Due to the significant advantages of steel-concrete composite beams, they are widely used for accelerated bridge construction (ABC). However, there is still a lack of experimental research on the proper design of ABC, especially in the slip with a different group of shear connectors. As a component of steel-concrete composite structure, shear studs play a vital role in the performance of composite structures. This paper investigates the influence of group studs in simply supported and continuous box girders. To this end, three sets of simply supported steel-concrete composite small box girders and two continuous steel-concrete composite small box girders were made with different groups of shear studs, and the slip generated along the beams was recorded under different caseloads. The results were then compared with the proposed simplified equations. The results show that the slip value of the test beam is inversely proportional to the degree of shear connection. The slip of Simply Supported Prefabricated Beam-3 (SPB3) is 1.247 times more than Simply Supported Prefabricated Beam-1 (SPB1), and 2.023 times more than Simply Supported Prifabricated Beam-2 (SPB2). Also, the slip value of Experimental Continuous Beam-1 (ECB1) is 1.952 times more than Experimental Continuous Beam-2 (ECB2). The higher the degree of shear connection, the smaller the maximum slip value.

Accelerated construction in the form of steel–concrete composite beams is among the most efficient methods to construct highway bridges. One of the main problems with this type of composite structures, which has not yet been fully clarified in the case of continuous beam, is the crack zone initiation that gradually expands through the beam width. In the current study, a semi-empirical model was proposed to predict the size of cracks in terms of small box girder deflection and intensity of load applied on the structure. To this end, a set of steel–concrete composite small box girders were constructed by the use of steel fibrous concrete and experimentally tested under different caseloads. The results were then used to create a dataset of the box girder response in terms of beam deflection and crack width. The obtained dataset was then utilized to develop a simplified formula providing the maximum width of cracks. The results showed that the cracks initiated in the hogging moment region when the load exceeded 80 kN. Additionally, it was observed that the maximum cracked zone occurred in the center of the beam due to the maximum negative moment. Moreover, the crack width of the box girder at different loading cases was compared with the test results obtained from the literature. A good agreement has been found between the proposed model and experiment results.