Improvement in Longitudinal Shear Capacity Estimations Difference for Profiled Composite Slab

Slope-intercept and partial shear connection methods are two known methods for the determination of the longitudinal shear capacity of profiled composite slab (PCS). The shear value estimations from these two methods shows conflicting values with a very high difference (26%), and this constitutes a serious challenge coupled with the lack of a simplified PCS strength determination approach devoid of the costlier experimental procedure. These drawbacks have led to the development of rational-based numerical technique for the two longitudinal shear estimation methods. Hence, this paper presents improvement in the performance of the two the methods in determining the longitudinal shear capacity of PCS. The consideration of the section compactness and the decking characteristics in the formulation of the modified strength determination functions resulted in reducing the estimation differences between those methods to about 12% from 26%, with an average deviation of about 3%. Certainly, this work contributes to the existing knowledge for composite slab strength determination by providing a simpler and effective method for its strength evaluation.