BRE Innovative joints

As described in the R & D section the Building Research Establishment in the UK has carried out a number of tests on CRC JointCast in an effort to provide new and innovative jointing systems that should increase the use of prefabricated pre-cast concrete in the UK construction sector.

A total of 5 types of joints has been tested so far - all based on CRC JointCast. One of these joints is shown in the pictures on the left. The top picture shows the joint before casting, and the bottom picture shows the monolithic system after testing. In this particular case 4 slab elements are joined together and at the same time - and in the same casting operation - they are joined to a column coming up from below.

In this case failure occurred as yielding of the reinforcement, and in fact in all the tests failure occurred either as yielding or as failure in the parent concrete. In each case failure load was considerably higher than the design load and the behaviour under service loads was satisfactory.

The project has been supervised by a Steering Group made up of members of industry to ensure that the solutions tested are practical and readily useable in real structures.

It is the intention of the Steering Group to follow up the preliminary report with enough elaboration with regard to construction and design issues that a "Best Practice Guide" can be issued by BRE, giving examples of how a number of generic joints can be carried out.