If you were building a new house, and planned to use composite metal decking over steel floor joists, what would you use for a concrete type of filler? The decking would be 14 or 16 gauge galvanized steel, with the profile probably 1.5".

Regular concrete would have to be about 8" thick, I believe, to be bullet resistant. There is Ballisticrete, but it is usually applied on a vertical surface and probably would be very difficult to pour and level.

I suspect some high strength additives applied to 4,000 psi concrete might work. Hoping to keep the weight of the floor moderate for various reasons.

For bullet resistance, would like to stop .223, pistol rounds, and 7.62x39. However the rounds would not be concentrated into a small area.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: c1steve, October 27, 2024 08:46 PM

Rough area, ehh?

lots of testing including ul listing on this issue. nominally you need 4" according to the quick research I did for the calibers mentioned.
But I am unclear what you are trying to accomplish as normally decking has no meaning in this discussion.

What's the scope?

safe room, entire bedroom, entire house?

are you trying to stop 1 errant bullet (e.g. UL 752 Level 5 is 1 round of of 150 grain 7.62x39) or somebody concentrating repeated rounds in one small area (e.g. UL 752 Level 7 is 5 rounds of M193 and Level 8 is 5 rounds of 150 grain 7.62x39)

No, it is a very nice area. I think long term, and "what if". So what if there was a home invasion, and you wanted to protect the second floor bedrooms from bullets? If it was your new house being constructed, and your kids were upstairs, how would you build this?

Second floor would be about 1,200 sq. ft. More like trying to stop wild shooting of AK or AR-15 rounds, so not repeated rounds into a small area.

Purge???

It would need to be MK211 Raufoss resistant to be truly effective.

In the first floor bathroom nearest the front door, you’ll need a 4’x4’ curbed shower for the kitty litter.

Kevlar carpet?

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
No, it is a very nice area. I think long term, and "what if". So what if there was a home invasion, and you wanted to protect the second floor bedrooms from bullets? If it was your new house being constructed, and your kids were upstairs, how would you build this?

Second floor would be about 1,200 sq. ft. More like trying to stop wild shooting of AK or AR-15 rounds, so not repeated rounds into a small area.

You could dump a lot of money into support structure and bullet resistant materials to hold up 1200 sq ft of concrete or 1200 sq ft of Level 5 composite panels but have very little to show for it in risk reduction.

IMO, basement panic room with bullet resistant hidden ladder / spiral staircase from 2nd floor has a lot more cost benefit ratio.

Here is an example of money wasted on half measure bullet resistance. 30 years ago, oil companies actually owned gas stations and therefore had standards for bullet resistance for the cashier's booth/cage. One iteration fouled up badly by only putting in bullet resistant glass (ie only portion of booth/cage protected). The turds figured out below the counter wasn't bullet resistant so they could make the cashier dance and give up the register's contents.

The walls will be ICF with 8" concrete core. floor joists will be steel, held up by Watkins steel hangers. This will hold a lot.

Something that would help, from researching the matter, is to use a rubber like substance under the concrete. Rhino Liner has been suggested. This should have to be under the steel pan to keep the concrete somewhat bonded to the steel.

I've built a lot of safe rooms out of concrete without adding anything special, using bedliner, or any other exotic materials.

But you are correct that thickness matters. I'm assuming you don't need the entire floor of the entire house to share those properties. Why not cap off your specific room to the required specifications, and have your regular house floor above/next to that?

Just curious, are you worried about people shooting down at the roof or just the occasional falling bullet? My understanding is there’s a big difference between the two.

We’re just finishing up an ICF house. The wall’s are 6.5” poured concrete with 2.5" of foam on each side and rated for 280mph. An extra 1.5” of concrete will be a really thick finished wall. Again just curious, why so thick?

This thread has been a huge eye-opener for me. I never would have thought concrete would need to be 8" thick to stop a bullet.

How about brick? My house is brick and I have assumed it would stop just about any bullet from a handheld gun.

.

The bedrooms will be on the second floor. I am concerned about a potential home invasion, with errant firing into the ceiling from the first floor. I would like to protect the entire second floor.

If people ran and hid in a bathroom, that should be protected as well as bedrooms. Not worried about high winds or hurricanes.

I am in earthquake country, and am fairly sure that 8" ICF cores are needed for the walls of a house with two floors in my area.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: c1steve, October 28, 2024 06:55 PM

Someone sent me a link to improving cement for bullet resistance. Multiple tests were done with steel fibers. They only test using 1/4" and 1/2" long fibers, but were able to obtain bullet resistance in as thin as 2". Testing was done with 7.62x51 ammo, so .308. Concrete was UHPC.

url=https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/11/2/63]https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/11/2/63[/url]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: c1steve, October 30, 2024 06:56 PM

Force protection design hardens the exterior envelope and the perimeter. If you don’t have ballistic rated glass and exterior walls designed to withstand projectiles what’s the point of doing the floor.

And if you are harden from the outside lock you doors and load magazines.

I’m just going to leave this right here


https://youtube.com/shorts/XBd...?si=x20c6EFFxeUNmwG8

I'm surprised to see Jeff Bezos is lurking here.

As others have suggested, maybe sort out a more limited area than the entire floor? That is going to be very expensive I'd think, and still have vulnerabilities as some have pointed out. Unless you're worried about ninja-master-thief-murders disabling any perimeter warnings and silently slinking in and THEN shooting upwards to announce their arrival.

Are you putting a safe door on each stairway?

quote:

Originally posted by CPD SIG:
I’m just going to leave this right here


https://youtube.com/shorts/XBd...?si=x20c6EFFxeUNmwG8

^^^^^^^ As a retired custom cabinet maker was involved with remolding and building some new judges bench panels that were used in several court rooms using Kevlar panels............. drill sgt.