Experimental and analytical study of lightweight floor system built-up with cold-formed profile steel sheet and hot-rolled steel plate (CFPSS-HRSP)

Abstract

The focus of the present research is to develop a reusable and recyclable lightweight floor system fabricated with cold-formed profiled steel sheet (CFPSS) and hot-rolled steel plate (HRSP) connected through bolts. This paper presents the results of eighteen medium-scale specimens fabricated with varying lengths, bolt spacings and thickness to evaluate the flexural and failure behavior under three-point bending. The proposed system was fabricated in two phases; phase I was based on single CFPSS, whereas phase II was based on double thickness by nesting two CFPSS on top of each other. The test results indicate that phase II specimens carried 50 to 80% more load than the phase I specimens. It can be noted that the decrease in experimental load ratio correlated well with the increase in length ratio for phase II specimens. However, a higher variation of up to 18% in moment capacity was observed in phase I specimens whereas the corresponding phase II specimens, showed a variation of up to 8%. Besides, it was also observed that the mode of failure for phase I and phase II specimens varied with specimen length, CFPSS thickness and spacing between the bolts in a lightweight panel system. An analytical approach was developed based on the modified form of Newmark's equation along with a theoretical approach (up to yield). The average analytical deflection closely matched with the moderate length while the shorter and longer length specimens slightly deviated from the experimental results in both the phases.