Medium rise commercial and multi-residential buildings (up to eight stories) represent significant markets that the timber industry can potentially penetrate. This is possible with the availability of advanced engineered wood product and ‘new generation’ composite structures. From the mid 2000’s, the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), in partnership with universities and industry key-players in Australia and New Zealand – overseen by Structural Timber Innovation Company (STIC) – has been active in investigating innovative structural systems that utilise timber and provide a competitive alternative to steel and concrete solutions.
Timber concrete composite (TCC) solutions have been gaining a lot of attention in Australia and New Zealand over the last few years. To address this emergence, researchers at UTS have focused on identifying and optimising TCC connections and outlining robust design procedure. This paper puts forward design guidelines that comply with Australian codes and give consideration for ultimate limit state (ULS) and serviceability limit state (SLS) design requirements. Fabrication provisions are also provided in order to secure a sound and successful implementation of TCC floor solutions.