Flexural tests of steel-concrete open sandwiches Available to Purchase

A potential method for reducing the weight of the roadway deck on medium- to long-span composite bridges is to use an open steel-concrete sandwich. This consists of a concrete core which is cast against a steel plate, the necessary shear connection being provided by epoxy resin adhesive. Open sandwich beams and slabs constructed in this manner have been appraised by testing over spans of 1·8 and 0·9 m, respectively. Then carried loads equivalent to wheels of an HB vehicle with an adequate safety margin, and current designprocedures generally underestimated both theirflexuraland shear strengths.