Traffic Types
Understanding the type of traffic that a building will experience is important when it comes to specifying a joint system
The nature of traffic moving over expansion joints can have a significant effect upon their longevity; a joint designed for use in a pedestrian area with low traffic frequency will not survive in a warehouse environment where there are forklift and pallet trucks.
Where it is known that a floor will be subjected to a particular vehicle type and load not covered in Tables 1, 2 and 3 of this section, Vexcolt’s Technical Department can provide individual load calculations and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to determine the suitability of a specific product or products.
Extracted from Eurocode EN-1991-1-1 ‘Actions on structures – General actions – densities, self weight, imposed loads for buildings’. This Eurocode details loading from:
- Passenger vehicles ≤ 30kN gross weight (≈3.0 tonnes and having ≤ 8 seats not including the driver)
- General medium sized delivery vehicles and buses of ≤ 160kN gross weight (≈16.3 tonnes)
- Forklift trucks with gross laden weights ranging from 31kN (≈3.1 tonnes) to 190kN (≈19.4 tonnes)
Heavy Road Transport Vehicles
Eurocode EN-1991-2 ‘Actions on structures – traffic load on bridges’ when used in conjunction with National Annexes gives clear guidelines to the types and configuration of road transport vehicles that are normally permissible within Europe.
The maximum static tyre loads shown in Table 3 only represent the vertical forces upon the expansion joint. Due consideration must be given to the translation of horizontal forces applied by the vehicle during transit of the joint.
Fatigue Load Model 4 advises that a Dynamic Load Amplification Factor (DLAF) of 1.3 should be applied at expansion joint location [EN-1991-2, 4.6.1 (6)]. In all cases wheel contact area with the surface of the expansion joint is standardised at 320mm x 220mm.
Table 3 categorises these vehicles by Total Tyre Load value and they are further banded into four groups of similar tyre loading.
