New developments in
lift slab construction
Figure 1. The lift slab technique reduces costs for multistory buildings by eliminating most formwork. A typical lifting
sequence is illustrated above.
BY FRANK A. RANDALL, JR.
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
ift slab construction was a revolutionary idea in
L the early 1950s when it was developed by the
Youtz-Slick company. Since then it has become a
basic method of economical concrete construc-
tion, especially for office buildings, apartments, parking
g a ra g e s, hotels and other structures chara c t e ri zed by
repetitive framing from floor to floor.
What is lift slab construction?
Basically, the method entails casting floor and roof
slabs on or at ground level and jacking them up into po-
sition. The traditional lift slab construction sequence is
illustrated in Figure 1. Flat plate floors are commonly
used because they are so well suited to stack-casting, re-
quiring formwork at only the edges of the slab and at
floor openings.
Special lifting collars or shearheads are provided in
the slabs at the columns. Bond breaking compounds are
applied between slabs to separate them. After the slabs
have cured long enough to reach a prescribed strength,
powerful hydraulic jacks mounted on top of the columns
lift the slabs into their respective positions. A console
connected to each hydraulic jack synchronizes the num-
ber of turns of the check nuts to assure that the concrete
slab is being raised the same amount at all points.
Lift slab can be used for heights up to about 16 sto-
ries. Economical column spacing ranges from 22 to 32
feet. Columns may be pipe, tubes or wide flange sec-
tions; concrete columns may be used in 3- to 4-story
buildings not requiring splices.
The big advantage of erecting concrete buildings us-
ing lift slab construction is elimination of most form-
work, an especially important factor in areas where labor
costs are high. Concrete floor construction at ground
level is convenient and requires no shores, scaffolds or
c ra n e s. Slabs can be cast and protected easily during
cold weather without expensive heating and enclosures
required for ordinary construction. Another advantage is
reduced handling and hoisting of materials and supplies
that can simply be placed on top of the slabs and lifted
with them.
Because lift slab uses concrete, the technique offers
good fire resistance and good acoustic ratings. Mass de-
signed into walls, floors and roofs helps to reduce the

Figure 2. Recent changes in lift slab construction include
supporting the hydraulic jack off the column by a welded
plate. The old approach used jacks mounted on top of the
columns. Columns can now be up to 6 stories tall without
field splices.
effects of daily temperature changes. Concrete has a
thermal storage capacity that delays and reduces tem-
perature swings in response to solar radiation, outdoor
temperature changes and indoor heating. In addition,
concrete flat plate floors and roofs reduce building
cubage, which lowers taxes and heat and wall costs.
An improved lifting procedure
Developments in the construction field have changed
lift slab techniques over its 33-year history. For one
thing, increased use of pumping and prestressing has
made cast-in-place flat plate work more efficient. Recent
improvements in positioning of the jacks has brought
further advances. In the conventional system hydraulic
jacks are mounted on top of the columns, limiting the
height of the columns and making it necessary to re-
move the jacks before splicing on the next upper column
tier. The new approach allows columns to be erected as
tall as 6 stories without field splices. The jack is support-
ed off the column by a welded plate that is later used to
support the slab shearhead (Figure 2).
Another refinement controls the amount of lift at each
column. A steel tape runs from each column to a central
sensing device in a console which monitors the relative
movements and automatically operates the pumps,
switching them off and on as necessary to keep the floor
perfectly level as it moves upward at approximately one
inch per minute.
Safety is provided by electrically driven nuts which fol-
low the movement of the hydraulic cylinders. If a gap de-
velops above a nut, an alarm first goes off. When the gap
grows to more than 3/8 inch, the associated pump stops,
in turn stopping the entire lifting operation. This assures
fall-back protection in case of hydraulic failure.
Using these improvements, a firm in Florida has con-
structed twenty 2- and 3-story buildings with reported
time savings up to five weeks per building and cost sav-
ings up to 20 percent, even though the roofs were only
framed with wood. The elevated concrete floors cost
$3.45 per square foot, complete. Second floor slabs are
lifted in one day, a job with second and third floor slabs
requires 3 days. The same firm has recently constructed
a 350,000-square-foot, 6-story building for HUD and
produces about one million square feet of lift slab build-
ings per year.
Floors and walls lifted at same time
A new lift slab system has evolved in which concrete
bearing walls are lifted simultaneously with the slabs. Al-
though untried so far in the United States, this method
has been employed by a contractor in Latin America for
building over 20,000 apartment units totaling 14 million
square feet of space.
Concrete bearing walls are cast flat in the same stack
with the slabs and attached to the slab with loops of
plastic rope, forming hinges. As the slab is raised, each
wall panel automatically unfolds into position.
Since the walls are load-bearing, there is no need for
expensive steel columns or lifting collars as used in con-
ventional lift-slab work. The steel columns used for erec-
tion are removed and reused elsewhere.
Figure 3 shows the construction procedure at seve ra l
stages. In the background is a building already lifted; lit-
tle finishing work is required. On the roof of the build-
ing in the foreground are the diesel pumping unit (the
console is just out of sight on the roof) and two “balance
beams” with trapezoidal ends showing.
The third-story floor slab is partially raised, lifting hav-
ing been temporarily halted. Note the automatically un-
folding walls with their window openings cast in. The
laborer on the second floor is cleaning up the sand and
thin concrete coat which had filled the window opening
when the slab immediately above it was cast at ground
level. The only weight on the ground story walls at this
time is that of the second floor slab and half of the weight
of the unfolding walls above; the bulk of the weight of the
building is in the stack hanging from the jacks above.
The crew on the ground, using a bottle jack and shore,
lifts the second floor slightly at local points to allow final
 Note that the columns have been stabilized by secur-
ing them to the second floor slab. Winches on the
columns are rigged to the bridge (truss) through pulleys
on top of the columns. The bridges, supported on shear
pins through the columns, support the jacks; bars from
the jacks support the balance beams; each beam is at-
tached to the stack of slabs by rods at its ends. Thin, 5-
inch-thick, floors are made possible by short spans both
during lifting and when in place.
Walls of only 4-inch thickness are adequate because
they have a long bearing length. The openings in the
walls will be filled with masonry walls, precast panels or
other curtain wall materials.
The perimeter forms have already been stripped and
are probably in use on the next building being cast. The
columns and bridges, reusable up to several hundred
times, can be taken apart for easy transport to the next
job. The absence of decking formwork shores, scaffold-
ing, hoists and cranes further illustrates the simplicity
of the lift slab operation.

Figure 3. A lift slab system used extensively in Latin

America involves casting concrete bearing walls flat in the Editor’s note
stack along with the floor slabs. The wall panels are hinged For a more detailed description of the system for lifting
to the floor with plastic rope, allowing them to unfold floors and wall simultaneously, see CONCRETE CON-
automatically as the stack is raised into position. STRUCTION, September 1981, page 717.

plumbing of the ground story wall; the man at left is pry-

ing the top of the wall panel for final adjustment. The PUBLICATION #C860115
cart frame for relocating some internal walls is in the Copyright © 1986, The Aberdeen Group
opening at the right. All rights reserved