Concrete Expansion Joints

Basic Facts About Expansion Joints In Concrete

Concrete is indeed a great construction material, it was extensively used by the Romans, then forgotten about, then re-discovered in the eighteenth century and it’s been used ever since. Of course the exact recipe has changed during the centuries giving birth to many types of concrete that can be used for a plethora of applications in the construction industry from a simple concrete pavement made out of concrete slabs to driveways and floors to art. However when talking about how most of the concrete is used in residential constructions it is usually used in the foundation of a house and in the form of slabs for driveways, the garage floor or the basement floor, and all of these applications have to make use of expansion joints in concrete in order to make sure that the concrete doesn’t lose its structural integrity.

Concrete joints whether they are isolation joints or control joints or contraction joints they are basically the same thing, their role is the same, and they are meant to give the concrete slab a specific place where it can crack. It’s not something that most people who haven’t had to work with concrete know, but once concrete is poured it shrinks a whole lot during its twenty-eight day curing period. During this shrinking it is normal for cracks to show up, however if there are no joints present these cracks show up randomly and they can seriously compromise the structural integrity of the concrete slab. The expansion joints are meant to coax the concrete into cracking inside or alongside the joints as a way of preventing it from cracking randomly, this way the entire concrete structure can be controlled better.

In order for the cracks to not become a problem both esthetically and structurally expansion joints can be covered with certain types of materials that allow for the constant movement that the concrete goes through. These are in some cases specially designed synthetic materials which have the ability to expand and contract with the concrete as it does when exposed to the environmental temperature changes and in some cases small earthquakes. These filler materials aren’t hard because if they were hard then the concrete would crack a lot more around them when expanding and that is not the exact goal of expansion joints.

Covering expansion joints can be important for other reasons as well, because maintaining a constant surface area is important in many situations, whether it’s a garage or pavement where you don’t want dirt to accumulate in the joints, or an industrial setting where it can pose serious health hazards.

Both the joint covers and the joints themselves will require repair at a certain time. The joint covers will wear out with time, use and the constant movement caused by expanding and contracting and they will require replacing; while doing that the expansion joints in concrete should be inspected as well as they might require repairing if the cracks are longer and deeper than initially thought or wanted.

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