Innovative conception and design of structural systems for flexible floor spaces

The pressure in the market of high-rise and multistory office buildings is stimulating innovative solutions for the design of structural systems fulfilling the demand for flexible, sustainable floor layouts. Steel-concrete composite constructions do comply with related challenges. They offer a wide range of structural solutions to design economic, efficient and sustainable buildings. New composite slabs with sheets of up to 220 mm height are able to span up to 9 m without any intermediate support. These sheets can further be placed on the lower flange of the steel beam to reduce the slab thickness in order to build a "Slim-Floor System". By activating composite action for slim-floor beams due to recent innovations grid spans of about 10 x 14 m are enabled, permitting a huge flexibility in the architectural floor layout. Further the design of composite connection provides significant potential for structural optimization. This potential is outlined and design guidance for simplified and sustainable composite design is given.