ABSTRACT
Precast concrete flooring offers an economic and versatile solution to ground and suspended floors in any type of building construction. Worldwide, approximately half of the floors used in commercial and domestic buildings are of precast concrete. It offers both design and cost advantages over traditional methods such as cast in situ concrete, steel-concrete composite and timber floors. There are a wide range of flooring types available to give the most economic solution for all loading and spans. The planks are relatively inexpensive to produce in a range of moulds of different sizes. It is usual for a structural topping to be applied to the floor, and this is reinforced using a mesh. A floor slab may comprise of a large number of individual units, each designed to cater for specified loads, moments etc., or it may comprise a complete slab field where the loads are shared between the precast units according to the structural response of each component.
