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Cold store, or freezer, floor slabs usually have a three-layer construction comprising one layer of insulation between two layers of concrete. The base slab may be either a ground-bearing or suspended slab on piles, designed to carry the dead load from the top slab and the loading to be applied to the finished slab.
Base slab
Building on experience gained at earlier installations, Rinol Silidur (UK) Ltd has recently completed two freezer slabs, both having mobile racking rails cast into the slab, in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and in Bedworth, Warwickshire. A 270mm-thick Mushroom-Conductil slab, suspended on piles, was proposed to withstand a maximum uniform distributed load of 50kN/m^sup 2^ and a maximum line load from mobile racking of 160kN/m. The slab was reinforced solely with 45kg/m^sup 3^ of Twinplate 50/100 structural steel fibres, which were added to the concrete mix on site using a 'blast machine' (see Figure 1).
The homogenous material was then discharged directly from the concrete wagons at the face of the pour and levelled using a laser screed. Rinol Silidur's patented metallic Delta joint was used as a day joint (see Figure 2). A heater mat and three layers of...