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Shakopee, Minn. — July 23, 2015 — Gresser Companies, a full-service concrete and masonry contractor, signed a license agreement with Rabine Group/Primekss (pronounced Prime x) of Chicago to provide PrimeComposite, a jointless, steel fiber-reinforced, composite flooring system.
The company is currently licensed to engineer and install PrimeComposite flooring in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, northern Iowa and western Wisconsin, with potential future geographic expansion.
Stronger, yet up to 60 percent thinner than traditional reinforced concrete floors, PrimeComposite flooring is jointless and has virtually no shrinkage or cracking. These characteristics make the system ideal for distribution centers, food processing plants, automotive and aerospace manufacturing, and other facilities benefiting from jointless floors.
"Concrete is the world's most ubiquitous building and flooring material," said Janis Oslejs, CEO of Primekss Group. "PrimeComposite is a better-quality floor that reduces building and usage costs. Gresser Companies, together with Primekss Rabine, is building the most durable, leanest jointless and environmentally friendly floors the world has ever known. PrimeComposite takes concrete to a new quality and environmental level."
Kevin A. MacDonald, principal engineer at Benton Consulting Engineers and former chair of ACI 223 "shrinkage compensating concrete, said, "Traditional concrete slab design is still based on analysis from the 1950s and '60s. Even though slabs are a main complaint of building owners and maintenance managers, there has been very little design effort to improve it."
Concrete dries from the top down, resulting in curling at the joints and around the perimeter. This can cause the slab to lose contact with the base material, making it susceptible to fracture. Curling also increases maintenance and repair costs of forklifts, other equipment, and the slab. In warehouses, forklifts crossing the step in elevation often results in the forks scraping the floor and creating jarring impacts. High-reach stackers operate with decreased accuracy and need more maintenance, impacting productivity. Also, storage rack position needs to be planned around uneven flooring at the joints.
Each PrimeComposite floor is specifically engineered to exceed load requirements of the specific floor by Gresser's experienced engineering team. The PrimeComposite floor is virtually maintenance free and has a significantly longer life cycle than conventional concrete slab floors. The no-curl, no-control joint properties reduce equipment maintenance costs, increase material-handling productivity, and allow storage racks to be placed and moved wherever needed — creating complete design flexibility compared with traditional concrete.
"Conforming to International Building Code, PrimeComposite jointless floors are a different way to approach slabs on ground. Comparable to solutions that have been around for over 20 years, this is a more modern construction," MacDonald said. "Conceptually similar to carbon fiber, the steel fibers and expanding construction spread out the load over a large area. A thinner slab of PrimeComposite flooring is stronger than traditional concrete slabs and requires no joints. While some cracking may occur, the steel fibers prevent sheering."
For more information, visit www.gresserco.com.
