Crop's, Ooigem, Belgium

Project type:

  • Clad rack warehouse

Application:

  • Combi slab (3.100 m²)

Partners: 

  • Engineering firm: Norbert Provoost
  • Contractor: Alheembouw
  • Owner: Crops
  • Concrete plant: Betocor

One of the latest freezer warehouses of frozen foods company Crop’s is located in Ooigem, Belgium. The automated high-rise warehouse is a steel structure of 82 m long, 38 m wide and 40,5 m high and stores up to 20.000 pallets.

Frank Vanhauwaert, Business Unit Manager - Operations of Crop’s NV offers an enthusiastic recount of working with Dramix® steel fiber concrete reinforcement. 

The challenge

“Storage racks are secured to the floor by chemical anchors. Drilling the holes for these anchors is a complex and delicate process. If your floor is reinforced with mesh and rebar, you run the risk of hitting steel and diminishing its load bearing capacity.” 

The solution

“We decided to reinforce the floor with a combination of Dramix® steel fibers and a simpler and lighter mesh. This solution provides all-round reinforcement and makes drilling holes a lot easier and faster. It also allowed us to simplify or even omit traditional and complex lateral reinforcement.”

“Dramix steel fibers offer many advantages; it is fast to install; you need less steel and the entire concrete structure is evenly reinforced. Dramix® steel fiber reinforcement is the future of concrete structures everywhere.”