Van Marcke, Menen, Belgium

The construction of the Van Marcke distribution center on the LARZuid industrial terrain in Rekkem is one of the largest projects of its kind in Belgium to date. The expansive structure includes an expansive + 40.000 m2 pile-supported jointless concrete floor.

Ben Vanheuverzwijn, sales engineer with Bekaert, talks about the main challenges of the project, and the solutions Bekaert offered.

“The concrete distribution floor required a substantial load bearing capacity as it is submitted to busy forklift trafc and rack loads of up 10 tons per foot. The added challenge on this requirement is that the subbase at the jobsite mainly consists of clay.”

"To handle the soft subbase, we opted for a pile-supported foundation. We not only recommended the perfect pile grid and steel fber for the job, we also calculated the required steel fber dosage to achieve the prescribed properties for the slab. The calculations included working out the flexural moments in the floor, investigating the punching effect of the piles, and determining the optimal diameter of the piles and pile heads.

With this data, we were able to adjust the floor thickness and reinforcement in certain areas of the slab without having to use mesh. This resulted in important cost-savings for Van Marcke. ”