huangyhg

flat terracotta arch floor
the floor spans 15' and i was told by the architect that is a flat terracotta arch. i cannot probe because above and below are other apartments. does anybody know what kind of thickness will span 15' and what is the self weight of this floor?
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ick2-
can you measure the depth of the terra cotta tiles? is there a mech openg or borehole somewhere where you can see how thick the floor system is?
there are actually two common types of floors built with terra cotta tiles, going back to the 1930's. one uses the tiles in a flat arch (as your architect said), with steel beams used to carry vert loads and horizontal tie rods used to restrain the hor thrust of the flat arches.
another system i have seen uses the tiles as filler between four or five inch wide cast-in-place concrete beams. the beams can be spaced anywhere from 16 to 20 inches o/c. the tiles were laid on temp forms, the spaces between them reinforced with bars, and then the whole thing covered with concrete. there usually is a structural topping of about 2" of structural concrete in this system, over the tops of the tiles.
i have a book by a fellow named jack singleton, published 1957, called "manual of structural design" that has tables giving load capacities for the second type of floor.
i also have charts from a "carnegie companion" dated early in the century for the first type of floor.
let me know what you have. be happy to copy the pertinent pages for you. (suggest you do some math yourself, too. just because the charts were published doesn't mean they are right.)
regards
thanks samdamon for your help.
i am pretty sure that we have the first system of floor and not the second. we have terracotta tiles. i thought that 15' is long span for those and i am looking now to see if there are secondary beams in between the main beams where the terracotta spans to. in any case it seems that the terracota floor is about 20" deep.

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