Floors for Industrial Purposes

THE title given to this paper, “ Floors for Industrial Purposes,” may suggest that it
is intended to cover floors and industries of all kinds, and it is desirable to indicate at the start the limitations to which it is subject. In the first place no attention will be given to floors in what may be termed purely chemical industries, for these raise problems rather outside the scope of the author’s experience. This restriction will not be entirely rigid, for in the discussion of chemical attack on flooring materials some of the manufacturing processes mentioned may well be regarded as coming under the term “chemical industry.” In the second place it will not be possible to consider the various forms of proprietary floorings made by specialist firms for use in cases where problems of chemical attack are so severe as to make normal flooring materials quite unsuitable. This second restriction is in many ways a natural corollary to the first. Though these restrictions reduce the scope of the paper, it is thought that the problems which are covered are of direct interest to both chemical and structural engineers.

R. Fitzmaurice and F.M. Lea