Ultra Floor Flooring
The innovative Ultrafloor system was pioneered in New South Wales during the early 1990's and after extensive use in the Sydney-Newcastle region is now available across the whole of Australia.
Ultrafloor has proven cost savings to developers and builders due to its ease and speed of erection, and readily determined reduction in construction time.
The primary aim in the development of the Ultrafloor system was firstly to reduce propping and eliminate costly and wasteful formwork from the process of constructing a reinforced concrete suspended floor, and secondly to create a quick and simple installation procedure.
To achieve this, a system was developed (and refined over the years) whereby:
1. Precast prestressed concrete beams are laid out on a grid according to the geometry of the building and spaced appropriately, supported onto the primary structure (loadbearing masonry, precast walls, steel frames or reinforced concrete beams). Better still, they can be supported onto Ultrafloor reinforced or post-tensioned band systems.
2. 13mm thick fibre-cement formboard is placed between the Ultrafloor beams to act as permanent, lost formwork.
3. A light reinforcing mesh is placed over the surface and services, penetrations, sleeves etc are positioned.
4. Additional reinforcement may be fixed where needed to create continuous action over supports or for a composite section with greater load-carrying capacity where spans are longer. Band beam reinforcement is also placed at this stage.
5. The concrete is poured to a thickness of 90mm or 100mm depending on the system selected, creating a structural composite section of 180mm or 200mm depth.
Benefits of using U/F in Commercial Applications
The Ultrafloor system has many benefits for both the builder and developer.
The reasons:
- Little or no formwork - less propping.
- Less reinforcement to fix other than placing shrinkage reinforcement mesh.
- Immediate safe working deck and access below the very next day for follow-on trades.
- Service penetrations are easily installed; electrical wiring can easily be run on the soffit of the floor without the need for conduits.
- Totally flexible and therefore easily accommodates construction tolerances.
- Adaptable to any shape building without cost penalties.
- Dramatically reduces site handling - there is no formwork to strip and remove from site.
- A clean, safe site. Much less waste.
- Excellent sound insulation properties as reflected by the Rw (STC) and IIC values.
- Short lead time.
