Requirements for oversized holes for reusable steel-concrete composite floor systems

The design of sustainable structures is increasingly gaining attention in the construction sector as a societal and technological challenge. Demountability and reuse of structures contributes to the reduction of the environmental impact of the built environment. Welded headed studs used in traditional steel-concrete composite floor systems need to be replaced by demountable shear connectors to enable the transition of the construction sector to a circular business model. The demountable shear connectors are embedded in large prefabricated concrete floor elements and connected to steel beams by bolts. The holes in the beam flange are oversized to account for geometrical and dimensional deviations of all members and to facilitate rapid execution and easy demounting. The goal of this paper is to present a methodology that quantifies the required nominal hole clearance for reusable composite floor systems. Statistical characteristics of dimensional and geometrical deviations serve as input for Monte-Carlo simulations. The aggregated results of the Monte Carlo simulations are used to determine the required nominal hole clearance for a specified probability of successful installation of the demountable shear connectors. The proposed methodology is applied to the composite floor system of a demountable and reusable car park building. The contradicting requirement of oversized holes and composite interaction is solved by injecting the hole clearance with a (steel-reinforced) epoxy resin. The bearing resistance of the (steel-reinforced) epoxy resin is addressed based on preliminary results of creep experiments on resin-injected bolted connections