Strength of welded headed studs in ribbed metal deck on composite joists

Standards for stud strength in composite joists are presently not available. Existing standards for composite design are targeted for composite beam design while design of a composite joist requires more emphasis on stud strength to fully develop the joist bottom chord. Stud placement in the deck flute is investigated. Thirty-six push-off specimens were tested with three different deck geometries. A normal load apparatus models gravity loading in an attempt to represent full-scale joist behavior during the push-off test procedure. The results illustrate that the current AISC specifications (ASD 1989; LRFD 1986) do not accurately predict stud strength for studs placed in ribbed metal deck when the deck is perpendicular to the shear loading.