New developments in lift slab construction

Figure 1. The lift slab technique reduces costs for multistory buildings by eliminating most formwork. A typical lifting sequence is illustrated above. BY FRANK A. RANDALL, JR. STRUCTURAL ENGINEER

ift slab construction was a revolutionary idea in the early 1950s when it was developed by the Youtz-Slick company. Since then it has become a basic method of economical concrete construction, especially for office buildings, apartments, parking g a ra g e s, hotels and other structures chara c t e ri zed by repetitive framing from floor to floor.

What is lift slab construction?

Basically, the method entails casting floor and roof slabs on or at ground level and jacking them up into position. The traditional lift slab construction sequence is illustrated in Figure 1. Flat plate floors are commonly used because they are so well suited to stack-casting, requiring formwork at only the edges of the slab and at floor openings. Special lifting collars or shearheads are provided in the slabs at the columns. Bond breaking compounds are applied between slabs to separate them. After the slabs have cured long enough to reach a prescribed strength, powerful hydraulic jacks mounted on top of the columns lift the slabs into their respective positions. A console

connected to each hydraulic jack synchronizes the number of turns of the check nuts to assure that the concrete slab is being raised the same amount at all points. Lift slab can be used for heights up to about 16 stories. Economical column spacing ranges from 22 to 32 feet. Columns may be pipe, tubes or wide flange sections; concrete columns may be used in 3- to 4-story buildings not requiring splices. The big advantage of erecting concrete buildings using lift slab construction is elimination of most formwork, an especially important factor in areas where labor costs are high. Concrete floor construction at ground level is convenient and requires no shores, scaffolds or c ra n e s. Slabs can be cast and protected easily during cold weather without expensive heating and enclosures required for ordinary construction. Another advantage is reduced handling and hoisting of materials and supplies that can simply be placed on top of the slabs and lifted with them. Because lift slab uses concrete, the technique offers good fire resistance and good acoustic ratings. Mass designed into walls, floors and roofs helps to reduce the

Another refinement controls the amount of lift at each column. A steel tape runs from each column to a central sensing device in a console which monitors the relative movements and automatically operates the pumps, switching them off and on as necessary to keep the floor perfectly level as it moves upward at approximately one inch per minute. Safety is provided by electrically driven nuts which follow the movement of the hydraulic cylinders. If a gap develops above a nut, an alarm first goes off. When the gap grows to more than 3/8 inch, the associated pump stops, in turn stopping the entire lifting operation. This assures fall-back protection in case of hydraulic failure. Using these improvements, a firm in Florida has constructed twenty 2- and 3-story buildings with reported time savings up to five weeks per building and cost savings up to 20 percent, even though the roofs were only framed with wood. The elevated concrete floors cost $3.45 per square foot, complete. Second floor slabs are lifted in one day, a job with second and third floor slabs requires 3 days. The same firm has recently constructed a 350,000-square-foot, 6-story building for HUD and produces about one million square feet of lift slab buildings per year.

Floors and walls lifted at same time

A new lift slab system has evolved in which concrete bearing walls are lifted simultaneously with the slabs. Although untried so far in the United States, this method has been employed by a contractor in Latin America for building over 20,000 apartment units totaling 14 million square feet of space. Concrete bearing walls are cast flat in the same stack with the slabs and attached to the slab with loops of plastic rope, forming hinges. As the slab is raised, each wall panel automatically unfolds into position. Since the walls are load-bearing, there is no need for expensive steel columns or lifting collars as used in conventional lift-slab work. The steel columns used for erection are removed and reused elsewhere. Figure 3 shows the construction procedure at seve ra l stages. In the background is a building already lifted; little finishing work is required. On the roof of the building in the foreground are the diesel pumping unit (the console is just out of sight on the roof) and two balance beams with trapezoidal ends showing. The third-story floor slab is partially raised, lifting having been temporarily halted. Note the automatically unfolding walls with their window openings cast in. The laborer on the second floor is cleaning up the sand and thin concrete coat which had filled the window opening when the slab immediately above it was cast at ground level. The only weight on the ground story walls at this time is that of the second floor slab and half of the weight of the unfolding walls above; the bulk of the weight of the building is in the stack hanging from the jacks above. The crew on the ground, using a bottle jack and shore, lifts the second floor slightly at local points to allow final

Figure 2. Recent changes in lift slab construction include supporting the hydraulic jack off the column by a welded plate. The old approach used jacks mounted on top of the columns. Columns can now be up to 6 stories tall without field splices. effects of daily temperature changes. Concrete has a thermal storage capacity that delays and reduces temperature swings in response to solar radiation, outdoor temperature changes and indoor heating. In addition, concrete flat plate floors and roofs reduce building cubage, which lowers taxes and heat and wall costs.

An improved lifting procedure

Developments in the construction field have changed lift slab techniques over its 33-year history. For one thing, increased use of pumping and prestressing has made cast-in-place flat plate work more efficient. Recent improvements in positioning of the jacks has brought further advances. In the conventional system hydraulic jacks are mounted on top of the columns, limiting the height of the columns and making it necessary to remove the jacks before splicing on the next upper column tier. The new approach allows columns to be erected as tall as 6 stories without field splices. The jack is supported off the column by a welded plate that is later used to support the slab shearhead (Figure 2).

Note that the columns have been stabilized by securing them to the second floor slab. Winches on the columns are rigged to the bridge (truss) through pulleys on top of the columns. The bridges, supported on shear pins through the columns, support the jacks; bars from the jacks support the balance beams; each beam is attached to the stack of slabs by rods at its ends. Thin, 5inch-thick, floors are made possible by short spans both during lifting and when in place. Walls of only 4-inch thickness are adequate because they have a long bearing length. The openings in the walls will be filled with masonry walls, precast panels or other curtain wall materials. The perimeter forms have already been stripped and are probably in use on the next building being cast. The columns and bridges, reusable up to several hundred times, can be taken apart for easy transport to the next job. The absence of decking formwork shores, scaffolding, hoists and cranes further illustrates the simplicity of the lift slab operation. Figure 3. A lift slab system used extensively in Latin America involves casting concrete bearing walls flat in the stack along with the floor slabs. The wall panels are hinged to the floor with plastic rope, allowing them to unfold automatically as the stack is raised into position.

Editors note For a more detailed description of the system for lifting floors and wall simultaneously, see CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION, September 1981, page 717.

plumbing of the ground story wall; the man at left is prying the top of the wall panel for final adjustment. The cart frame for relocating some internal walls is in the opening at the right.

PUBLICATION #C860115
Copyright 1986, The Aberdeen Group All rights reserved