Investigation on shear behaviour of a swift-constructed demountable continuous shear connector for achieving construction circularity

To achieve carbon neutrality, the construction sector is encouraged to adopt the Design for Deconstruction and Reuse (DfDR) principle which enables the reuse of structural components. Steel-concrete composite beams are extensively used in practice. However, current demountable shear connectors between concrete slabs and steel beams always require increased construction time due to repeated installation procedures. This paper proposes a swift-constructed demountable continuous shear connector to improve the reusability of composite beams and to accelerate construction. The design, installation and load transfer mechanism of the connector are explicitly introduced. Shear tests and the corresponding finite element analysis were conducted to study the effects of different parameters on the shear behaviour of the connector. The findings indicate that increasing the number of shear keys and enlarging the connector section does not compromise the load transfer efficiency. The shear behaviour of the connector is unaffected by the installation tolerance. The current design equations were assessed and improved to accurately predict the shear strength of the continuous shear connector. To conclude, connectors with multiple shear keys are recommended to accelerate construction.