UK project on "Innovative Assembly of Structural Components"

A project has been awarded to Building Research Establishment (BRE) in England under the DETR Framework Programme to investigate process issues and new technical solutions for jointing of structural components, principally in pre-cast concrete.

A number of joints have already been investigated, including column/column, beam/column, flat slab/column and slab/slab joints. All of the joints tested so far were based on CRC JointCast in order to make the joints as small and as simple as possible - to design as well as to carry out. A preliminary report has been issued for the project and in all the tests failure took place either in the parent concrete or as yielding of the reinforcement - the failure did not occur in the joint. The picture to the left shows one of structures tested - in this case a joint between 2 beams and 2 columns. 

The project started October 1999 and most of the tests have been carried out at this point. Project manager is Richard Moss, BRE and he expects the project to be concluded in May of 2003 as only a few tests - investigating glued connections - remain to be done. Under the heading "CRC JointCast" is shown an example of one of the joints tested.

BRE already have experience with CRC JointCast as this material was used on one of the floors of the European Concrete Building Project at Cardington. The concrete frame is shown on the left.

Even thought the innovative joints project is not yet concluded BRE is already planning a PII project to implement the concepts developed in the current project.