Warehouse Floor Slab

During the construction of a large warehouse, the building pad was unprotected and experienced abuse by heavy traffic during the erection of the steel structure and walls. It continued to receive traffic and weather during the roof construction. When it was time to build the floor slab, the subgrade was rutted and pumping. Broccolini and GHD called Tensar who conducted dynamic cone penetrometer tests and recorded soil strength of 1.8% CBR with variable subgrade conditions throughout most of the site. The mobile app version of Tensar+ software was used to make a assessment and provide a reliable solution with Tensar geogrid to allow the floor slab construction to proceed.

Without geogrid, around 500 mm of stone would have been required to fix the subgrade. Incorporating InterAx NX850 geogrid into the section reduced the required stone to 285 mm. Even greater time and cost savings could have been realized if Tensar geogrid had been used at the beginning of the project since the crew would have avoided making the change mid project and digging around the building columns. Overall, the stabilized section saved approximately $100k+ in material costs and time compared to an unstabilized section.