WO1999043904A1

WO1999043904A1 - A building comprising an above ground wall component comprising a monolithic insulating concrete component

Info

Publication number: WO1999043904A1
Application number: PCT/CA1999/000154
Authority: WO
Inventors: Benoit Guindon
Original assignee: Lafarge Canada Inc.
Priority date: 1998-02-24
Filing date: 1999-02-22
Publication date: 1999-09-02
Also published as: AU2606199A; CA2231018A1

Abstract

In a building comprising an above ground wall component comprising a monolithic concrete component, the above ground wall component having a degree of strength to function as a load-bearing building wall, the improvement wherein the monolithic concrete component comprises an insulating concrete (11).

Description

TITLE: A building comprising an above ground wall component

comprising a monolithic insulating concrete component

The present invention relates to an insulating wall structure which comprises a

monolithic concrete component.

The construction of a conventional lumber-framed house or building is a relatively

slow and expensive process because of the time needed to assemble a large variety of

components. A typical load bearing wall may include a wooden frame, together with

an inner wall surface of drywall board and an outer wall surface of exterior wall

siding.

On the other hand, it has been proposed to reduce construction costs by providing a

composite wall fabricated of a combination of forms which provide a space into

which concrete can be poured so as to obtain a monolithic concrete wall structure.

Thereafter wall boards, such as drywall or plywood, wood chip board, exterior wall

siding, etc., may be secured to the finished composite wall structure to provide a

finished interior or exterior wall. It is known for example to provide a non-

removable insulating type concrete wall forming structure held apart by attachment

means such as plastic ties and between which concrete may be poured so as to

provide an insulated composite wall structure; in this case however the insulating

character of the wall component is attributable (in essence) to the presence of the insulating wall forming structure.

However, it would be advantageous to have an insulating concrete wall the thermal

resistance of which may be adjusted or customized based on the concrete itself, i.e. to

have an insitu insulated concrete wall structure.

STATEMENT OF INVENTION

The present invention provides in a building comprising an above ground wall

component comprising a monolithic concrete component, said above ground wall

component having a degree of strength to function as a load-bearing building wall

(i.e. of a strength for supporting a roof, an upper floor or other structure thereon),

the improvement wherein the monolithic concrete component comprises an

insulating concrete; as desired or necessary a face or facade component may be

disposed over at least one of the opposed broad faces thereof, namely either on the

exterior side thereof or on the interior side thereof.

The present invention in particular provides in a building comprising an above

ground composite wall component, said above ground composite wall component

comprising a pair of face (or facade) components and an intermediate monolithic

concrete core component therebetween, said above ground (i.e. structural) wall

component having a degree of strength to function as a load-bearing building wall,

the improvement wherein the concrete core component comprises (e.g. consists of) an insulating concrete.

In accordance with the present invention the wall component may comprise a pair of

panel components arranged in parallel relationship and secured together by

connecting members (e.g. thermal insulating connecting members such as for

example plastic anchors) such that the space between the plates may be filled with

the insulating concrete. In this case the panel components may contribute to the

structural strength of the composite wall.

The structure and composition of the elements of a wall component are in any event selected not only on the basis of the desired or necessary load bearing characteristics but also for the desired thermal resistance i.e. the desired R-factor. The term "R- factor" serves to describe the overall thermal resistance of the wall without regard to the thickness thereof. However, the R-factor may be used to described thermal resistance per inch of thickness of the wall component.

In accordance with the present invention it is to be understood that the expression

"insulating concrete" comprises any (known) hydraulically or air set cementitious

composition (e.g.. a hydraulically hardened composition ) which has a relatively low

thermal conductivity and in particular, for example, a hardened composition

comprising a thermal insulating aggregate as a component thereof. The hardened cementitious composition may for example be obtained by exploiting

any cementitious material or substance which when mixed with water (or some other

liquid or both) may form a cementing paste which will set into a rigid shape. The

cementitious material or substance may for example comprise materials as described

in U.S. patent no. 5,631,097 (the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by

reference ) such as for example a portland cement, a magnesia cement, an alumina

cement etc.. The cementitious composition may also comprise admixture materials

or adjuvants such as (short) fibers or (known) chemical admixtures or additives.

Insulating type concretes are known; see for example U.S. patent 5,631,097

mentioned above as well as U.S. patent number 4,541 ,870, Canadian patent no.

1,225,105 and Canadian patent no. 1,283,666; the entire contents of these patents is

herein incorporated by reference. It is known for example to incorporate into a

cementitious matrix a thermal insulating aggregate which will provide or impart a

concrete with a relatively low thermal conductivity such as for example expanded

vermiculite, expanded perlite, expanded polystyrene beads or other types of expanded

synthetic polymeric materials and the like. It is also known to incorporate into the

cementitious matrix air pockets in addition to or in place of the above mentioned

thermal insulating aggregates in order to impart the concrete with a desired degree of

insulation characteristics.

As mentioned above, a cementitious matrix may have fibers incorporated therein. These may be incorporated into a cementitious matrix in order to increase the

strength thereof, i.e. in order to increase, for example, the tensile and/or compressive

strength thereof. The fibers may for example be made of synthetic materials

including polyolefms, such as polyethylene and polypropylene; polyesters; polyvinyl

chloride; polyvinylidene chloride; polyamides and aromatic polyamides; etc..

The term fibers as employed herein shall be understood to include monofilament

materials, multifilament materials, slit films etc.. The fibers may have any

configuration e.g. cross-sectional configurations such as rectangular, square, round,

oval, hollow, triangular, and the like. Additionally, the fibers may be tri-lobal, multi-

lobal, fibrillated, collated, bonded fibrils, entangled monofilaments or monofilaments

and the like; please see figure 3 of U.S patent no. 5,456,752 for an example configuration of a fibrillated fiber.

Thus an insulating concrete (core) component may, for example, be obtained from a cementitious slurry comprising water, an hydraulically or air setting substance, short

fiber (e.g. fibrillated fibers, e.g. fibrillate fibers of polypropylene) and a thermal

insulating aggregate; the slurry being of predetermined thickness for allowing the

slurry to be poured between wall forms which may as described herein define the

face components of the wall component of a building.

Keeping the above in mind the concrete component may be a lightweight insulating monolithic concrete core component, e.g. lightweight due to the presence of

lightweight aggregate; the lightweight aggregate may also be an insulating aggregate.

In accordance with the present invention an above ground wall component for a

building may be constructed by disposing a plurality of wall panels in spaced apart

edge to edge relation so as to define a pair of spaced apart wall forms; any suitable

means may be provided for joining the adjacent edges of the panels together. The

wall forms may be braced in position in any suitable (known) fashion, e,g, the wall

forms may be interconnected by any suitable attachment means e.g. by non-metallic

tie holders such as a thermally resistant (i.e. heat transfer resistant) tie members which may be made of any suitable plastic material able to provide the desired or necessary heat transfer resistance. The panels may be of any desired or suitable material such as wood, polymeric materials etc. or even metal; the panels may in particular be wood chip panels or boards. If the panels are interconnected by tie members, the tie members may advantageously be made of low thermal conductivity material in order not to detract from the insulating characteristics of the concrete

component of the wall, e.g. plastic ties. As desired the wall forms may be

configured so as to define openings for the provision of doors, windows, etc. in the

obtained wall component; alternatively as the case may be such openings may be cut

out of the obtained wall component by any suitable means once the insulating

concrete has set e.g. the openings may be cut out by a saw or saw like device. Once the desired wall forms are in place, an insulating concrete slurry or paste may be poured therebetween so as to fill the space between opposed wall forms and hardened in place (i.e. in-situ) to produce a poured concrete wall (core) component. Thereafter as desired or needed one or more of the wall forms may be removed. Advantageously, however if the both wall forms are suitably interconnected by tie members they may be left in place to contribute to the strength of the wall and/or insulating characteristics of the wall (i.e. if the wall forms are of polymeric insulating material such as for example polystyrene); as may be appreciated, in this case the result is a wall composite of sandwich construction comprising at least two opposed outer member layers and at least one intermediate or interposed insulating member layer.

In accordance with the present invention an insulating (lightweight) concrete may be formed by mixing the following ingredients (e.g. over a period of about 10 minutes):

- type 10 or 30 cement (100 to 500 kg per cubic metre) - 40 to 300 litres of water per cubic metre

- 50 ml to 500 ml per 100 kg of cement of a suitable air entraining agent (such as, for example Micro Air by Masterbuilder Technologies, Montreal Quebec, Canada)

-0.5 to 1 kg per cubic meter of polypropylene fibers having a length of 10 mm to 40 mm

- 500 to 1000 litres of polystyrene beads (e.g. of 1 mm to 5 mm in size) per 5 cubic meter.

An insulating concrete obtained from the above may have a compression resistance of 0J to 10 MPA after 28 days curing. An insulating concrete obtained from the above may have a thermal resistance of R3.0 to R0.5 per inch of thickness. The density of an insulating concrete may, for example, be 200 kg/m³ or higher (e.g. o 200 kg/m³ to 1000 kg/m³).

More particularly, in accordance with the present invention an insulating (lightweight) concrete may be formed by mixing the following ingredients (e.g. over a period of about 10 minutes): 5 - type 10 cement (200 kg per cubic metre)

- 110 litres of water per cubic metre

- 300 ml per 100 kg of cement of a suitable air entraining agent (such as for example Micro Air mentioned above)

- 1 kg per cubic meter of fibrillated polypropylene fibers having a length of 10 o mm to 40 mm

- 1000 litres of polystyrene beads (of, for example, 1 mm to 5 mm size, e.g. 2.5 mm to 4 mm) per cubic meter.

An insulating concrete obtained from the above may have a compression resistance of 0.5 MPA after 28 days curing. An insulating concrete obtained from the above 5 may have a thermal resistance of R2J5 per inch of thickness. The density of the insulating concrete may, for example, be 320 kg/m³. In accordance with the present invention the insulating concrete may be made in

accordance with the teachings of Canadian Patent no. 1 ,283,666, i.e. the insulating

concrete may, for example, have a density 400 kg/m³ to 1000 kg/m³.

In drawings which illustrate example embodiments of the present invention:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a pair of wall forms with insulated concrete

hardened therebetween wherein each wall form is defined by a

plurality of wood-chip panels attached together in edge to edge

fashion by retainer members, the wall forms being interconnected by

transversely extending tie members;

Figure 2 is a plan view of a wood chip panel used to form the wall forms

shown in figure 1 ;

Figure 3 is a plan view of a retainer member shown in figure 1 which is used to

attach the wood chip panels together in edge to edge fashion;

Figure 4 is a schematic side view of a tie member shown in figure 1 for

interconnecting the wall forms;

Figure 5 is an enlarged schematic perspective view showing a tie member being installed in aligned notches in adjacent panels and in the notch

of a retainer member;

Figure 6 is an enlarged schematic perspective view showing a tie member

secured to a retainer member, the retainer member being attached to

adjacent wood chip panels by attachment elements (e.g. wood

screws);

Figure 7 is a schematic side view of an example combined or unitary

retainer/tie member in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 8 is an end view of the unitary retainer/tie member shown in figure 7;

Figure 9 is a schematic cross-sectional view of an empty wall form structure

before insulating concrete slurry is poured between the wall forms

thereof to fill the space therebetween;

Figure 10 is a schematic top view of an empty example wall form structure

configured to define a rectangular wall component before insulating

concrete slurry is poured between the wall forms to fill the space

therebetween; and

10 Figure 1 1 is a schematic illustration of a building with a peaked roof sitting on

a wall component in accordance with the present invention.

Referring to figures 1 to 6, a pair of wall forms 1 and 2 are shown in a spaced apart

and a more or less parallel relationship. Each of the wall forms 1 and 2 are made up

of a plurality of wood chop panels 4. The panels 4 are arranged in abutting edge to

edge relationship. A plurality of tie members 6 interconnect the wall forms 1 and 2;

the tie members 6 may, for example, be of any suitable thermally resistant plastic

material. The tie members 6 are disposed at the edge interface 5 between adjacent

abutting wood chip panels 4. A plurality of retainer members 10 attaches adjacent wood chip panels together. The opposed ends of each tie member 6 engages a slot 11 of a respective retainer member 10.

Once the wood chip panels 4, tie members 6 and retainer members 10 are arranged as shown in figure 1 (and if necessary braced by bracing members 15 as shown in figure 9) insulating concrete slurry is poured into the space between the wall forms where it

is allowed to cure (i.e. harden). In figure 1 the hardened insulating concrete is

designated generally by the reference numeral 1 1 ; the insulating concrete 1 1 includes

in its matrix thermal insulating aggregate, one aggregate element being designated

generally by the reference numeral 12. The panels 4 may have a thickness of 15/32

of an inch whereas the insulating concrete may have a thickness between the panels 4

of 7.5 inches. In the embodiment shown the wood chip panels are left in place and

11 5 if desired additional facade (i.e. finishing) components such as gypsum board for the interior side and weather proof siding or cladding for the exterior side may be attached thereto in any suitable manner (e.g. by screws, nails, etc.).

Each wood chip panel 4 of figure 1 is provided with a plurality of edge notches 20 0 (see figure 2). For illustration purposes, only four notches 20 are shown per edge of the panel 4 in figure 2; a panel could of course have more or less notches 20 depending on the circumstances such as the wall height, thickness etc... These notches 20 are disposed so as to align with the corresponding notches of a similar adjacent wood chip panel. Retainer members 10 are shown by way of example only s as being attached to adjacent wood-chip panels by screw elements 25 (see figure 6) which extend into the panels through respective openings 30 in the retainer members 10. Referring in particular to figure 4 the tie members 6 are provided at each extremity thereof with an annular notch 35 and include a head part 40 which is larger than the notch 11 of a retainer member 10; the tie members 6 have a neck part 45 o which is sized smaller than the notch 1 1. The portion of the tie members 6 behind

each of the neck parts 45 is sized smaller than the notchs 20 in the wood chip panels.

Referring in particular to figures 5 and 6, the neck part 45 of the tie member 6 is

disposed into the notch 1 1 of the retainer member 10. The retainer member 10 is

5 then moved in the direction of the arrow 47 and is attached to one wood chip panel 4

such that the notch 1 1 thereof is aligned with the notch 20 of the respective wood

12 chip panel 4 and the tie member 6 is disposed in the notch 20 of the wood panel to

which the retainer member 10 is attached. Thereafter another wood chip panel 4 is

disposed in edge to edge relation with the wood chip panel 4 to which the retainer

member 10 is attached (e.g. by screws 25) such the notches 20 thereof are aligned

with the correspond notchs 20 of the adjacent panel 4 and the tie member 6 engages a

respective notch 20 thereof. The retainer member 10 is then (screw) attached to this

other wood chip panel 4 as well. This process is of course carried out is in similar

fashion with respect to the other retainer and tie member combinations for attaching

the wood chip panels 4 together so as to obtain the desired wall forms. The wall

forms are of course disposed on a suitable footing component.

Referring to figures 7 and 8, these figures illustrate a unitary retainer/tie member 50

which has a central tie element 51 and opposed end plates 52 and 53 which are

provided with screw attachment holes 55. This unitary retainer/tie member is

connected to the wood panels in analogous fashion to the attachment of the separate

retainer and tie members 10 and 6 respectively.

Referring to figure 9 the empty wall form structure comprising the wall forms 1 and

2 may if desired or necessary be braced by bracing members 15 during the pouring

and hardening process; the insulating concrete slurry or paste is poured between the

forms 1 and 2 in the direction of the arrow 60. The bracing members 15 are

intended to be removed once the insulating concrete is cured, i.e. hardened. The

13 wood chip panels 4 are on the other hand left in place as part of the wall component; the interconnected wood chip panels 4 enhancing the strength of the wall component.

Referring to Figure 10, this figure is a schematic top view of an empty example wall form structure configured to define a rectangular wall component before insulating concrete slurry is poured between the wall forms to fill the space therebetween;. After curing of the insulating concrete a roof component (not shown) may for example be disposed upon the so obtained wall component; the roof component may for example be flat, sloped etc. Figure 11 shows in schematic fashion a building with a peaked roof 70 sitting on a wall component 75 in accordance with the present invention.

14

Claims

I claim:

1. In a building comprising an above ground wall component comprising a monolithic concrete component, said above ground wall component having a degree of strength to function as a load-bearing building wall, the improvement wherein the monolithic concrete component comprises an insulating concrete.

2. In a building comprising an above ground composite wall component, said above ground composite wall component comprising a pair of face components spaced apart by an intermediate monolithic concrete core component disposed therebetween, said above ground composite wall component having a degree of strength to function as a load-bearing building wall, the improvement wherein the concrete core component comprises an insulating concrete.

3. A building as defined in claim 2 wherein said insulating concrete is a lightweight insulating concrete.

4. A building as defined in claim 2 wherein each face component comprises a

15 plurality of panel elements arranged edge to edge.

5. A building as defined in claim 4 wherein said panel elements are each wood chip panel elements.

6. A building as defined in claim 4 wherein said panel elements are secured together by thermal insulating connecting members.

7. A building as defined in claim 5 wherein said panel elements are secured together by thermal insulating connecting members.

8. A building as defined in claim 1 wherein the concrete component comprises thermal insulating aggregate.

9. A building as defined in claim 2 wherein the concrete component comprises thermal insulating aggregate.

16