Full Scale Fire Test on the New UK Slim Floor System

Publisher Summary A new slim-floor system has recently been introduced into the UK market under the trademark “Slimdek.” A recent contribution to the fire research of the “Slimdek” system is the large-scale fire test that was conducted at the Building Research Establishment (BRE) Laboratories. The tested structure, designed by Steel Construction Institute, was 12.2 m by 12.2 m consisting of 4 bays, each 6.1 m by 6.1 m. A furnace was constructed around the test structure using 190 mm thick block wall. A gap of 265 mm was left between the wall and underside of the edge beams. This was filled using a flexible ceramic blanket. The value of the super-load was limited by the physical space available on the tested structure. To prevent possible catastrophic failure, protected stub columns were placed under the floor slab at the center of each bay. These allowed the slab to deflect 500 mm before the stub columns supported it. The Asymmetrical beams (ASBs) within the system performed extremely well and better than what the small-scale tests showed. Back-analysis performed using the purpose written computer software showed that the connections of the ASB had a beneficial effect on the behavior of the beam.