Experimental investigation of a novel concrete-timber floor panel system with digitally fabricated FRP-timber hollow core component

Abstract

Concrete-timber composite floor systems have become increasingly popular due to their high sustainability and ease of construction. This paper presents a novel lightweight concrete-timber floor panel system with a fibre reinforced polymer-timber waffle-shaped core between the concrete and timber layers. Digital fabrication techniques and computer-numerical control machines were used in the core component fabrication, resulting in ease of fabrication, high accuracy, and streamlined manufacture process. Four 2.25 m span floor panels were manufactured and tested under four-point bending to investigate their flexural behaviour. Results show that the proposed system has an excellent flexural capacity, and demonstrated a high ductility before ultimate failure. Comparison shows the proposed system outperformed the equivalent reinforced concrete and hybrid timber-concrete panels regarding weight specific moment capacity. The consistent flexural behaviour of the tested specimens also proved the effective quality control from CNC manufacturing.