Superflat Floors

Summary

Superflat Floors - ‘Superflat’ has, over the years become a generic term for a degree of floor flatness required to operate a Very Narrow Aisle (VNA) truck where in fact ‘Superflat’ is an actual category of flatness defined in the Concrete Societies Technical Report 34 (TR34).

Technical Information

There are varying degrees of flatness requirement and all relate to the height of the racking system that the VNA truck is to service. Superflat, as defined by TR34 is specified where the top beam of the racking exceeds 13m. In the same table there are two other degrees of flatness; Category 1 for rack heights between 8 and 13 metres and Category 2 for racking heights less than 8 metres.

TR34’s Appendix C also introduces a surface regularity specification that is soon to be the basis of a European specification and is similar to the American Fmin requirement. In Germany DIN 15185 is specified and as the majority of VNA trucks are manufactured in Germany, the DIN standard is occasionally specified.

No matter what specification is required, be it TR34 Table 4.3, TR34 Appendix C, DIN 15185 or the American Fmin standard, a flat floor is a flat floor and the way the floor is constructed will not differ.