More than Just Bridging the Gap: Selecting Floor Expansion Joints for Hospital and Healthcare Facilities
At Dseal, we understand that floor expansion joints in healthcare facilities must be engineered to withstand specific movements and stresses. Any failure can be unsightly, noisy, dangerous for people, and harmful to expensive medical equipment. The primary cause of damage to interior floor expansion joints and surrounding materials is the point loads from equipment fitted with hard, small-diameter wheels.
Despite the destructive impact of high point loads on healthcare floor joints, this factor is often overlooked. Many expansion joint manufacturers fail to rate the point load resistance of their products under various wheel types, making it difficult for architects, engineers, contractors, and building owners to make informed decisions.
Selection Criteria
Point load resistance is one of three critical criteria for selecting a suitably engineered floor expansion joint. Whether in new construction or retrofitting failed existing joints, consider the following questions:
- Movement: Can this model handle the expected thermal and other movements of the building?
- Joint-Gap Size: Does this model have the correct dimensions to straddle the designed joint-gap?
- Point Load: Can this model handle the wheel and axle loads from the expected traffic?
Hard, plastic tires, which are most prevalent in hospitals, place the greatest stress on expansion joints. In a survey of the websites of several floor expansion joint manufacturers, only a few provided comprehensive loading data by wheel type for joint systems offered as “heavy duty” or “high point-load.” Many did not mention wheel loading capabilities at all.
Higher Point Load Stress
In hospitals, floor expansion joints often deteriorate faster than expected. This is not only due to insufficient point load capacity but also because hospital operations have been changing in ways that significantly increase point load stresses.
One such trend is “patient-centered design,” which has taken root over the past decade. The goal of patient-centered hospital care is decentralization, bringing services to the patient rather than transporting the patient to centralized locations for medical procedures. This design decreases patient movement, unnecessary staffing, waiting, and errors, allowing patients to remain in the comfort of their rooms.
However, this decentralization means more movement of equipment, as diagnostic and treatment apparatus is transported to patient rooms. This adds expensive and sensitive equipment to the already busy flow of cleaning, maintenance, and food service equipment traffic at hospitals.
Much of this equipment is conveyed by small-diameter, hard wheels, which can and do cause damage to floor expansion joints and surrounding flooring materials that are not engineered to handle the high associated point loads. Equally important is the potential damage to the equipment itself.
Another trend increasing point loads at hospitals is the need to accommodate an increasing number of overweight patients as obesity among U.S. adults has increased more than 60% during the past 20 years.
In his article “Designing for the Obese,” Dave Barista, assistant managing editor of Building Design and Construction magazine, reports the findings of interviews with leading healthcare design experts. Numerous design considerations were advocated, including “everything from wider doorways and heavy-duty beds to patient lifts.” The article also mentions that “bariatric beds should be rated for at least 600 pounds.”
Not included in this article is the impact of these design considerations on floor expansion joint selection. Oversized wheelchairs, beds, and gurneys are increasingly common in hospitals. Bariatric beds can weigh up to 800 lbs empty and, depending on the model, are rated to carry patients weighing up to 1000 lbs.
A combined load, for example, of bed and patient of 1,610 pounds, spread over four, 1-¼" (30mm) wide, hard rubber wheels, would result in a load per wheel of 402 lbs or 321 lbs per inch of wheel width.
- 1610 lbs = 402 lbs/wheel
- 402 lbs/wheel = 321 lbs per inch of wheel width
- 4 wheels
- 1 ¼" wheel width
The Dseal expansion joint system intended to handle this load must be selected for its ability to handle this load without deflection. Compare, for example, the load capacity of 365 lbs per inch of wheel width of the FS 110 system.
Failure to select the appropriate Dseal expansion joint system based on this comparison could result in the specification of an inappropriate expansion joint product.
At Dseal, we are committed to providing floor expansion joints that meet the rigorous demands of healthcare facilities. Our products are designed to handle high point loads, ensuring durability and safety for both people and equipment. Choose Dseal for reliable, high-performance expansion joint solutions tailored to the unique needs of medical environments.