Experimental and numerical investigation of the prefabricated steel–concrete open-web composite floor with embedded chords

Abstract

To reduce the height and improve the installation efficiency of novel prefabricated steel-concrete open-web composite floor (SOF), a developed SOF was proposed. A full-scale (9.0 m × 9.0 m) laboratory test and detailed parametric finite element (FE) analysis were conducted to explore the load-bearing capacity, typical failure modes, load-displacement relationship, and strain variations at key locations of the structure. The experimental findings indicated that the concrete slab and upper chord exhibited good composite behavior, and no interfacial failure was observed between the concrete slab and the T-section. The joint diaphragm welds failed in tension due to insufficient capacity of the bottom chords, while web members continued to transfer axial tension, resulting in local tearing failures outside the plane. Further finite element analysis illustrated the damage evolution of the concrete slab and steel grids. Moreover, the mechanical properties of the structure were found to be relatively insensitive to the changes in geometric parameters across the different locations. The conclusions drawn from this study can be utilized as reference for the design and analysis of spatial composite slab structures.