•Nine full-scale H-shaped steel–ECC specimens were tested.•The effects of the bond–slip behavior between H-shaped steel and ECC were examined.•Theoretical equations for the ultimate and residual bond stresses are established.•The stress distribution of the shaped steel–ECC interface is described.•A tensile constitutive model of ECC and cohesive elements are verified. To study the interfacial bond–slip behavior of shaped steel–engineered cementitious composite (ECC) materials, nine full-scale H-shaped steel–ECC specimens were tested. Theoretical equations for the ultimate and residual bond stresses were established via statistical fitting. A tensile constitutive model of the ECC was proposed, and cohesive elements were used in a finite element (FE) analysis to simulate the shaped steel–ECC interface. The results show that the failure mode of the tested specimens is a splitting failure with multiple typical splitting and intumescent cracks in the ECC material. The bond stress has a non-uniform distribution, and the outer flange of the H-shaped steel bears most of the load. Compared with the test and FE results, Eqs. (6) and (11) exhibit good computational accuracy. The rationality of the FE modeling strategy, especially the manner of addressing the issues of tensile constitutive model of ECC and contact of shaped steel and ECC, is verified.