Shallow floors

The USFB system (Image courtesy of Kloeckner Westok)

Shallow floors offer a range of benefits such as minimising the overall height of a building for a given number of
floors, or maximising the number of floors for a given height of building. Additionally, a flat soffit is achieved - there
are none of the interruptions found with downstand beams - which gives complete freedom for the distribution of
services below the floor. These benefits should be considered in the context of a given project to identify when they
are most appropriate.
The shallowness of the floors is achieved by placing the slabs and beams within the same zone. This is achieved by
using asymmetric steel beams with a wider bottom than top flange, which enables the slab to sit on the upper surface
of the bottom flange with adequate bearing, rather than the upper surface of the top flange as found with downstand
beams. The floor slab may be in the form of a precast concrete slab or a composite slab with metal decking (either
shallow or deep decking may be used). An added benefit is that some forms of shallow floor construction inherently
achieve composite interaction between the beams and slab, thereby enhancing structural efficiency.
A number of shallow floor solutions are available, including Ultra Shallow Floor Beams (USFB) from Kloeckner
Westok, and ArcelorMittal's Slim Floor solutions.

USFB with precast hollocore slabs

(Image courtesy of Kloeckner Westok)

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USFB with deep decking

(Image courtesy of Kloeckner Westok)

Kloeckner Westok’s USFB system comprises a shallow and asymmetric Westok cellular beam with reinforcement
placed through the cells to anchor the slab to the beam. This simple detail provides a straightforward and cost-
effective disproportionate collapse detail and is also used to resist torsion in the final condition. For composite slabs
with metal decking the reinforcement is placed in the troughs of the metal decking. With hollowcore slabs, the
reinforcement is placed in alternative cores of the precast unit. To restrain the top-flange of the USFB in the Normal
Stage, the insitu concrete should be cast flush with or over the top-flange, in which case a minimum cover of 30mm is
recommended.

USFB cross-section (Image courtesy of Kloeckner Westok)

The USFB is manufactured from standard rolled sections, and is available in increments of 1mm depth. They are
typically 150-300mm deep and are sized and designed using Westok’s freely available Cellbeam software
package based on each individual project requirements and floor grids etc. The software carries out all of the
necessary structural checks, including torsion checks in the Construction Stage. USFBs can economically span up to
10m with structural depths that compare very favourably with R.C. flat slabs. As such, they are popular in many
sectors, particularly Education, Commercial and Residential.
‘Plug Composite Action’ can be mobilised for USFBs, which has been demonstrated using full-scale laboratory
testing, to further enhance the capacity of the section. To mobilise ‘Plug Composite Action’, the following detailing
should be adopted:

 Composite slabs with metal decking: Concrete cast level with, or above, the top flange

 Precast units generally: Minimum 50mm topping level with, or above the top flange
 Hollowcore units: Every 2nd core broken out and filled with concrete and reinforced through the cell

 Solid in-situ slabs: Concrete cast level with (or above) the top flange