Idle pondering - non-use of concrete ring beams in UK

[a twig]

While bored at work recently I was day dreaming about restoring a place in France, and it popped into my head that a lot of European restorations have a reinforced concrete ring beam added at the top of the walls before a new roof is put on. It's very common in Europe, but not something I've ever seen in the UK where in my experience a timber wall plate gets fixed directly to the top of the bricks/stone of the wall, and the the roof structure built onto that.

Is it just an historic / cultural thing or are there structural reasons? Google has proved particularly unhelpful so thought I'd ask the PPUK hive mind.

 

[Cubist]

I've seen a few in the UK over the years but, as I recall, they were all in curved brick structures like bottle kilns, factory chimneys and the like. At the time I simply wrote them down to a desire to stabilise theses structures against high winds or to support equipment mounted either internally or externally. Given the effort and expense involved in creating a ring beam at any height I can well understand why alternatives were rapidly adopted and commonly employed but I'm still puzzled why their use on the continent is more commonplace.

You've started a line of pondering for me that so far has found its way back to the Romans and recent studies in the US concerning the lime concrete manufacturing processes they used, and its 'self healing' properties considered to result from the use of 'hot mixing'. Fascinating stuff but I'm no nearer to a convincing argument for the enigma you discuss above.

 

[malcolm]

I half recall a concrete ring beam being required on a restoration in Italy for earthquake building regs.

 

[Cubist]

I half recall a concrete ring beam being required on a restoration in Italy for earthquake building regs.

That makes sense and we do suffer considerably less, and less severe, seismic activity here but then.. we do have subsidence problems in many parts so I'm no nearer to understanding why ring beams are not more common in the UK. (I think this may just come down to simple bias against ideas used by John Foreigner.)

 

[stuart45]

Ring beams are occasionally used in the UK. One was used on a multi storey building in Brighton on a job years ago to stabilise it's Bungaroosh walls. They were also used on some of the non standard construction homes thrown up after the war.
Possibly more common in France in restoration work because of the amount of old, stone properties in poor condition.
With new build construction the cost compared to a timber wall plate would be one factor. Also the lifespan of reinforced concrete is a lot less than was originally when it was first used.
I've seen them used in Belgium in domestic new builds, but these were hollow block walls and rendered. Homes in Florida have beams formed into the blockwork because of the storms.