Chapter 6

Composite Floor Construction

Steel Decking
Base Metal:

Steel 0.75 to 1.5 mm thick

Coating:

Zinc 275 grams / m2

Yield Strength: 280 to 550 N/mm2

Height 38 to 80 mm
Span

2.7 to 4.5 m
t

Width 150 to 300mm

h
bb

Typical forms of interlock in composite slabs

Together with (a or b)

Together with (b)

Roles During Construction

Imposed Loads
Wet Concrete
Reinforcement
Workers
Equipment
If possible without
propping

Carrying Sheet

Positioning of Sheet

Deck Cut

Notch around Column

Shot Fired Fixing

Securing Edge Trim

Through Deck Welding

Roles of Metal Decking During

Construction Stage
Main tensile reinforcement
Shrinkage control
Beam restraint
Transfer in-plane load

Types of Decking
Re-Entrant

Trapezoidal

Holorib

Ribdeck

Construction Stage Design

At construction stage,
profiled steel sheets
should be checked for

Elastic Limit

MN

bending capacity;
shear capacity;
MRes
web crushing resistance;
0
combined bending and
web crushing;
combined bending and
MP
shear; and
deflection.

Plastic Hinge

AVOID Impact and Heaping

Deflection of Metal Decking

Single span : =

More spans : =

5 wL4
384 EI ser
4

1 wL
(uniform load)
185 EI ser

Limits
Span / 180 < 20 mm
Span / 130 < 30 mm
allowing for ponding

3 wL4
(pattern loading)
384 EI ser

Ponding may be ignored if < Slab Depth/10

Formwork during construction

Shear failure

Combined bending
and web crushing

Shear failure
Combined
bending and shear

Bending failure

BMD

SFD

Design of metal deck: BS5950:Part6

Local buckling in thin steel

f 1/ 2

= 1 + 14 c 0.35
b
pcr

0.2

beff

Effective section properties

Sagging moment

Hogging moment

Testing of profiled steel

deckings

Typical set-up of deckings under hogging moment

10

Combined bending and web crushing

under hogging moment
a) Bearing length = 150mm and span = 1200mm

30

Applied load (kN)

25

20

15

10
Test H01
Test H02

Test H03
0
0

10

15

20

25
30
35
40
Mid-span deflect ion (mm)

45

50

55

60

c) Bearing length = 50mm and span = 1200mm

30

Applied load (kN)

25

20

15

10
Test H07
5

Test H08
Test H09

0
0

10

15

20

25
30
35
40
Mid-span deflection (mm)

45

50

55

60

Typical failure mode

Decking tested in an inverted manner

Typical failure mode

General view of profiled steel decking under sagging moment after failure

11

Composite Stage
At composite stage, composite slabs with
profiled steel sheets should be checked for
resistance to bending moment;
resistance to vertical shear and Punching Shear
resistance to shear-bond failure between
profiled steel sheets and concrete slabs in the
absence of any chemical bond at the
interface; and
deflection.

COMPOSITE SLABS WITH PROFILED STEEL SHEETS

Positing bar

Top reinforcement
ba

Ds

Dp
tp

bb
Fire reinforcement

Positing bar

br = ba

Trapezoidal sheet
profile

Top reinforcement
bb

Ds

Dp
tp

ba

br = bb

Re-entrant sheet profile

Fire reinforcement

12

Composite Stage Design

Deflection
Prop removal
Prop removal
Prop effect

Moment capacity

Single spans

Shear bond

Modes of failure of a composite slab

Lv

Long

Lv

Short

13

Stress blocks for moment capacity

0.45fcu

ds

pyp
Centroidal axis of profiled steel sheeting

where
ds
fcu
pyp
z

is the effective depth of slab to the centroid of the profiled steel sheets
is the characteristic concrete cube strength
is the design strength of the profiled sheets;
is the lever arm

Longitudinal shear
Most likely failure mode at the composite stage, due to breakdown
of interaction between sheeting and concrete
Ls
Check the maximum
design vertical shear
for a width of slab b is
less than:

Vl,Rd =

b dp m Ap

+k

Vs b Ls

m, k are design values from tests

Ls is the shear span in mm;
Vs = 1.25

14

Testing of composite floor slabs

The m-k method

Shear Bond Testing

mr & kr method
6 Tests
3 long, 3 short span

15

Determination of design values for m and k

Reduced by 10%

Note: b, dp and Ls are in mm, Ap is in mm2, Vt is in N.

Two span length; 3 specimens each

Design Shear Span Ls

For design, Ls should be taken as:
L/4 for a uniform load applied to the entire span
length;
the distance between the applied load and the nearest
support for two equal and symmetrically placed loads;
for other loading arrangements, including a
combination of distributed and asymmetrical point
loads, an assessment should be made based upon test
results or by taking the shear span as the maximum
moment divided by the greater support reaction.

16

Bond Test

Mechanical Bond Failure

Horizontal slip:

Embossments

Vertical separation:

Re-entrant Features

17

Vertical Shear and Punching shear

Follow practice for
reinforced concrete slabs
in BS8110 and Eurocode
2

Summary
Permanent Shuttering

Composite Floor

No Props

Tensile Reinforcement

Fast Installation

Shear Bond

Versatile

Partial Interaction

Lateral Restraint

Versatile Analysis

Fire Analysis

18

Example

Example

19

Continuous Span

20

Continuous Span

21