Behaviour of hybrid concrete lattice girder flat slab system using insitu structural health monitoring

Abstract

In recent decades, Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has emerged as an increasingly important tool in Civil Engineering to understand how structures behave during construction and operation. Although SHM is not a new concept, it is only relatively recently that Civil Engineers have adopted SHM for the design, construction and management of civil engineering structures. One of the key benefits of SHM is the improved understanding of insitu structural behaviour. This paper describes the SHM strategy implemented on a recently constructed building to monitor and record the behaviour of a hybrid concrete lattice girder flat slab floor system. Hybrid concrete construction (HCC) combines insitu and precast concrete to maximise the benefits of both forms of construction. HCC offers many advantages for both the designer and contractor and produces simple, buildable and economic structures which can result in faster, safer construction and reduced costs. Sensors were embedded in both the precast and insitu components of the hybrid concrete floor system and are used to monitor various aspects of the behaviour of the floor during the manufacture, construction and operational phase of the building. The information from the real-time monitoring offers the opportunity to compare actual and predicted behaviour using structural codes, such as Eurocodes. The majority of the instrumentation is embedded within the structure so that long-term effects such as creep and shrinkage of concrete components can also be investigated.