no / The design of multi-storey buildings in the UK, in the past, considered steel and concrete structures in isolation. Today, designers utilize the combined properties of steel and concrete in the form of composite or hybrid structures as a more attractive efficient alternative. Designers of steel structures acknowledge that the presence of concrete slabs may be designed compositely with steel beams in order to increase both flexural strength and stiffness at virtually no extra cost, except for the headed shear studs. The use of composite construction with precast hollowcore slabs has become one of the most popular construction methods in the UK. Currently, design of composite construction is covered by BS5950, Part 3, but will soon be replaced by the new European Standard, Eurocode 4. However, design of composite construction with precast hollowcore slabs is currently outside the provisions of this new code. In this paper, an overview of the Eurocode 4 structure and its contents are first presented and some of the particular issues that affect this new form of construction will be given. Design guidance using the Eurocode methodology will also be presented.

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This article presents the design procedures for the use of precast hollowcore slabs in steel-concrete composite construction. The paper also summarises the recent and on-going work on the transfer of this knowledge into the Australian construction industry. Whilst it is common practice to use precast concrete planks in Australian building construction, the benefits of composite behaviour with steel beams have not yet been fully realised with these systems, (National Precast Concrete Association of Australia, 2003). The use of precast hollowcore slabs in steel composite construction has seen rapid growth in popularity since it was first developed in the 1990s. The main advantages of this form of construction are that precast hollowcore slabs can span up to 15 metres without propping. The erection of 1.2 metre wide precast concrete units is simple and quick, shear studs can be pre-welded on beams before delivery to site thereby offering the savings associated with shorter construction times.

The concept of semi-rigid composite connection has been widely researched in the past; however, most of the researches are limited to composite joints with metal deck ¿ooring and solid concrete slabs. Composite construction incorporating precast concrete hollowcore slabs (HCU) is a recently developed composite ¿oor system for buildings. The research on the structural behaviour of the semi-rigid composite joints with HCU is new and without any previous experimental database. In this paper, eight full-scale tests of beam-to-column semi-rigid composite joints with steel beams and precast hollowcore slabs are reported. The variables are stud spacing, degree of the shear connections, area of the longitudinal reinforcement and slab thickness. The test set-up and instrumentation is described in detail. The experimental behaviour is analysed and based on the test data the structural behaviour of these semi-rigid composite joints is discussed. Based on the experimental data, a simpli¿ed method to predict rotation and moment capacity for this type of composite connection is proposed.