Experimental study on shear behavior of notched long

It is restricted in applying perfobond connectors in steel-concrete composite bridges with shallow rib heights or narrow connector distances, because it is unfavorable to enhance shear connection by enlarging hole diameter of perfobond connectors and difficult to install transverse rebars in perforated holes. To address this issue, an alternative perfobond connector was proposed by making a notch on the outer edge of the lengthened circular hole in this paper. To investigate the differences of failure mode, shear strength, slip behavior, and load transferring mechanism between circular-hole and notched long-hole perfobond connectors, a total of eight push-out tests were performed. Experimental results show that the shear strength of notched long-hole perfobond connectors exhibits an increase of about 20% compared with that of circular-hole perfobond connectors, and the shear stiffness and peak slip increase by over 10%. The enlarged hole area in notched long-hole perfobond connectors could weaken contribution percentage of concrete dowel to shear capacities, although the shear strength increases as the product of concrete compressive strength and hole area raises. Repeated loading hardly impacts shear strength of perfobond connectors but raises peak slip by 11% and 14% of circular-hole and notched long-hole perfobond connectors, respectively. Compared with single-row connectors, multi-row connectors exhibit a reduction of about 5% in shear capacities and an increase of about 10% in peak slips. The first row along the shear direction in multi-row connectors would bear the maximum percentage of shear load. Based on push-out test results, several typical existing equations for predictions of shear strength are compared and evaluated