Development of Prefabricated Timber-Steel-Concrete Ribbed Decks

Abstract

In the last years several projects of medium and high-rise timber-based multi-story buildings have been proposed and developed. In most of the cases timber-concrete composite (TCC) floors play a significant role for the design of the structural slabs due to acoustic performance, fire protection and structural issues. Within several research projects and with the aim to optimize the structural and ecological characteristics of building components the Department of Structural Design and Timber Engineering (ITI) at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) developed timber-steel hybrid beams that can be used independently or combined with concrete floors, proposing for this last case prefabricated and semi-prefabricated timber-steel-concrete ribbed elements that make the most of all this potential.In order to recognize the potential for future market implementation and to demonstrate the competiveness of the developed hybrid ribbed floor slabs, the economic feasibility and the ecological impact, structural elements were analyzed in several case studies. The environmental assessment shows the ecological advantages of the developed concepts and underlines the potential for further developments. This paper contains an introduction on the state-of-the-art floor solutions for timber-based multistory buildings, the fundamental ideas and design concepts behind the timber-steel and timber-steel-concrete proposals as well as a short review of the tests carried until now and results obtained.