Dismountable Flooring Systems for Multiple Use

Steel shapes our modern world as an integral part of the global construction economy. In the last decades, the sustainability of steel grew and turned from a linear to a circular business, where the material is fully recovered and recycled after use. The RFCS Research Project "REDUCE" of the European Commission goes one step beyond the mere material recycling and investigates, how the circular economy's philosophy can be used to reduce the carbon footprint furthermore. On that basis, one target of the research was to develop basic modular and standardised structural load bearing elements which can be adapted in the building or assembled, properly disassembled and partly or entirely be reused again in a subsequent building. This paper presents the respective research results of demountable flooring- and beam systems: 15 large scale push-out tests and two large scale composite beam tests as well as numerous finite element simulations with ABAQUS have been performed at the Laboratory of the ArcelorMittal Chair of Steel and Façade Engineering. The suitability for dis- and re-assembly as well as the strength, stiffness, slip capacity and ductility have been determined. The investigated systems included pre-stressed and epoxy injected systems, as well as solid slabs and composite slabs with profiled decking. The results showed sometimes higher resistances and smaller displacement capacities than conventional systems. The numerical simulation results were presented as well as the results of the laboratory tests. First assessments were given about the respective consequences and about how these consequences could be considered in the layout of future steel composite structures.