Partial interaction analysis of composite beams accounting for time effects: evaluation of displacement-based formulations

This paper discusses the ability of available displacement-based formulations to depict the structural response of composite steel-concrete beams with partial interaction accounting for time effects, such as creep and shrinkage. These include the exact analytical solution, the direct stiffness method, the finite element method and the finite difference method; while the former two require only a time discretion to perform a time analysis, the latter two need discretion the structural system in both time and spatial domain. The time-dependent behaviour of the concrete is modeled by means of the age-adjusted effective modulus method (AEMM) while the remaining materials at the cross-section are assumed to behave in a linear-elastic fashion. The results obtained based on the modeling techniques considered are benchmarked against those calculated using the solutions available in closed form.