What type of construction is this?

[WWTEng]

Please see the attached, left of the diagonal beam. Construction is from 1920s. I saw 10" deep S sections spaced 10' oc. In between these beams is infill of clay tiles. But what I can't figure out is the thin straps in between the tiles. Could this be WTs used to support the clay tiles?

 

[BAretired]

Sounds like a good guess to me.

BA

 

[mbullism]

I've seen similar in bulb tees and gypsum...but not clay. FWIW

 

[grantstructure]

Aren't the S beams supporting the tiles already on their bottom flanges--and if those lines in between the tiles are the end of a steel tee, wouldn't the tee orientation be the opposite of what you'd expect?

Maybe it was obvious that those 'lines' are steel when you visited the site, but if I just saw the photo I would have assumed they were grout.

 

[racookpe1978]

Probably stiffeners (spacers) between the webs of the S-beams.

But I can't figure why they'd stuff tiles (heavy, non-structurally-strong, non-mortared bricks, non-insulated bricks?) between the S-beams.

 

[BAretired]

Looks like the flange of the WT is exposed below the tiles. The WTs are spaced at maybe 16" or 24" (the length of a tile). The joints running the other way are probably grout between tiles.

BA

 

[Ron]

Agree with BAretired...flange of tee section exposed on bottom. Probably not a bulb tee since the tile is rigid and would have to be slipped in from the ends to avoid the bulb.

 

[dhengr]

WWTEng:
There were a whole bunch of proprietary systems which looked essentially like that, from that era. Most beams in that era were more like today’s S shapes, as were the Tees of that time, so not likely WT’s. The clay tiles were just dropped onto the Tees dry, and then several inches of concrete, with some reinforcing would be cast on top, and btwn. the tiles, depending upon their upper shapes. The whole floor system acted as some sort of a loose composite system, in two directions, but it had good depth and was relatively light with the clay infill. The best thing to do is find someplace with min. loading, and/or min. slab shear and no slab tension; gently open up a 2 or 3' square area from above, and study what you’ve got as you go down. Maybe try to save the bottom half of the clay tiles. Then fill the hole with light weight concrete.

I’d look in a good local engineering library and see if you could find some old catalogs, or some good old structural engineering textbooks or handbooks. Take a look at SlideRuleEras’s web site, here on E-Tips, he has a bunch of good old stuff on file there. Many of those systems had special tiles which fit around and under the steel, because part of the selling point was fireproof floor system construction. So, in that respect, what you show is a bit unusual.

 

[IsaacStructural]

A little hard to make out from the image, but is this a clay tile arch system? I've seen these in Chicago in buildings from this era.

Here is an article from Structure Magazine from their antiquated structural systems series from a few years back.

http://www.structuremag.org/article.aspx?articleid=482

M.S. Structural Engineering
Licensed Structural Engineer and Licensed Professional Engineer (Illinois)

 

[msquared48]

Old.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[WWTEng]

Isaac, It doesn't look like arched construction to me as the ceiling was fairly flat and so is the roof from above. See attached for more clear pictures.

The project has to do with some renovations to a smoke stack and luckily nothing changes where this tile construction is located. I just want to refer to these on my drawings so that the documents look complete/professional.

BTW this is the third tile construction I have run into in the last few months. The first was a clay tile load bearing wall (had a post here about that), second one was concrete floor construction with tile infill and now this. All are from 1890-1920 era.