RES Committee Updates, Technical Track Sessions Were Held at NRMCA ConcreteWorks

The NRMCA Research Engineering and Standards (RES) Committee met at NRMCA ConcreteWorks in Indianapolis last week. The Committee discussed various developments in ASTM standards and changes to the approved ACI 318 building code and ACI 301 specification. The committee also reviewed a presentation on sulfate resistance of concrete performed through a pooled fund study at the NRMCA research laboratory. On the P2P Initiative, an analysis of more than 100 specifications was discussed – these were reviewed to quantify the level of prescription. The committee decided on some strategies to address these issues in the near future.

The committee discussed upcoming technical courses and certifications, plant certification and approved new topics for publication and revisions (CIPs and TIPs). It selected a recipient for the 2015 Richard D. Gaynor Award. The Excellence in Quality Award was presented to 31 divisions or companies of NRMCA members.

The technical track sessions included a session on the nuts and bolts of NRMCA’s programs on:

Developing Environmental Product Declarations, Health Product Declarations and Corporate Sustainable Reporting presented by Lionel Lemay and Tien Peng;
Development of a Responsible Sourcing Certification system was discussed by Stefan van Uffelen from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD);
Mike Schneider with Baker Concrete discussed a pre-construction checklist and more to highlight the issues that needed to be addressed between contractors and producers for a successful project;
Farro and Anousha Radjy and Colin Lobo discussed issues related to batching accuracy and the implications to concrete performance and cost; and
Jason Weiss with Purdue University presented on the value proposition to the concrete producer on the performance enhancements provided by the use of internal curing of concrete mixtures; he discussed the simple steps and tests that could be used for a producer to develop concrete mixtures with internal curing.

The technical track sessions were selected and facilitated by the RES Committee.