Considerations in planning and

designing an industrial floor

Success depends on consultation among soils expert, designer, builder, and owner

BY BOYD C. RINGO
PROFESSOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

A n industrial floor slab on grade

should be durable, free of ex-
cessive cracking, and suitably flat
and strong enough for the traffic it
must carry. Achieving all this takes
consultation among the slab de-
signer, owner, soils technologist,
and the builder. Here are some of
the factors they should consider:
Site conditions
Traffic requirements; other loads
on the slab
Method of slab construction
Slab thickness and reinforcement
requirements
Joint location and spacing
Each of these considerations af-
fects one or more of the others in
ways which are summarized briefly
in the article that follows.
Site characteristics
A quality industrial floor on grade
requires a well drained, uniform
subgrade of adequate bearing ca-
pacity. A floor cast over a nonuni-
form subgrade will bridge over soft
spots and bear on rocks. The result-
ing bending of the slab will produce
cracks.
Gravels and gravel-sand mixtures
have high bearing capacity. Clays,
fine sands, silt, and highly organic
soils have low bearing capacity. In a
few areas, expansive soils can cause
real trouble. The best source of pre-
liminary information on soils and
their properties is a local soils spe-
cialist or geotechnical engineer.
Bearing capacity of a weak sub-
Keep slab reinforcement spacing wide enough that workmen can step between
bars or wires. Also provide positive support in the form of small concrete blocks
or appropriate bar chairs. Reinforcement out of place cannot do its job of
controlling cracks effectively.
grade can be improved by drainage, Post loadswhere are they, and
compaction, or soil stabilization. If how large? Size of base plates?
these measures are insufficient or if When loads on posts or legs of
the subgrade is not uniform, it is storage racks exceed wheel loads
wise to provide a compacted sub- of vehicles, the post loads may
base about 4 inches thick of sand, a control slab thickness design.
sand-gravel mixture, crushed stone, Building column loads, if any
or a combination of these materials. columns are supported on the
slab or integral footings.
Floor loadings
Designers should ask about these
Heres where accurate informa-
loadings if the building owner has
tion from the owner is essential. He
not provided them.
must provide information on:
Forklift trucks or other traffic Construction method
loads. This includes weight, dis- The builders equipment and ex-
tribution of weight, payload, perience will be important in deter-
wheel spacings, axle loads, wheel mining the construction method
contact area, wheel aspect ratio, and sequence. These are best decid-
and flatness needs related to high ed before joint type and spacing are
lifts. chosen.
Storage loadshow large, and Construction managers now usu-
where are they placed? ally recommend strip placement of
 Section of thickness for an
unreinforced slab can be done with
this chart for single wheel loads. The
wheel spacing, effective contact
area, and concrete stress per
thousand pounds of axle load must all
be known. Also the modulus k
representing soil or subgrade
conditions is needed. A different
chart is used when leg or post loads
present the critical loading condition.
Reproduced from Reference 2 with
permission of the Portland Cement
Association.

SELECTING SLAB THICKNESS FROM A DESIGN CHART

This example shows how to use a typical design aid, as- With the conditions given, the designer selects a safety fac -
suming the values that are needed to select slab thickness tor of 2 and makes the following calculation to enter the de -
and joint spacing. sign chart. Entry is at the left (POINT A) with stress per thou -
For an indoor slab on grade the well-graded local sand at sand pounds of axle load. Bending stress (modulus of
the site makes a satisfactory base when compacted. From test rupture) controls the design.
results, the soils consultant has given us a value for subgrade First divide bending stress by the safety factor:
modulus k of 200 pounds per cubic inch. It is decided to use 570
ordinary unreinforced portland cement concrete. Our con - = 285 psi
2
tractor is equipped to place and finish the large slab area in Then divide the result by the axle load in thousands of
40-foot-wide strips, and to saw cut the control joints. pounds:
The ready mix supplier has a suitable concrete mix which
285
he regularly produces, and can assure us of the following con - = 10.6 psi per thousand pounds of axle load
crete properties: 27
Enter the design chart at POINT A with the value of 10.6
COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH 4000 psi and go across the curve for 25 square inches wheel contact
BENDING STRENGTH (modulus of rupture) 570 psi area at POINT B. Then go up to POINT C on the curves show -
ing wheel spacing. The point is between curves since this ex -
MAXIMUM SIZE COARSE AGGREGATE 1 inch ample uses 36-inch wheel spacing. Then proceed across to
SLUMP (maximum) 4 inches intersect the vertical line for k=200. Read the slab thickness
to the nearest half inch as 10 inches.
SHRINKAGE POTENTIAL low The designer uses this thickness to check joint spacing. He
The owner has information about his use of the warehouse may use a design table or follow the rule of thumb given in the
to show that forklift trucks will present the most severe load - article. Following the rule given, control joints would be from
ings the slab will have to withstand. His data for the trucks 20 to 30 feet apart (2 x thickness in inches to 3 x thickness in
show: inches). Since the slab paving proceeds in 40-foot strips, a 20-
TOTAL AXLE LOAD 27,000 pounds foot joint spacing would offer modular convenience.
Flatness standards for the floor must still be set. The owner,
WHEEL SPACING (single wheels) 36 inches designer, and the builder should all be involved in this critical
WHEEL CONTACT AREA 24 square inches decision, matching the owners needs with the quality level
the contractor can deliver at an affordable price.
Truck traffic will be frequent, but high-bay storage is not
planned (ceiling heights are limited).
concrete for large slabs. In appear at the end of this ar-
the past some constructors ticle. The Post-Tensioning
and designers favo re d Institute has design aids for
checkerboarding, on the as- post-tensioned slabs (Refer-
sumption that after the first- ence 7). While the methods
placed squares shrank the in- differ considerably, in most
tervening squares placed cases the thicknesses they
later would fill in for the give differ by only a small
s h ri n k a g e. Therefore the amount. Normal design situ-
s h ri n k a g e - c o n t rol joints ations can usually be han-
could be narrower. Howe ve r, dled conservatively with de-
its now realized that shrink- Slabs on grade need isolation joints to keep them out of sign charts. Unusual
age continues for months contact with walls, columns, or other parts of a conditions can be analyzed
long after all squares have structure that are on separate foundations. Isolation by computer programs fol-
been placedand checker- joints around columns should be circular or diamond lowing more advanced
boarding is not worth the ex- shaped and thick enough to permit differential structural engineering meth-
tra cost. movement. Control jointssawed, formed, or tooled ods (Reference 8).
planes of weaknessshould be at column center lines Information the designer
Choosing the type of and other locations as needed to maintain proper joint
needs to decide on slab
slab: reinforced or spacing.
thickness includes maxi-
unreinforced mum axle loads, number of
The common types of industrial reinforcement is not to increase the load repetitions, wheel contact area,
slabs on grade are: slabs flexural strength, but to mini- and spacing between wheels on the
mize the width of shrinkage cracks heaviest axles. He also should know
1. UNREINFORCED ORDINARY
that result from subgrade re s t ra i n t the properties of the subgrade and
PORTLAND CEMENT CON-
of slab movement. the bending strength of the con-
CRETE.
Reinforcement may be bars, bar c re t e, which is expressed as modu-
2. REINFORCED ORDINARY mats, or welded wire fabric, sup- lus of rupture. In some cases, the
PORTLAND CEMENT CON- ported at the proper distance above joint spacing may also have an ef-
CRETE. The amount of reinforce- the base by small concrete blocks or fect on the slab thickness. A simple
ment may vary from small metal bar chairs. One consideration example of thickness determination
amounts of welded wire fabric to in reinforcement design is to pro- is shown on page 15.
full reinforcement needed for a vide spacing wide enough that Where part of a slab is to serve as
structurally active floor. workers can step between bars or a floor for manufacturing, another
3. SHRINKAGE COMPENSATING w i re s. Otherwise the steel may be part for offices, and a third part for
CEMENT CONCRETE with rein- displaced downward from design s t o ra g e, loads from one part to an-
forcement. The expansion- level and fail to prevent wide surface other may be quite different. It is
shrinkage sequence of this con- cracksor be bent upward and sometimes economical to provide
crete maintains a net h ave inadequate cover. each area with the thickness appro-
compression in the slab and per- p riate to its loadings.
mits wider spacing of joints. How thick should the slab be?
Loads applied to a slab on ground Joint spacing
4. POST-TENSIONED CONCRETE,
produce both compressive and flex- Careful joint design and location
in which steel strands are tight-
ural stresses in the slab. The flexural a re essential to a trouble-free floor.
ened after the concrete hardens
or bending stress is the more criti- Co n trol joints are provided to take
to compress it and minimize
cal, and the slab is designed thick c a re of concrete shrinkage. They di-
crack width. Post-tensioned slabs
enough to resist the bending. vide a large floor into re l a t i ve l y
have been used in areas with ex-
Design aids for deciding on the small rectangular (pre f e ra b l y
pansive soils.
required slab thicknesswhere crit- s q u a re) panels. Joints may be saw
The designer may thus choose a ical loading is from forklift trucks or
design with or without re i n f o rc e- cut, tooled, or formed with strips in-
post loadsare available from s e rted in the fresh concre te. The
ment. With uniform subgrade and
Portland Cement Association joint creates a straight line plane of
close joint spacing, reinforcement is
usually not used. Where the owner Wire Reinforcement Institute weakness that opens as the concre te
requires joints widely spaced, or sh rinks and thus controls cra ck ing .
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers
considers them totally unaccept- Maximum spacing between joints
American Concrete Institute depends primarily on subgrade fric-
able, some reinforcement is used.
Generally the purpose of distributed Re f e rences to these pro c e d u re s tion, slab thickness, whether or not
there is reinforcement, and what
shrinkage can be expected in the
c o n c re t e. The references provide
charts and tables for choosing joint
spacing for ordinary conditions.
One conservative rule of thumb
( Re f e rence 2) says that the joint
spacing in feet should be two to
three times the slab thickness in
inches.
For example: A slab 8 inches thick
should have joints 16 to 24 feet
(2x8 to 3x8) apart.
The lower multiplier is used with
higher slump concretes having a
maximum aggregate size less than 34
inch.
Whether or not crack control
joints are used, isolation joints are
needed at walls, columns, machine
foundations, or other features hav-
ing their own footings. Large slabs
also require construction joints at
the end of a days work.
In many slabs, aggregate interlock
at control joints or formed keys at
construction joints will prevent up
and down movement while allowing
for needed horizontal movement.
Howe ve r, joints are often doweled in
heavy industrial floors to keep the
two sides of the joint at the same
level when a wheel passes over the
joint. Dowels are placed so that the
joint is at the dowels mid-length,
and provision is made to pre ve n t
bonding of dowel to concrete on
one or both sides of the joint to pro-
vide for horizontal slab movement.
Specification for surface flat-
ness
Flatness is another re q u i re m e n t
for which the owner must furnish
data specific to his needs.
Where there is forklift truck traf-
fic, the success of a floor often de-
pends on its smoothness. Relatively
light loads such as cornflakes may
bounce off a high truck load if the
floor is too rough. Trucks carrying
heavily loaded cartons tend to lean
f o rw a rd dangerously on a rough
floor unless truck speeds are re-
duced. In general, the smaller the
wheel, the smoother the floor needs
to be.
Some general guidelines for
smoothness are given by ACI in Ref-
erence 1. Howe ve r, the best way to
determine the smoothness needed
is to measure the surface va ri a t i o n
of an acceptable existing floor and
match that. (For ways to measure
floor flatness, see CONCRETE CON-
STRUCTION, August 1981, page 677
and November 1982, page 865.)
Additional considerations
Comprehensive design of a high
quality industrial grade floor is a
complex process with more options
and decisions required than have
been presented here. In f o rm a t i o n
on other considerations such as the
use of vapor barriers between sub-
grade and slab, two-course floors,
and surface hardness required for
wear resistance will be found in Ref-
erence 7.
Feedback is important on large
jobs. Designer and builder can keep
an eye on the effectiveness of the
concrete mix and the placing and
finishing procedures so that adjust-
ments can be made as the job pro-
g re s s e s. Evaluation of one job will
substantially help improve the qual-
ity of the next job.
References
1. Guide for Concrete Floor and Slab
Construction, ACI 302.1R-80, Ameri-
can Concrete Institute, Detroit, Michi-
gan, 1980, 46 pages.
2. Concrete Floors on Ground, (EB
075.02 D), Portland Cement Associa-
tion, Skokie, Illinois, second edition,
1983, 36 pages.
3. Jointed Concrete Pavements Rein-
forced with Welded Wire Fabric,
WWF-101, Wire Reinforcement Insti-
tute, McLean, Virginia, fourth printing.
4. Yoder, Elton, and Witczak, Princi-
ples of Pavement Design, John Wiley
and Sons, New York, second edition,
1975.
5. Concrete Craftsman Series: Slabs
on Grade, American Concrete Insti-
tute, Detroit, Michigan, 1982, 80
pages.
6. Design and Construction of Post-
Tensioned Slabs on Grade, Post-Ten-
sioning Institute, Phoenix, Arizona,
1978.
7. Design of Industrial Floors, ACI
Publication SCM-5(83), American
Concrete Institute, Detroit, Michi-
gan,1983. This volume contains Plan-
ning, Design and Construction of
Slabs on Grade, by Boyd C. Ringo,
as well as reprints of References 1, 2,
and 5.
8. Ringo, Boyd C. and Steenken,
Ronald, Industrial Floor Slabs: A
Thickness Solution, computer solu-
tion published in Design of Structural
Concrete, COM 1-83, American Con-
crete Institute, Detroit, Michigan, 1983,
164 pages.
PUBLICATION #C850013
Copyright 1985, The Aberdeen Group
All rights reserved