He ceramic vault forging It is a construction system with a long history in Spain due to the simplicity of execution and calculation, as well as the availability of ceramic material as a beam element, so deeply rooted in the construction tradition of our country.
Ceramic floors are chosen for their excellent technical performance and for their high aesthetic value and their suitability as a visible element. Ceramic vaults are used as inter-beam pieces in the construction of unidirectional and reticular slabs. Its mission is to serve as lost formwork, acting as a lightening element and, in some cases, also collaborating as a resistant element.
The use of ceramic vaults in the slabs provides great advantages due to the savings resulting from the lightening of the structure Due to its lower own weight, labor savings due to its ease of assembly, greater safety during construction thanks to your lightness and mechanical resistance, savings in maintenance costs as a consequence of its high durability, possibility of use as a resistant element, great adhesion with plaster, mortar and concrete, etc. Furthermore, the ceramic vault floors have good thermal and acoustic insulation performance, as well as excellent behavior against fire.
All these features make them perfectly adapted to compliance with the regulatory requirements included in the Technical Building Code, with different tools to help the designer for the design of ceramic slabs.
Like the rest of the ceramic products, the ceramic vault is a sustainable product. The sustainability of materials It is an increasingly important value in all sectors and especially in construction. The manufacturers associated with Hispalyt have the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) of the ceramic vault to accredit and communicate the environmental excellence of this product.
Furthermore, its durability, reaction to fire and great aesthetic value make the ceramic vault can be used as a viewed element. Thus, we find design buildings in modern architecture in which exposed ceramic vault floors are used.
For all these reasons, the ceramic vault is the ideal solution for use as a beam piece in the construction of slabs.
Industrialization in construction is a rising value and manufacturers of ceramic vaults are no strangers to this trend, so in response to market demands they are developing industrialized systems for creating ceramic floors quickly, economically and safely, guaranteeing all the benefits of ceramic floors.
Ceramic prestressed plates
The building process has undergone important changes in recent decades, due to the tightening of the conditions of habitability and structural safety of buildings due to regulatory changes (CTE, EHE, etc.) and the need to offer greater guarantees to the end user. increasingly demanding.
For this reason and in order to offer solutions that respond to market demands and comply with regulations, Pastrana Ceramics has opted for plates as an effective and innovative system to create unidirectional slabs in buildings of any use and even in civil works.
These ceramic plates, with high resistance and rigidity performance, allow you to achieve large spans and reduce edges, complying at all times with the requirements of the Technical Building Code.
Besides The system has CE marking and the plates are tested by an accredited laboratory, so they offer maximum guarantees. They are fast, safe, self-supporting (no need for propping), They allow installations to be housed and the plaster can be applied directly on the underside.
The prestressed ceramic plate forms a self-supporting element composed of HP-40 prestressed concrete ribs and ceramic interbeam elements. Once assembled on site, the forging of prestressed ceramic plates is completed with a perimeter strapping of reinforced concrete or metal profiles and the pouring of a concrete compression layer with electrowelded mesh and corrugated steel negatives.
The plates come in three different widths, 60, 90 and 1.20 m, to adapt to the distribution of the cloth to be forged. In turn, they are manufactured in different edges (17, 21, 25 and 29 cm) that are combined with different thicknesses of compression layer (minimum 5 cm), in order to achieve the necessary spans with the established loading conditions. spans of up to 9.00 m can be saved.
Placement and advantages
The prestressed plates are placed on supports with lifting means such as a truck-crane or self-propelled crane and are completely self-supporting (they do not need intermediate supports in the span, neither in execution nor in concreting of the compression layer. Nor does it require waiting for stripping or stripping. ).
Among its advantages are the following:
- Speed and safety in assembly, which leads to savings in labor. The plates can be placed, assembled and concreted on the same day. In addition, a safe work surface is created at the same time as the plates are assembled.
- Greater quality guarantees, for its manufacturing under controlled factory conditions, carrying out internal and external quality monitoring for system certification.
- Better technical features, a more competitive product that covers large spans and reduces thickness, with greater inertia and thermal resistance. Improvement of acoustic insulation values in situ and improves fire resistance.
- Self-supporting, does not need placement of sopandas. It supports its own weight, that of the fresh concrete and the working load until the concrete hardens. Eliminates waiting times for removing hoses, allowing work to be done on the lower floor.
- Savings in concrete and reinforced volume, less amount of negative reinforcement (less embedment in support). Avoid filling joist heads and reduce the volume of concrete.
- Constructive simplicity and adaptation to any type of work, preparation of plates in the factory. They can be supported on load-bearing walls, concrete girders and metal beams. Allows cuts in any direction, tube passages, etc.
- Avoid installing a false ceiling and its extra cost. It allows the passage of installations through its sockets and the application of plaster directly on its underside.
From the performance point of view, the system offers the following advantages:
- possibility of accommodate facilities at the bottom Of the piece without the need for false ceilings. The ceramic coating with 38 mm perforations arranged under the rib allows graze and host facilities of small diameter, thus avoiding the extra cost of false ceilings usually used in traditional waffle slabs.
- Perfect alignment and constant rib dimensions, caused by the rigidity of the piece itself and the installation of the system, which offers a additional guarantee to the optional management.
- Improved fire resistance of the slab for having a lower ceramic coating of 40 mm.
- Weight of the slab: The self-weight of the slab is lower than other heavier solutions, such as slabs that use a concrete coffer, with the same spacing and depth of the rib.
From the structural point of view:
- abacus height: due to the 40 mm lower thickness of the piece, in the abacus area its height is increased by those 40 mm, which makes its behavior better.
- Beam height: for the same reason, the height of all the beams of the floor will be equal, at least, to its depth, increasing the volume of concrete and hardly any steel, which in principle will make it work better in torsion.
In addition, the system is being implemented in the CYPECAD calculation software in its 2020 version, making it very simple and practical to use in the calculation or recalculation of any structure in the project.