NRMCA's celebration of the 100th anniversary of ready mixed concrete in the U.S. continues its September offerings with another Producer and Associate member - see below for their respective Web site links. This week's industry milestone: The invention of the slip-form paver in 1949 allowed road crews to place wide sections of concrete continuously and therefore far more efficiently than before. Slipforming is now used for highway paving projects in almost every state in America.

Capital Concrete - Capital Concrete traces its roots to 1928 when John Twohy II founded Commonwealth Sand and Gravel Corporation in Richmond, VA. In 1959, Twohy’s son John Twohy IV started a concrete branch of Commonwealth Sand and Gravel and named it Capital Concrete, Inc. Read more.

An NRMCA Producer member since 1970

Trimble Construction Logistics - Charlie Trimble and two colleagues from Hewlett-Packard founded Trimble in 1978 above the old Los Altos Theatre in Silicon Valley. From its start, Trimble focused on developing innovative positioning and navigation products. Initially, the fledgling company based its products on LORAN technology, a ground-based navigation, location and timing system in U.S. coastal waters, and focused its products on the marine navigation market. At the same time, the Global Positioning System (GPS) was being developed by the U.S. as a dual-use technology. The same year Trimble was founded, the first GPS satellite, the NavStar, was launched. Read more.

An NRMCA Associate member since 2001

More than 40 different mixes of concrete were used for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in California. Each mix contained between 25% and 50% of recylced materials, which made them greener than traditional concrete. This helped slash about 60 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, according to Jeff Davis, vice president and general manager of Central Concrete Supply Co. "In the last four, five years, Caltrans was extremely aggressive and proactive," Davis said. "And through that, we were designing concrete for this job that was cutting-edge as far as low [carbon dioxide]."

A new highway bridge east of the Missouri capital Jefferson City will serve as an experiment in concrete technology. Missouri University of Science and Technology has worked with state highway officials to develop several different mixtures of concrete that are being used on the U.S. 50 bridge. Read more.

Concrete trucks driving in a backward serpentine pattern and performing alley backups were just some of the sights to behold at the Ready Mixed Concrete Association of Ontario’s (RMCAO) second concrete truck rodeo held recently in Pickering, Ontario. The course was composed of eight obstacles and a pre-trip inspection checklist. It was a deductive point system where the drivers started off with a perfect score and then incurred a points deduction for every obstacle they touched. At the end of the day the driver with the highest score won the top prize of $1,500. Drivers placing in the top five received prizes.

Lastly this week, we bring you the work of Belgian artist Wim Delvoye and his interpretation of the concrete mixer truck. His Gothic take on the truck is another in his series that features construction vehicles, including bulldozers and dump trucks.

Source: AggregateResearch.com for September 10. View here.

The Maryland Ready Mix Concrete Association (MRMCA) recently hosted its Annual A&E Golf Outing, but it was much more than just a golf tournament, reports NRMCA Senior Director, National Resources Phil Kresge. According to MRMCA Executive Director Tom Evans, the event is part of the "Promotion in Motion" effort. "It’s a combination of networking and fun," says Evans, "as our members play golf side-by-side with architects and engineers, and take the opportunity to discuss concrete during the round." The annual event has allowed MRMCA and its members to build strong relationships with the design community.

The day’s events began with a presentation by Kresge, Roller-Compacted Concrete: Another Choice for Pavement. The program introduced the architects and engineers to RCC and highlighted the benefits of RCC as an alternate to asphalt pavement. After the presentation, Evans provided information on some completed project that interested attendees could visit.  Participants received one Professional Development Hour (PDH) continuing education credit.

When NRMCA Senior Director, National Resource, Amy Miller recently approached Steve Herron, the president of NRMCA Producer member Metro Ready Mix Concrete, with the idea of discussing the Design Assistance Program (DAP) with his staff, he immediately said yes. Miller spoke to his group recently about the benefits of using the DAP not only in regard to project flips, but also from the stance that this is a way to offer value to Metro’s customers through utilization of jointing plans.

"I tell our members, even if you know a project is definitely going to be concrete we are still happy to complete a jointing plan for the project," Miller said. "Contractors often pay for jointing plans and they can be expensive. Our members can take that expense away for their customers and as an industry it’s one more way we can help ensure success for our product. Mr. Herron is a progressive thinker and his staff is always looking for concrete opportunities. They now understand how the DAP is not only a benefit of their company’s NRMCA membership, but also a tool they can utilize for their own personal success."

Please contact a national resource director to discuss the use and benefits of the Design Assistance Program with your organization.

The next topic in NRMCA's series of promotion-focused Webinars is Roller Compacted Concrete: Another Choice for Pavement scheduled for Tuesday, October 1. This Webinar will introduce specifiers to Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC). Having characteristics of both asphalt and concrete pavements, RCC is best described as a third pavement choice. Attendees will learn the basics of RCC design and construction. Additionally, they will better understand the benefits of RCC, in terms of both construction and performance. Frequently asked questions regarding reinforcement, maintenance and freeze-thaw durability will also be addressed.

• Tuesday, October 1 - Roller Compacted Concrete: Another Choice for Pavement

Developed through the NRMCA RES Committee, a certification program that evaluates a company’s conformance to its quality manual was released at NRMCA’s ConcreteWorks event held earlier this week outside Las Vegas. The certification program is available to ready mixed concrete companies who can apply as a whole company, division or a smaller subsection of a company. The certification criteria were finalized with a pilot audit of two companies, which were successful in achieving the certification. Chaney Enterprises, Inc. with two plants and a subsection of ARGOS USA from South Carolina with three plants were awarded the first certificates of this program at the Opening Session at ConcreteWorks.

Information on the NRMCA Quality Certification program is available here.

At its meeting at NRMCA ConcreteWorks held earlier this week outside Las Vegas, the NRMCA Research Engineering and Standards Committee, unanimously supported the nomination of Gary Mullings as the recipient of the 2014 Richard D. Gaynor Award, to be presented at NRMCA’s Annual Convention in 2014 in Las Vegas. He was selected by past recipients of the award and voted on by the committee. Mullings is senior vice president of operations and compliance with NRMCA and has been with the Association for 35+ years. He spent a large portion of his career at NRMCA at its Research Laboratory in College Park, MD, and facilitated several NRMCA research initiatives. Besides leading the operations, safety and environmental initiatives, Mullings continues to be involved in technical education programs and other initiatives at NRMCA.

Technical sessions were well attended at NRMCA ConcreteWorks covering a wide range of topics as follows: 

• Karthik Obla and Colin Lobo with NRMCA presented details of the new NRMCA Quality Certification. Godwin Amekuedi with ARGOS USA discussed the benefits of having a comprehensive quality plan and achieving this certification.
• Stephen Fleming with Prairie Materials and Matt D’Ambrosia with CTLGroup discussed the evolution of the Illinois Tollway Authority to performance-based specifications and sustainability focus for two-course pavements and high performance concrete bridge structures.
• Mike Mahoney with Euclid Chemicals and Charles Nmai with BASF discussed several value-added concepts for ready mixed concrete with fiber reinforcement and chemical admixtures that can provide considerable value to contractors and owners of concrete structures.
• Lionel Lemay and Tien Peng with NRMCA discussed the developing reporting requirements that will be necessary for projects seeking LEED certification under LEED v 4 to be released in November. These include Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Corporate Sustainability Reports and Health Product Declarations.

TRB Transportation Research Circular E-C171: Durability of Concrete: Second Edition provides information on producing durable concrete for transportation structures and pavements. The circular is an update to Transportation Research Circular 494: Durability of Concrete, published in 1999. The new update includes information about the benefits of performance related specifications among other things. The full circular can be downloaded from here.

NRMCA has been accepted to present at the 2nd Residential Building Design and Construction (RBDC) Conference to be held on February 19-20, 2014 in State College, PA. The RBDC Conference is organized by the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center housed at Penn State University and is simultaneously offered along with the Housing & Land Development (H&LD) Conference also organized by Penn State. NRMCA will present two topics, "Policies to Enhance Resilient Communities" and "Life Cycle Assessment of Residential Buildings". 

This will be NRMCA's second year participating in this conference attended by developers, builders, remodelers, design professionals, planners, regulatory and code official, modular and HUD code builders, and housing product manufacturers. The conference is focused on various types of residential buildings and will give the industry the opportunity to leverage breakthrough findings from the MIT CSHub research on LCA, LCCA and Resilience.