The history of floor joint armouring.

Historically, when joint armouring was required, 50 x 50 x 5mm steel angles were generally specified. The angles provided excellent joint edge protection if installed correctly. Unfortunately in practice they were hardly ever installed in a flat or horizontal plane to the floor surface, or with concrete properly vibrated under the angles.

In the late nineties the Omega Joint was introduced which was manufactured from 2mm to 5mm thick steel. When the joint opened the continuous dowel could lose connection due to the amount of the joint opening and the continuous dowel could cause a crack to occur from the corner of the dowel diagonally upwards to the top surface of the concrete.

Poor load transfer due to reduction in concrete thickness reduces bursting capacity    

In 2002 I developed AlphaJoint which combined two 40mm x 10mm top strips with 10mm x 100mm shear studs at 275mm centres for armouring the arris of the concrete with a 2mm thick steel divider plate to separate the concrete and a plate dowel for load transfer.

AlphaJoint achieved two unique positions in the world market by becoming the No.1 joint in the world and the No.1 copied joint worldwide.

   See the next FlorCon News for the future of joint armouring

FlorCon Ltd, 8 Hawkmore Parke, Bovey Tracey, Devon, UK. TQ13 9NL

Tel +44 1626 835354 Email [email protected]

FlorCon Rus, ul, Poklonnaya 8, office 13, Moscow 121170 Russian Federation.

Tel: +7 495 1340060 Email [email protected]