The Testing of Three Full-Scale Stub-Girder Floor Beams

The construction and testing of three full-scale 13.2m-span stub-girders, designed to the appropriate British Standards and load tested at the University of Cambridge between 1986 and 1989, is discussed. These girders, which use Vierendeel action provide large rectangular web openings, utilise the concrete slab as the top chord to resist axial compression, a universal column section as the lower chord to resist axial tension and vertical shear forces, and several short ‘stub' lengths of the universal beam section as the lateral floor beams to provide horizontal shear connection between the two chords. All three tests resisted the required factored gravity loads. The first two tests were also designed to carry factored wind shear by
providing continuity between the composite deck slab and the columns. The first test failed by the development of horizontal shear yield in the stub sections, the second by general yielding the universal column section bottom chord, and the third by longitudinal splitting of the deck slab over the outer stubs.

R.E. McConnel and S.J. Hicks