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Suspended concrete floors:
maximum size of pour allowable and
location of construction joints
Licensed copy: BUROHAPP, Buro Happold Ltd, 16/09/2019, Uncontrolled Copy, © Concrete Society
George Barnbrook BSc CEng MICE ACIArb FCS
Deryk Simpson, BSc CEng MICE FCS
The restraint to movement of suspended floors differs from that of ground floors, hence
the size of allowable pours and location of joints will be based on different factors. This
document provides guidance on the provision of joints and the selection of pour sizes and
sequences.
1 Background
With ground-supported floors, the restraint
is predominantly the continuous contact
with the sub-base material or slip layer.
Suspended concrete floors have some
minimal restraint to movement from
formwork initially, but the major restraint,
unless precautions are taken, arises from
columns, walls, deep beams and any other
vertical structural stiffness to which the
floors are rigidly connected.
Precise guidance to eliminate, or control
closely, cracking in ordinary reinforced
concrete suspended floors cannot be given
because of the numerous controlling
factors.
However, a general guiding rule appears
to be that larger areas of suspended
floor poured at one time are likely to
give better results than many smaller
individual pours with the then necessary
many construction joints.
Each construction joint is a potential
weakness in the slab and liable to be the
location of a slab opening, i.e. a crack
visible at the slab surface which may not
have formed without the presence of the
joint.
CONCRETE ADVICE No. 02
Additionally, it must be remembered that,
in common with all normal reinforced
concrete, the slab will crack to a limited
degree in tension zone areas produced by
bending.
Construction joints directly add to costs of
construction and greatly slow down site
programmes. With suspended floors it is
the final responsibility of the floor designer
to decide maximum allowable areas of
pour and the position of any construction
joints.
It is only the designer who can appreciate
all design constraints and who could adjust
reinforcement, for example, to modify
allowable maximum areas of pour. The
contractor can, of course, and often does,
advise designers on allowable areas to suit
his proposed method of work.
As a general guide, the maximum slab
area to be poured at one time will be
dependent upon the following factors:
• The importance attached to the
avoidance of cracking in the slab,
either to safeguard its appearance or to
avoid the adverse influence on finishes.
(For example, is the slab to be directly
finished by power trowelling as a
wearing surface? Cracking of
significance could affect durability
under trafficking.)
 Page 2 of 3
• The position and size of vertical members
acting as restraints to slab movement. Restraint
will be provided by columns, walls, and
previously cast floor slabs.
• The rigidity of restraints as higher rigidity will
increase the likelihood of cracking. The
likelihood of significant early temperature
Licensed copy: BUROHAPP, Buro Happold Ltd, 16/09/2019, Uncontrolled Copy, © Concrete Society
changes in the concrete must be considered. In
this situation, adequate control measures, such
as shading and insulation during construction,
might have to be employed. The use of high
cement content concrete poured in hot weather
is more likely to lead to early thermal cracking.
• The likely degree of shrinkage and the
percentage of reinforcement in the slab and
its orientation; the existence in the floor of
beams or beam strips and their steel
percentages. Some contraction following early
concrete temperature rise and long term drying
shrinkage is inevitable and the characteristics of
the concrete mix have a degree of influence,
together with the exposure conditions, on the
total extent of shrinkage.
• Thermal and moisture movements likely
during the life of the building.
2 General rules for good practice
Types and location of joints
• In large buildings wide free movement joints,
sometimes called expansion joints, may need to
be specified by the designer to allow seasonal
movements and long term drying effects. They
add to cost, slow construction and can lead to
water-leakage problems at roof and wall
positions.
• Construction joints parallel to and between
movement joints are planes of discontinuity,
which, if overall tensions are produced due to
restrained contraction, will open to form straight
crack lines. They are potential points of tension
release.
• Construction joints likely to be subject to tensile
strain, and therefore likely to open slightly,
should normally be positioned between the
quarter and third points of any slab span.
However, the moment and shear capacity of
beams and slabs is only marginally affected by
the positioning of construction joints at either the
point of maximum bending or maximum shear.
Thus the precise joint position in the slab span is
not vitally important.
• Where it is essential to avoid cracking in a
special building, a slab attached to and between
CONCRETE ADVICE NO. 02
any two major points of vertical stiffness should
be divided by a full free movement joint in order
to avoid the opening of the construction joints or
initiation of other cracks. Slab edges at a
movement joint need stiffening beams.
Formation of joints
• Thorough compaction of the concrete at
construction joints is most important. The face of
the joint should be prepared by scrubbing the
concrete while still immature with a stiff brush
and water to expose the larger aggregate
cleanly and to provide a better key for the
subsequent adjacent pour. Mechanical
scabbling of joint faces at an early age should
not be used as it can remove or dislodge the
coarse aggregate.
• Consideration should be given to the use of
permanent built-in precast concrete rails or
proprietary steel mesh to form construction
joints. The precast forms are shaped to provide
a good shear key at their location and also
provide a means of obtaining good slab levels.
They avoid the need for costly split temporary
timber side forms to accommodate reinforcing
bars. Adequate reinforcement should be placed
through holes in the precast forms to provide the
necessary designed reinforcement at correct
level across the joint.
Restraint and provision of reinforcement
• Grids of downstand beams in a floor structure
with normal percentages of steel cause the
contraction of the enclosed slab to be resisted. If
the percentage of steel is high enough and
evenly distributed in the beams, there is little
reason to restrict the length of slab pour in either
direction, over several grids, except from the
point of view of early temperature effects. If
there are beams in one direction only, then
unless the slab in the transverse direction has a
high enough percentage of steel, cracks are
likely to occur within each bay parallel to the
main beams. The important requirement here is
to provide continuous top reinforcement
throughout the slab panels in order to control
any shrinkage cracking that might occur.
• Openings in floors may cause more severe,
locally tensile stresses and call for particular
care to avoid cracking. Diagonal reinforcing bars
at corners of openings will be beneficial, for
controlling cracking at permanent openings, as
well as temporary openings, e.g. for tower
cranes.
Sequence and area of pours
• The location of construction joints and allowable
pour sequences should be agreed between the
designer and the contractor well before
construction commences.
 Page 3 of 3 CONCRETE ADVICE NO. 02

• There is no arbitrary limit on the size of a pour.

• Progressive (consecutive) sequences of pours
are preferred to alternate pours, e.g. ‘hit and
miss’, chequer-board casting patterns.
• Proceed with slab pouring and pours sequence
in a direction away from any point of extreme
vertical stiffness (staircase or lift shaft), i.e.
Licensed copy: BUROHAPP, Buro Happold Ltd, 16/09/2019, Uncontrolled Copy, © Concrete Society
The size of a pour will be determined by
practical considerations. The maximum area of
a slab pour must be controlled such that it can
be properly concreted and finished by the labour
force in the allowable working day, and
adequate equipment and concrete supply must
be available to the contractor during the

commence the first pour at the staircase or lift proposed working period. If a job is
shaft. undermanned, or the equipment is not
appropriate, there is a greater risk of inadequate
compaction, poor quality of floor finishing and
plastic cracking due to poor curing and
protection.

Further reading
THE CONCRETE SOCIETY, Non-structural cracks in concrete, Technical Report 22, Fourth Edition, The
Concrete Society, Camberley, 2010.
CIRIA, Early-age thermal crack control in concrete. C660, CIRIA London, 2007 (revision expected 2016)
BSI. BS 8007: 1987, Code of practice for design of concrete structures for retaining aqueous liquids, BSI,
London, (withdrawn).
BSI. BS EN 1992-3: 2006, Eurocode 2. Design of concrete structures. Liquid retaining and containing
structures, BSI, London.
BSI. BS EN 1992-1-1: 2004, Eurocode 2: Design of Concrete structures, Part 1-1, General rules and rules
for buildings, BSI, London.

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Issued Jul 2003

Reviewed Oct 2016

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