Masonry Magazine March 1970 Page. 38
M. H. Allen
properly transfer both vertical and transverse loads to the foundation. Provisions for such connections must be incorporated into the panel at the plant.
What about windows and doors? Should they be incorporated in the panel itself, inserted into a rough opening in the panel at the job site, or should they be separate window-wall or door-wall panels placed between the masonry panels on the job?
These are just a few of the details with which the prefabricator must be concerned in industrialized building systems development. There is another matter that should be kept in mind that a prefabricated masonry wall panel will generally be subjected to much higher stresses in moving it from the casting area in the plant to the job site than it will be once it is put into place on the job. The most critical time in this sequence is that involved in removing a panel from the fabrication mold or jig before the grout or mortar has set sufficiently to develop adequate bond between it and the masonry units.
The techniques of removing panels from the casting jig or mold at an early age should be such as to not subject the panel to tensile or flexural stresses that would break the bond, resulting in irreparable damage not always evident visually. A certain amount of vertical reinforcing steel in the panels will help resist normal handling stresses after the curing period.
To sum up, I would strongly urge that anyone contemplating going into the development of a prefabricated brick masonry building system obtain good architectural and engineering advice before going too far with the work. The masonry wall panel systems with which I was most impressed during my visit to Western Europe two years ago were designed and developed in consultation with architects, structural engineers and, in some cases, mason contractors. I believe very strongly that such an approach will result in a more ready architectural acceptance of the system and will help minimize problems in obtaining the approval of building code authorities.
Marlin Miller, Jr.
To date our efforts have been directed at single family housing. However, we will be building a prototype 6-unit townhouse soon, using 6"-thick brick panels as the bearing and party walls. This will be two-story construction. We will also use 8'-wide panels in this effort. The concept should work with apartments.
Panels are priced at $2.75 per sq. ft. erected within a 100-mile radius of the plant. This figure breaks down to approximately $2.25 per sq. ft. F.O.B. plant site with approximately 15e for transportation and 35e for erection. At this time we are offering the panels in five colors.
A few words about our sales approach and role of the mason and mason contractor in our panel work. We are quoting panels two ways:
1. To the builder or general contractor erected at $2.75 per sq. ft. In this case we subcontract the erection to a mason contractor.
2. We sell to the mason contractor at $2.40 per sq. ft. delivered on the job site. He quotes erection cost to the general contractor or builder.
We are not selling directly to builders unless they have traditionally done their own masonry work. We feel strongly that erection work belongs to the mason contractor, and we are urging his participation.
Where do we go from here? Continued development of systems and production techniques is one direction. By the second half of this year we expect to be in a position to license or franchise other brick manufacturers and distributors, and perhaps mason contractors for panel manufacturing with our system.
In conclusion, panels are not a replacement for the many advantages of hand-laid brick, and we do not intend to lessen in any way our promotion of Contemporary Bearing Wall masonry, vocational and apprenticeship training, cold weather masonry techniques, and brick's participation in sectional housing all of which are vital and important to our industry's immediate future.
We do, however, look at panels as one more way of extending the use of brick. Par Panels can and must be another brick product of the brick industry to fill a need that exists for rapid construction systems-a necessary product if our industry is to continue to project a modern image as well as our traditional image.
John A. Dawson
erations. Quality is therefore a key element which may never be compromised or sacrificed whatever your industry decides about industrialization of the masonry process-because quality means performance.
What is the attitude of your industry to industrialization, and what is its status? If we look at it sector by sector, we find that the manufacture of masonry units is highly industrialized in the context of my original definition. It is organized, mechanized, productive, efficient, repetitive and profitable. One visit to any modern plant will convince the most skeptical observer.
Turning to the designer-specifier-user sector of your industry, the interest in whether the masonry process is industrialized or not might at first glance seem to be minimal. But I contend that it should be very real. This sector should have a profound interest in knowing that industrialization of the utilization of masonry-if it takes place does so satisfactorily.
The interests of the specifier, be he architect or engineer, are inextricably associated with quality and performance. Quality and performance in this sense include the development of factual, objective, design data upon which the designer can have confidence. This means that components produced from masonry must be of accurately calculable strength.
The masonry contractor of course has the traditional assignment of putting the masonry units together to form walls, etc. The operations of the masonry contractor have remained basically manual, and this is an age when nearly all other manual operations have succumbed to the advance of the power tool the specially designed automated device and the production line.
Why, with respect to the application of masonry, has the masonry process retained its traditional hand operations? It is not by accident. The masonry process is an exceptionally difficult process to industrialize. This accounts for the fact that to date not one wholly satisfactory method for prefabricating masonry has been developed. Yet, as a process, the application of masonry units has all but one of the essential ingredients for industrialization-mechanization. And, it is precisely because the application of masonry has never been satisfactorily mechanized that each and every method of masonry prefabrication falls short of the ideal.
Why has no fully satisfactory method of placing masonry by mechanical means been developed? There are a number of answers. First, the machine that is now in extensive use in placing masonry-the human machine-is the masonry