Time-dependent flexural performance and design procedures for steel-bars truss slabs

Abstract

Thin-walled steel decks have been generally treated as permanent formwork in the routine design of steel-bars truss slabs, and their effects on the time-dependent behaviour of steel-bars truss slabs have not been quantified. The objective of this study was to propose design procedures for the time-dependent behaviour of steel-bars truss slabs accounting for the effects of soffit steel decks. For this purpose, two full-scale slab samples were tested for 9 months, with one slab subjected to non-uniform shrinkage and sustained loading and the other slab subjected to only non-uniform shrinkage. Typical design equations for reinforced concrete slabs and composite steel–concrete slabs were benchmarked against available test results to verify their applicability. Non-linear finite-element models were established to describe the time-dependent behaviour of steel-bars truss slabs, and simplified design procedures were proposed. It was found that the steel-bars truss sample subjected to non-uniform shrinkage had a mid-span deflection accounting for 52·4% of the total deflection; that the design methods in available composite structure standards significantly underestimated the long-term deflections; and that the proposed design procedures well predicted the time-dependent deflections of steel-bars truss slabs by considering the influence of the shrinkage gradient.