Stable Joints for Concrete Floors: Differential movement versus load-transfer efficiency
Pavement engineers, who deal with many of the same issues faced in the concrete-floor field, do not talk much about joint stability or differential movement. Instead, they talk about load-transfer efficiency—a related but distinct property. Whenever a load is applied to one side of a joint, it creates stress on the loaded side. Load transfer occurs when some of that stress gets transferred to the unloaded side. Load transfer efficiency (LTE) is a measure of how well the joint shifts stress to the unloaded side.