Experimental performance of timber-concrete slab to concrete wall connection

Abstract

Timber concrete composite floors present a more efficient and sustainable alternative to the traditional concrete slabs. However, there is little understanding to the performance of TCC slabs in concrete wall structures and, specifically, the slab-to-wall connection is an area where very little research has been made. In this investigation, the gravitational and lateral behavior of four proposed TCC slabto-concrete wall connections were tested under monotonic and cyclic procedures, respectively. For the definition of the connections forty push-out tests were performed to characterize the timber-concrete connection with different connectors, grain direction and inclination. Test results were used to propose four connections to study the performance of the TCC slab-to-wall connection, for which twenty specimens were tested. Results showed that the shear capacity of the lateral tests was 8 times as large as the calculations made using the design codes, while in gravitational tests the calculated resistance was exceeded 3 times. The experimental results were compared against finite element models to understand the failure mechanism observed and the elevated lateral strength obtained, and a more suitable calculation method was proposed. As closure, a design application of a realistic floor plan with TCC slab and concrete walls was presented.