Theoretical and experimental study on steel open-web sandwich floor with flanged cruciform section shear key

Steel open-web sandwich floors (SOSFs) have been applied in several pioneering industrial and public buildings. The traditional square tube shear key (STSK) is changed into a flanged cruciform section shear key (FCSK) to further improve the bearing capacity of SOSFs. A half-scale test model is designed. A graded static loading test is performed to measure deflection and strain. The calculation formula of the intersection beam analogy method (IBAM) considering the influence of shear stiffness is proposed. A finite element (FE) analysis was also performed. The results of the test, IBAM and FE method are compared. The maximum deviation of the deflection obtained by them is less than 5%, and the maximum strain error is less than 7%. These figures prove that all three methods have high precision in the elastic range. Compared SOSFs use a different shear keys with the same grid size and chords, the maximum Mises stress is reduced by 55.9% and the maximum displacement is reduced by 36.1%. The new shear key imparts the structure with improved bearing capacity and safety margin.