respectively. Comparison of
Figs. 11(a and b) shows that the shear resistance and slip capacity
of studs are more sensitive to the reduction in concrete strength
(from 27–21 MPa) than the WDSC. The reductions in shear

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 Fig. 11. Comparison of load-slip behavior between WDSC and traditional studs at: (a) 27 MPa; and (b) 21 MPa concrete strength.
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Fig. 7(b) shows the load-slip behavior, and Fig. 12 shows the failure
modes of the W-T specimens. The figures show that the absence of
grout reduces the shear resistance and slip capacity by 14% and
15%, respectively. This is observed from Fig. 12(a) where the
concrete failure zone has minimized. Additionally, the effect of
slab concrete compressive strength on the behavior of W-T can
be evaluated. W-T2 with slab concrete strength of 12 MPa has shear
resistance less by 14% and slip capacity more by 64% than that of
W-T1 with slab concrete strength of 23 MPa.

Finite Element Model

Fig. 12. Failure mode of WDSC when one tube without grout:
(a) specimen W-T1; and (b) specimen W-T2.
resistance in WDSC and studs were 6% and 13%, respectively,
whereas the increases in slip capacity were 17% and 28%,
respectively.
Effect of Grout Infill
Four pushout tests, i.e., W-T1–W-T4 in Table 1, were performed to
quantify the effect of the grout infill on the response of a WDSC.
The tests were simulated using nonlinear FEM analyses in the com-
mercial software Abaqus (Dassault Systémes 2014). The dynamic
explicit and the semiautomatic mass scaling methods were chosen.
Material nonlinearity and the interaction between specimen com-
ponents were considered. Fig. 13 shows details of the FEM model
of the WDSC specimen. The element size was 2 mm in average.
Due to symmetry, only half of the specimen was modeled. The
specimen components were simulated by volume element type
C3D8R, whereas the reinforcements were modeled as truss element
type T3D2. To properly consider the interaction between various
components, a surface-to-surface contact was defined. Hard contact
and penalty friction formulation were used to describe the normal
and the tangential behavior, respectively. This was used for slab-
tube, grout-stud, and grout-tube interfaces. The friction coefficient
was chosen as 0.4 and 0.25 for the concrete–steel and steel-steel

Fig. 13. Details of the FEM model of the WDSC specimen.

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 Table 3. Validation results of the FEM model to uniaxial compressive strength ratio (σb0 =σc0 ), and the ratio of
Shear resistance, Fu (kN) Slip at Fu (mm) second stress invariant on the tensile meridian to that on the com-
pressive meridian (K). All of them had used the default values of
Specimen Test FEM FEM/test Test FEM FEM/test
Abaqus except ψ ¼ 30°.
W-CFT1 128.9 128.9 1.00 7.3 7.4 1.01
W-CFT2 130.3 131.8 1.01 6.4 6.5 1.02
Validation of the FEM Model
W-CFT3 124.2 135.9 1.09 6.9 6.1 0.88
W-CFT4 136.2 135.2 0.99 7.5 7.6 1.01 The validation of the FEM model was assessed through comparison
W-CFT5 123.1 122.9 0.99 7.6 7.7 1.01 with experimental results. Table 3 summarizes the shear resistance
W-T1 113.3 115.1 1.02 7.3 7.2 0.99 and slip capacity obtained from the tests and numerical analyses.
W-T2 99.2 98.0 0.99 8.6 8.8 1.02 The mean Test/FEM ratio for shear resistance and slip at ultimate
W-T3 121.1 119.1 0.98 8.3 8.9 1.07
load (Fu ) are 1.00 and 1.02, with the standard deviation being 0.01
W-T4 114.8 117.1 1.02 7.9 8.1 1.03
and 0.02, and coefficient of variation of 1% and 2%, respectively.
This indicates that the FEM model can predict the shear resistance
and slip capacity of the WDSC with good accuracy.
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interfaces, respectively. The welded connection was simulated us-
ing tie constrains between the base of the stud and the steel flange.
The thread-to-thread interaction between the tube and the stud was
also simulated using tie interaction.
The boundary conditions of the FEM model are shown in
Fig. 13. Surface A has restrictions in X and Y directions, whereas
surface B represents a fixed boundary in all directions. The load
was applied under displacement control in which displacement in-
crements were imposed uniformly on surface C of the slab.
The material model for steel was defined using an elastic-plastic
constitutive law. A bilinear elastic—perfectly plastic stress-strain
relationship was used for the rebars and the steel section using
nominal material values. For the stud and tube, the true stress-strain
curves that were constructed from the results of the uniaxial tensile
coupon tests were used. Note that fracture of studs was not modeled
explicitly in this study.
The nonlinear behavior of concrete and grout was represented
by uniaxial compressive and tensile stress-strain curves according
to BS EN 1992-1-1 (BSI 2014a). The tensile stress-strain relation-
ship was assumed to be linear for uncracked concrete. After con-
crete cracking, a nonlinear stress-crack width relationship, Eq. (2),
was adopted to simulate the postcrack part of concrete:

  
σt w 3 −c2 ww w
¼ 1 þ c1 e c − ð1 þ c31 Þe−c2 ð2Þ
ft wc wc
where σt = tensile stress of concrete (MPa); ft = tensile strength
(MPa); w = crack width (mm); wc = crack width at the complete
release of stress, wc ¼ 5.14GF =ft (mm); GF = fracture energy re-
quired to create a unit area of stress-free crack, GF ¼ 0.073f 0.18
c to increase the shear resistance and decrease the slip capacity of
(N=mm); the rest of constants are c1 ¼ 3 and c2 ¼ 6.93.
As recommended by the Abaqus user manual (Dassault
Systémes 2014), five important plasticity parameters were provided
to evaluate concrete damaged plasticity, namely: dilation angle (ψ),
flow potential eccentricity (ε), viscosity parameter (μ), the biaxial
Fig. 6 shows comparisons of the load versus slip responses
of tests and FEM simulations. The structural responses including
initial stiffness, ultimate shear resistance, and slip deformation
characteristics obtained from the FEM models are in very good
agreement with that from test results for all specimens except for
W-CFT3, because W-CFT3 was stopped when one stud failed due
to a defect of the welding resulting in lower stiffness in the pushout
test. In addition, the FEM model was able to capture the failure
modes that were characterized by stud shear failure as shown in
Fig. 14, and local concrete crush, as shown in Fig. 15.
Parametric Study
The validated FEM model was used to perform a series of paramet-
ric analyses on the structural behavior of the WDSC, considering
the following parameters: the thickness of the steel tube, the pres-
ence or not of infill grout in the tube, the compressive strength of
the slab and the infill grout, and the tensile strength of the stud and
tube. The base specimen was based on the default parameters from
W-CFT4: the stud and tube are based on the experimental material
values, concrete compressive strength is 22 MPa, grout compres-
sive strength is 45 MPa, and tube thickness is 2.5 mm. The para-
metric study includes both experimental and numerical results.
Effect of Slab Concrete Strength
Fig. 16(a) shows the effect of the compressive strength of the
concrete slab, in the range 20–60 MPa, on the behavior of the
WDSC. The overall effect of increasing the concrete strength is
the WDSC. The increase in shear resistance decreased from 6.1%
at concrete strength 30 MPa to only 0.5% at 60 MPa. Slip capacity
decreased from 15% at concrete strength 30 MPa to 6% at 60 MPa,
because the dominant failure of the specimens changed from con-
crete cracking for low strength concrete slab to stud shear failure for

Fig. 14. Validation of stud failure mode in the FEM model: (a) without; and (b) with grout.

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Fig. 15. Validation of concrete failure mode of FEM model: (a) without; and (b) with grout.

Fig. 16. Effect of (a) concrete strength; and (b) tube thickness on the behavior of the WDSC.

high strength concrete slab. The shear resistance of the WDSC with
current parameters is dependent on the concrete strength until about
60 MPa; no noticeable gains in shear resistance are expected when
the concrete slab strength is more than 60 MPa due to the dominant
shear failure of the stud.
Effect of Tube Thickness
Fig. 16(b) shows the effect of tube thickness (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, and
3 mm) on the behavior of WDSC. The shear resistance increased
by 13% as the tube thickness increased from 1.0–2.5 mm, then, it
decreased by 3% when the thickness reached 3.0 mm due to the
lower slip capacity. However, the shear stiffness is not significantly
affected (the variation is less than 5%) when the tube thickness in-
creases from 1 to 3 mm, indicating that increasing tube thickness
can improve shear resistance to a certain degree, but has little effect
on the shear stiffness. From current analytical parameters, the tube
with 2.5 mm is an optimal selection in terms of shear resistance and
slip capacity.
Effect of Stud Tensile Strength
Fig. 17(a) shows the effect of stud tensile strength [300, 400, 500,
623 (experimental) and 700 MPa] on the behavior of the WDSC.
The shear resistance increases almost linearly as the increase of
stud’s tensile strength, and the increasing ratio was about 80%,
when the ultimate strength of stud changed from 300 to 700 MPa.
The shear stiffness almost keeps the same for all specimens (the
variation was less than 5%). Therefore, increasing the stud’s tensile
strength can improve the shear resistance but does not affect the
stiffness.
Effect of Tube Tensile Strength
Fig. 17(b) presents the effect of the tube strength [300, 400, 500,
653 (experimental), and 700 MPa] on the behavior of WDSC.
When the tensile strength changes from 300 to 700 MPa, the
shear resistance increased by 8%, but the shear stiffness is un-
affected for all specimens, indicating that the tube’s tensile

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Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by SRM University on 02/06/22. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Fig. 17. Effect of (a) tensile strength of stud; and (b) tensile strength of tube on the behavior of WDSC.
strength has negligible effect on the resistance and stiffness of
a WDSC.
Effect of the Compressive Strength of the Grout Infill
Fig. 18 shows the effect of the compressive strength of the grout
[fg ¼ 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 54 (experimental), and 60 MPa] on the
WDSC behavior, with GX meaning a specimen with fg ¼ X MPa.
In the same graph, the case without grout (W-T1 denoted as G0)
and the experimental curve (W-CFT4 denoted as G54) are plotted.
The infilled grout can significantly improve the shear stiffness of
the WDSC, e.g., the stiffness of W-CFT4 (G54) is 2.1 times to that
of the W-T3 (G0). In addition, the presence of infilled grout can
enhance the shear resistance of the WDSC by up to 13%. However,
comparison between grouted specimens reveals that the shear re-
sistance is improved by only 6%, and the shear stiffness is almost
the same when the grout strength increases from 10 to 60 MPa,
indicating that increasing the grout strength has negligible effect
on the shear resistance and stiffness of the WDSC. Thus, a grouted
tube is recommended regardless of the grout strength.
Comparison of Shear Strength with Eurocode 4
Provisions
To provide a simple design verification, the shear resistances of
the tested WDSCs were compared with the design equations of
Fig. 18. Effect of grout presence and strength on the behavior of
WDSC.
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J. Struct. Eng., 2022, 148(2): 04021274
Eurocode 4 for traditional welded studs. The equation given in
Eurocode 4 to predict the design shear resistance of a shear stud
is (neglecting partial safety factors):
 
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 0.8f u πd2
PRd ¼ min 0.29d2 fck Ecm ; ð3Þ
4
where d = diameter of stud (mm); fck = characteristic cylinder com-
pressive strength of concrete (N=mm2 ); Ecm = secant modulus of
elasticity of concrete (N=mm2 ); and f u = tensile strength of the stud
(N=mm2 ). Using the experimental values of the material properties,
shown in Table 1, the first term of Eq. (3) is always greater than the
second. This is because the value d ¼ 35 mm should be used in the
first term, i.e., the external diameter of the tube which is in contact
with the concrete slab and gives a minimum shear resistance of
200 kN for W-T2 and a maximum shear resistance of 360 kN
for W-CFT3. The second term, with d ¼ 20 mm and the measured
tensile strength of the stud (623 MPa), gives a shear resistance
of the WDSC equal to 156 kN. Thus, the predictions based on
the EC4 calculations consistently overestimate the shear resistance
of WDSC by 22% in the W-CFT group, and 40% in the W-T group,
in average. The reason for this overestimation is explained in the
next section.
Uplift and Tensile Forces in the WDSC
Due to the mechanics of the test setup used, concerns about exces-
sive uplift forces were raised. The uplift observed in the inelastic
range reached values of 1.5–2.0 mm, and the separation of the slab
from the steel section was observable to the naked eye during the
tests. Thus, the FEM model was used to quantify the uplift forces
induced in the studs due to the eccentricity of the loading in the
horizontal pushout tests. The contact reaction forces underneath
the head of the steel tube were measured in the model at the end
of each analysis along with the uplift displacement. Fig. 19 shows
the relation between tension (uplift) force and uplift displacement.
Similar to the load-slip relation, the tension increased almost lin-
early with uplift until about 1/3 of the applied ultimate horizontal
loading, then increased nonlinearly until ultimate loading due to the
plastic deformations in the connector, and after the peak load, the
tension reduced rapidly with the uplift due to the shear failure of
the stud. Fig. 20 shows the relation between uplift and shear force at
the ultimate state. It is shown that regardless of the test specimens
with or without infilled grout, the tension forces resisted by the
head of the steel tube are between 26% and 33% of the horizontal
J. Struct. Eng.
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Fig. 19. Tension versus uplift responses: (a) W-CFT specimens; and (b) W-T specimens.
Fig. 20. Tension versus shear responses.
shear force or approximately equal to 20%–22% of the pure axial
tensile strength of the stud (defined as Astud Fu;stud ). This tensile
force is bigger or close to the limit found by several research works
on shear-tension interaction in headed studs (Lin et al. 2014; Mirza
and Uy 2010; Tan et al. 2019), and it indicates that the shear re-
sistance may have been reduced due to the induced tension. For this
reason, the authors are planning to carry out standard pushout tests
to Eurocode 4 to verify the shear resistance of the WDSC and to
propose reliable design equations.
Conclusions
A welded demountable shear connector (WDSC) was proposed for
use in sustainable steel-concrete composite buildings or bridges.
The proposed connector was experimentally validated through
10 full-scale pushout tests that were conducted in a horizontal test-
ing arrangement. A numerical model was calibrated to the exper-
imental results and used to carry out parametric studies. Based on
the findings of the experimental and numerical study, the following
conclusions are drawn:
1. The experimental results show that the WDSC possesses higher
shear resistance than traditional welded studs, in the range of
100–130 kN, initial stiffness comparable with that of traditional
welded studs, and slip capacity higher than 6 mm. Thus, it can
be characterized as a ductile shear connector.
© ASCE 04021274-12
J. Struct. Eng., 2022, 148(2): 04021274
2. All the WDSC specimens exhibited ductile shear failure at the
root of the stud shank and concrete gradual crushing around the
stud base.
3. The concrete slab compressive strength and the stud yield
strength are the two parameters that affect most significantly
the shear resistance of a WDSC. The yield strength and the
thickness of the tube have a much less pronounced effect.
4. The presence of infill grout enhances both the initial stiffness
and shear resistance of a WDSC. The grout compressive
strength does not affect significantly the shear resistance of
a WDSC.
5. The typology with the most favorable response is the one having
tube thickness 2.5 mm and the tube is filled with grout.
6. Uplift displacement of the concrete slab occurred when horizon-
tal loading was applied, which induced tension in the studs up
to 33% of the applied shear force; thus, the WDSC may have
been subjected to combined shear and tension forces due to the
mechanics of the horizontal test setup used. The authors are
planning to conduct further standard pushout tests to Eurocode
4 before they establish reliable design equations for the WDSC.
Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or codes that support the findings of this
study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable
request.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge with appreciation the financial support of
the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council of the UK,
Grant EP/P004253/1, and the Horizon 2020–Marie Skłodowska-
Curie Individual Fellowship of European Commission (REUSE:
793787). Hanson Cement & Packed Products Ltd. have generously
donated some raw materials for the specimens. The first author
thanks Emeritus Professor Roger P. Johnson of the University of
Warwick for valuable technical discussions. The authors are grate-
ful to the technicians at the Heavy Structures Lab at Heriot-Watt
University, Edinburgh, UK. Any opinions, findings, and conclu-
sions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not
reflect the views of the sponsors and supporters.
J. Struct. Eng.
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