Investigation on structural behavior of an innovative orthogonal-diagonal steel open-web sandwich floor system

Abstract

A new orthogonal-diagonal steel open-web sandwich floor system has been developed by the authors in the past few years to replace the conventional methodology. This floor system owns excellent structural mechanical characteristics to be applied in civil engineering applications. The three-dimensional structural characteristics are achieved by letting the top and bottom chords of the space truss that constitutes the floor inclined 45° toward the edge of the boundary lines. The present work focuses on the fabrication and erection of the proposed floor and its structural behavior subjected to partial loadings. Field partially-loaded test was conducted and the performance was evaluated in terms of the deflection distribution and stress response at different load levels. A three-dimensional numerical finite element model was developed and calibrated against the test results. The results demonstrate that the new floor system offers satisfactory structural performance.