Robustness of steel-concrete flooring systems - An experimental assessment

Recently, the interest in the mitigation of the damages caused by accidental events increased significantly. The knowledge of loads transfer mechanisms from the damaged to the undamaged part of the structure is the key for developing adequate design strategies. Despite the potential important role of flooring systems, research of this subject is still limited. A European Research Project aims at achieving an insight into the case of steel-concrete composite frames with solid concrete slabs. Two geometrically different 3D composite sub-frames are subjected to the loss of an internal column. The sub-frames are a full-scale portion of 5 stories 3D frames. Equivalence between the sub-frames and the full-frames required a series of careful numerical analysis, which enabled definition of the boundary restraints of the specimens and of the loading sequence in the test. The present paper illustrates these preparatory studies and gives some preliminary information about the outcomes of the first test.