# structural concrete...



## mdshunk (Mar 13, 2005)

I'd like to learn a little more about the type of concrete construction I've been working in for the last couple of days. The house was built in the late 50's, and is all concrete. The exterior walls are 3-core 10" CMU's, and there are a few 2-core 8" CMU shear walls indoors. The floors are all concrete, and this is what my question is about. The GC for this remodel calls the floors an "F & A System", but doesn't know what the "F" and the "A" stand for. I'll describe the sytem: It starts with steel beam reinforced precast concrete girders, set about 4' apart. They are topped with approximately 6" wide precast concrete planks. That is all covered with a few inches of poured reinforced concrete as a topping coat. Is this system famaliar to anyone? Is it, indeed, an F&A system? If so, what does that stand for? OR, does this system have some other trade name? I'm famaliar with the "span deck" type of concrete floor and the normal type of poured concrete over corrugated tin that is common nowadays. I've never seen the system that I've just described before. 

Fill me in... thanks.


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## Teetorbilt (Feb 12, 2004)

I suppose that you Googled it, as I did. The system is very similar to homes built here in the 50's. The difference is that the girders, corners and topcap were, generally, poured at once. In some homes, rebar was added to the cores and the entire wall was poured. The internal concrete walls were for bracing the exterior walls against hurricane winds.

That's about all that I can contribute, I exited the 50's at age 9.


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## catalfanoc (Feb 11, 2005)

I am working on a house very similar to that right now. The house we are working on is precast and each peice is keyed into the next. They actually made a temp concrete plant on site and built about 40 or so houses. They are a real pain to build an addition on because of all the weight the roof is 8" thick concrete and we are taking the whole back wall out. We have to install a big I-beam.


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## RED HORSE 554 (Jun 26, 2008)

mdshunk said:


> I'd like to learn a little more about the type of concrete construction I've been working in for the last couple of days. The house was built in the late 50's, and is all concrete. The exterior walls are 3-core 10" CMU's, and there are a few 2-core 8" CMU shear walls indoors. The floors are all concrete, and this is what my question is about. The GC for this remodel calls the floors an "F & A System", but doesn't know what the "F" and the "A" stand for. I'll describe the sytem: It starts with steel beam reinforced precast concrete girders, set about 4' apart. They are topped with approximately 6" wide precast concrete planks. That is all covered with a few inches of poured reinforced concrete as a topping coat. Is this system famaliar to anyone? Is it, indeed, an F&A system? If so, what does that stand for? OR, does this system have some other trade name? I'm famaliar with the "span deck" type of concrete floor and the normal type of poured concrete over corrugated tin that is common nowadays. I've never seen the system that I've just described before.
> 
> Fill me in... thanks.


 http://www.structuremag.org/article.aspx?articleID=753 see if this helps


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