Dry boards as load bearing element in the profiled steel sheet dry board floor panel system—structural performance and applications

Abstract

This paper describes the application of various types of dry boards that are normally used as non-load bearing building components, as a structural component in an innovative lightweight composite structural flooring panel system known as the Bondek II/Cemboard Composite Flooring Panel (BCCFP) system. The composite panel system consists of profiled steel sheeting attached to a top layer dry board by simple mechanical connectors. In the proposed system, dry board plays a dual role, firstly in providing a flat floor surface covering the corrugated profiled steel sheeting, and secondly, it helps in enhancing the stiffness and strength of the composite system. The role of dry boards in the BCCFP system and the performance of the system using various types and thickness of dry boards are investigated. In addition, the effect of varying the spacing of screws on the panel performance is also studied. From test results, it was found that the application of dry boards in the BCCFP system could increase the flexural stiffness of the composite panel by between 12.8% to as high as 26.3% compared to that of the steel sheeting alone for the various tested samples. The stiffness value of a typical practical configuration of the BCCFP system comprising of 1.0 mm thick Bondek II attached to 16 mm Cemboard with screw spacing of 100 mm was found to be 166 kNm 2/m with a percentage interaction value of 21.3%. The introduction of a layer of dry board to the bare steel sheeting alone has been shown able to increase by 12.2% the moment capacity value from 8.2 kNm/m of the steel sheeting alone to 12.2 kNm/m of the typical BCCFP system mentioned above. It can be concluded that the dry boards, which are normally used in non-load bearing applications, are having great potential to be used as components in load bearing structural system. Some interesting applications of the system in real buildings are also highlighted in this paper.