Flexural behaviour of steel–concrete composite beams with molybdenum tailings: test and finite-element analysis Available to Purchase

To improve the flexural resistance of steel–concrete composite beams while addressing environmental concerns arising from natural sand depletion and molybdenum tailings accumulation, this study proposes an innovative structural design incorporating molybdenum tailings. Four-point bending tests were performed on three newly designed steel–concrete composite beams with varying molybdenum tailings contents (0, 50 and 100%). A systematic analysis was conducted to examine the failure process, failure modes, ultimate bearing capacity, deformation characteristics and local strains at key measurement points of these composite beams under flexural failure conditions. Experimental results demonstrate that the inclusion of molybdenum tailings does not significantly alter the failure process or modes of the composite beams. However, the flexural performance is adversely affected by the addition of molybdenum tailings. Specifically, compared to the reference beam without molybdenum tailings, the composite beam with 100% molybdenum tailings exhibits a 9.03% reduction in flexural bearing capacity and a 16.39% increase in mid-span deflection. Numerical simulation results further reveal that the ultimate bearing capacity varies considerably with changes in beam section depth and steel plate thickness.