Push-Out Tests for a Novel Prefabricated Steel-Concrete Composite Shallow Flooring System

This paper introduces a novel prefabricated and shallow steel-concrete composite flooring system which is consisted of two main structural components: two C-channel steel beams and a partially encased concrete floor. The concrete floor, which is in the form of T ribbed slab sections, was constructed using two types of concrete (reinforced normal concrete and reinforced lightweight aggregate concrete). The steel edge beams partially encase the floor slab and provide clear and straight finish edges. The floor slab spans to a maximum of 2.0m inclusive of the width of the steel edges with a finished depth of only 230mm. The unique features of the proposed system are reducing the weight and the number of erection lifts (during installation) by using lighter elements (lightweight concrete and shallow steel beams) while the wider possible units have been proposed to fit on transportation tracks; further reducing the extent of site works by pre-off site fabrication, examining the material cost against the fabrication and site erection costs. For the composite slab in bending, the longitudinal shear force is transferred by a unique shear mechanism which results from the special shear connectors. This paper includes the work of a total 2 full-scale push-out tests aimed at investigating the longitudinal shear behaviour of these novel flooring systems and the effects of additional shear connectors. An analytical work is also carried out to investigate the failure mechanism of the system.