The quality of floor surfaces in industrial and commercial premises can be vitally important to effective business operations. Smooth floors are particularly important for storage operations, but strength, durability and economy are demands imposed by all industrial applications. Increasingly rigorous specifications for industrial floors have resulted in considerable changes in the methods used for their construction.


New materials (steel fibres, steel permanent forms, etc), alternative design packages and the demands of brownfield and difficult sites have created a new generation of floors. This guide describes the requirements of industry for high-quality floors and relates these to the engineering solutions adopted as current working practice. The design theory, construction techniques and management of floor-slab construction projects are presented to provide engineers with a broad understanding of the central principles of modern concrete ground floor construction.


Following the success of the 1996 publication, this second edition has been extensively reviewed to address the influence of the many subsequent developments in materials, specification, components and site applications. Many of these developments raise issues of mutual compatibility. The revised guide sets out to describe these and identify principles by which many common problems can be avoided.