Behaviour and Design of Timber-Concrete Composite Floor System

This Ph.D. thesis represents a summative report detailing research processes and outcomes from investigating the ultimate and serviceability limit state short- and long-term behaviour and design of timber-concrete composite floors. The project enables the realization of a semi-prefabricated LVL-concrete composite floor system of up to 15 m long using 3 types of connection. Design span tables which satisfy the ultimate and serviceability limit state short- and long-term verifications for this system form the novel contribution of this thesis. In quantifying the behaviour of timber-concrete composite floors, 5 different experimental phases have been carried. 9 major achievements in meeting 9 sub-objectives have been concluded: 1) Three best types of connection system for timber-concrete composite floors have been identified; 2) The characteristic strength and secant slip moduli for these connections have been determined; 3) The short-term behaviour of the selected connections defined by their pre- and post-peak responses under collapse load has been established; 4) An analytical model for the strength evaluation of the selected connections based on the different possible modes of failure has been derived; 5) Easy and fast erected semi-prefabricated timber-concrete composite floor has been proposed; 6) The short-term ultimate and serviceability limit state behaviour of timber-concrete composite floor beams under collapse load has been investigated; 7) The long-term behaviour of chosen connections defined by their creep coefficient has been determined; 8) The long-term behaviour of timber-concrete composite floor beams under sustained load at serviceability limit state condition has been investigated; and 9) Design example and span tables for semi-prefabricated timber-concrete composite floors that satisfy both the ultimate and serviceability limit state in the short- and long-term using the gamma-method have been developed