Influence of the sheet profile design on the composite action of slabs made of lightweight woodchip concrete

- Analysis of the load-bearing capacity of composite slabs using lightweight woodchip concrete.
- Lightweight woodchip concrete ensured a dead load reduction of 50% compared to normal concrete.
- The shape of the profiled steel sheeting has a significant impact on the load-bearing capacity.
- All specimens presented a ductile bond behaviour over the whole bond length.
- Lightweight woodchip concrete is applicable in steel-composite slab systems.

The trend for using renewable materials in construction to create sustainable and robust buildings is currently gaining in popularity. Therefore, in this work, the applicability of dense lightweight woodchip concrete in constructive engineering is investigated. Here, the material is used as a top concrete layer on composite floors with profiled sheets and is analysed with regard to its load-bearing behaviour and composite action. One specific concrete mixture which fulfils the requirement for minimum strength of LC 20/22 is used for the test series. The scale of the study comprises 22 plate elements in total. The varied parameters are the shear spans, profiled sheet types and sheet thicknesses. Each examined sheet has an undercut profile with additional embossment. On the basis of experimental results, the influences of the varied parameters and profile forms on the load-bearing and composite behaviour are discussed. This study provides important key findings which show that dense lightweight woodchip concrete can transfer sufficient longitudinal shear forces to the composite joint.