Compensation of heat prolongation

[Radoslaff]

Hello all,

I have the following problem: I have designed a stainless steel container with floor heating. The problem is that after some time the stainless steel floor (1 mm thick) swells up because of the temperature prolongation. The heat just has nowhere to go. Can I avoid this? I can't leave distance between the floor sheet and the walls because they have to wash the floor periodically and the water would damage the heating system beneath, so it must be well sealed. Any suggestions?

 

[dvd]

The floor needs some type of expansion joint. If the goal is to make it watertight then a pleat or convolution is required which allows the floor to be welded watertight. The important point to understand in this is that the thermal expansion forces which flex the expansion joint must be less than the forces required to buckle the floor - if not the floor will still buckle. So it is necessary to understand how much force it requires to ELASTICALLY flex the expansion joint and assure that the force required for this is less than the force required to buckle the floor. Draining the floor with expansion convolutions becomes a challenge.

One example of a rib is shown attached.

 

[dvd]

I just looked at the file I uploaded and it is rotated 90 degrees - the vertical sheet shown in the sketch is actually the floor.