This paper presents an experimental and numerical study to investigate the structural performance of a steel deck-plate system bolted with truss girder. This system has been proposed herein to resolve the issues caused by welding. Structural tests for six full-scale specimens were performed to ensure the structural safety of the proposed system based on design criteria for deflection. Local responses with an emphasis on the failure modes of the system were also assessed using the measured strains at the locations where stresses are localized. Numerical models for all test specimens were developed with the material test data and were validated based on the test results. The structural behaviors of the proposed system, not confirmed in the tests, were further examined using numerical simulations, with a focus on the failure mechanism between the numerical predictions and the test results. Appl. Sci. 2019, 9, 3166 2 of 18 slab) to solve these sorts of problems. This system involved pressure joining in lieu of spot welding to connect lattice to galvanized steel sheets and does not require welding, thereby not suffering an oxidation-induced rust. For this non-welding deck-plate system, there is, however, still a limitation that the deck plate is hard to decouple from the slab, which makes checking the crack, if any, inside the slab and recycling the deck plate difficult.This study thus proposes a deck plate, made of galvanized steel sheet, connected by bolts rather than welding to enable the deck plate to be reused, thereby preventing corrosion for the deck plate, facilitating grasping of the cracks of the slab, and developing an eco-friendly construction method for deck plate. Six full-scale tests were performed to investigate the structural performance of the proposed deck-plate system bolted with truss girder. Three slab depths of 135, 150, and 200 mm and the corresponding span lengths of 3200, 3800, and 4500 mm, respectively, were considered. Local failure modes were examined using measurements from plastic strain-gauges. A numerical study was then performed using a finite element code, LS-DYNA [14,15], to ensure that the observations from the tests were reliable and to further investigate the global and local responses, which were not confirmed during the tests. The numerically derived failure modes are discussed in detail by comparison to the test results.
Deck Plate Bolted with Truss GirderThe deck-plate systems bolted with triangular truss girder, as introduced previously, are produced automatically by the machine at the factory, such that this slab system is manufactured under well-organized quality control and can maintain a constant spacing of reinforcing bars with yielding high-quality products. Since the truss girder and the galvanized steel sheet are assembled by bolts, the steel sheet can be disassembled after the completion of the construction, by simply dismantling the bolts after the concrete pouring and curing are finished. Accordingly, this deck-plate system can be considered as an eco-friendly ...