NRMCA e-news

NRMCA's celebration of the 100th anniversary of ready mixed concrete in the U.S. continues its May offerings with the histories of another Producer and Associate member. See below for the two companies we've selected for this week, along with a link to those companies respective Web sites for more information. This week's industry milestone: The reinforced concrete thin shell American Airlines hangar at Chicago’s Midway Airport, built in 1947-1948, was one of the largest commercial airline hangars at the time; eight DC3s could be serviced in each hangar at one time. Each hangar had a clear span of 257 ft (78 m) with a rise of 42 ft (13 m).

Delta Industries - Jackson Ready Mix was organized under the laws of the State of Mississippi in December 1945. The company started its original ready mixed concrete plant at its current location on Woodrow Wilson Drive in what was then Northeast Jackson. The original mixer truck fleet consisted of 22 army surplus trucks. In the more than 60 years since its founding, the company now known as Delta Industries has expanded throughout much of Mississippi along with operations in Alabama and Arkansas. Read more.

Northeast Solite - This associate member traces its roots to 1947 when the U.S. went on a post World War II building boom. Lightweight aggregate replaced coal-burning boiler cinders from railway locomotives, which disappeared with the advent of diesel engines.  That year, the rotary kiln patent for expanding shale expired, and no fewer than 40 companies rushed to enter the lightweight aggregate business. Southern Lightweight Aggregate Corporation led the pack, being incorporated by its founder, John W. Roberts. Seven months later, Solite shipped its first two railcars of lightweight aggregate for the manufacture of masonry units. One went to Charleston, SC, the other to Charleston, WV, to block plants that had formerly used coal cinders. Read more.

An NRMCA Associate Member since 1998

The University of Washington Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) is developing new testing standards for concrete that could lead to a greener building sector. Industry professionals and UW faculty developed these standards, known as product category rules, to compare the carbon footprints of different types of concrete.

A South Dakota university professor has ensured his legacy of working with concrete will live on well past his scheduled June 21 retirement. Marion R. Hansen is retiring from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, but thanks to an endowment he is creating with his accrued sick leave his research on finding unusual and innovative ways to use concrete will continue (see related E-NEWS item directly below).

South Dakota School of Mines & Technology's David Haberman and Tyler Pojanowski conducted a successful test flight for its eight-kilo remote-controlled concrete airplane. While building an industrial-sized aircraft is not possible with current technology, Haberman and Pojanowski's smaller model "could lead to further developments in concrete, making it stronger, lighter and easier to work with when it comes to building structures," writes Andrew Liszewski. 

NRMCA’s Amanda Hult and Brian Killingsworth will host a free one hour Webinar on Thursday, June 6, at noon Eastern time for state affiliates and paving associations on the Design Assistance Program (DAP) for parking lots and streets and local roads. This Webinar will detail the free services provided to these groups through the Design Assistance Program. The pavement engineers will discuss in detail the information provided in the deliverables as well as how to use this information as a part of the promotional effort. Case studies of successful projects will be showcased along with testimonials from individuals that have utilized the program.

This Webinar is ideal for state affiliate and paving association representatives that are involved in the promotion of concrete parking lots and streets and local roads.

Register now for the Pervious Concrete: A Stormwater Solution online course now being offered August 12-15 from noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern time. This course will provide detailed instruction on how to implement pervious concrete pavements as a solution to reducing stormwater runoff from building sites and other paved areas. Attendees will learn the details of pervious concrete pavement systems, engineering properties and construction techniques. Other topics to be covered include:

• Economic and Environmental Benefits

• Hydrological and Structural Design

• Specifications, Mix Design and Test Methods

• Construction Techniques

• Contractor Certification

• Durability and Maintenance

• Applications and Case Studies

This course is intended for civil engineers, architects, landscape architects, and public works officials and others who design pavements and stormwater management systems. Contractors, product suppliers and land developers will also benefit from this seminar.  Participants will receive 6 continuing education hours upon completion of the course, required reading material and quizzes.

The University of Buffalo’s Civil Engineering Department was the scene of a recent presentation by NRMCA Senior Director, National Resources, Doug O’Neill on ACI 330 and the proper design and construction of concrete parking lots for a class on pavement design. Since ACI 330R-08 is not currently a part of their curriculum, the class of 32 students heard for the first time how concrete parking lots should be designed.

"This shows just how critical it is for our industry to continue reaching out to aspiring design professionals at the source of their educational development," O’Neill said. After reading about the success cultivated by the Kentucky Ready-Mixed Concrete Association, (an April 8 E-NEWS item), O’Neill decided to make contact with this Top 25 civil engineering programs in the U.S. as ranked by U.S. News & World Report. His request for inclusion of ACI 330 was met with enthusiasm by faculty members and one professor invited him to present to her pavement design class before the current semester ended.

"Now that we’ve developed a relationship with the university, our goals for next year include working alongside our partners at the New York Construction Materials Association to help get interested professors  involved with PCA’s very successful Professors’ Workshop along with introducing them to NRMCA’s educational online offerings and resources," O’Neill said.

NRMCA’s Education and Technical Resources Department is working on a specific program designed for university professors to provide them with additional information and resources. O’Neill and his frequent colleague Greg Novitzki, vice president at NY Materials, have already started to develop further opportunities at other engineering schools throughout New York State.

A recent site visit to one of the Walmart parking lot pilot projects resulted in important information on the construction of the parking lot, but also yielded an insight to concrete parking areas often overlooked.

"Checking in at the local hotel, the desk clerk asked what brought me to town," reports NRMCA Senior National Resource Director Jon Hansen. "I told her I was there because of the new Walmart store. Without telling her my profession, she immediately started to tell me how what a nice store it is with that great ‘cement’ parking lot. She went on to say how the ‘cement’ parking lot was so ‘bright looking’ and how that she ‘has a small farm and buys a lot of heavy items she has to load in her car and that the carts roll so nice on the smooth cement’. She went on to tell me ‘that is what wears the wheels out on our valet carts here at the hotel, the rough asphalt.’"

"I came away from this conversation with a renewed perspective," Hansen said. "We spend a huge amount of time and effort on the technical aspects of concrete. This desk clerk brought back to my attention that we build for people to use and if the use experience is attractive and pleasant, then this too is as important as anything else we do."

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is writing a manual of Recommended Design Guidelines for Permeable Pavements and NRMCA has provided commentary on behalf of the concrete industry. Senior National Resource Directors Doug O’Neill and Phil Kresge were invited to review a draft of the manual’s chapter on pervious concrete, as well as corresponding appendices, to verify technical accuracy. Kresge reached out to several of the industry’s leading pervious concrete experts, including members of the NRMCA Pervious Concrete Promotion Subcommittee, for assistance. The input they provided regarding void content, infiltration rates and other pervious concrete properties will be incorporated into the manual.

"This is a huge effort," says Bethany Eisenberg, director of stormwater services for Vanasse, Hangen and Brustlin, Inc. and ASCE committee spokesperson. "With the assistance from dedicated people from within the industry and our team, collaboratively, we are hopeful this comes out as a valuable product."

The use of life-cycle cost analyses (LCCA) illustrated to the city of Windom, MN, the benefits of durable concrete pavements. April Stier of the Portland Cement Association (PCA) and Mitch Voehl, GCC Ready Mix, presented pavement life cycle cost analyses to the city council at a March 21 meeting where the council was considering a 25-block street improvement project. The group was reviewing bids for the project that included one with 3 inches of asphalt, 5 inches of rock and 10 inches salvaged base and millings versus 6 inches concrete with 2 inches of rock. Prior consulting engineer discussion eliminated salvaged material for concrete.

Based on LCCA, the Windom City Council selected the concrete bid of $1,356,340, which was approximately $300,000 higher than the asphalt  bid. The 28,716 square yard project, now under construction, will consume 4,786 cubic yards of concrete.

Mark your calendars for the final NRMCA promotion-focused Webinar scheduled for May: ACI 330 R-08 – The Gold Standard of Concrete Parking Lot Design. Click on the link below to learn more and then to register online.

• Friday, May 31 - ACI 330 R-08 – The Gold Standard of Concrete Parking Lot Design

Longtime ready mixed concrete promoter in both Michigan and Colorado Bernie Cawley died May 9 in Colorado from complications resulting from oral cancer. He was 62. The Colorado Ready Mixed Concrete Association (CRMCA) praised Cawley as "a strong and influential leader" who played a key role in the creation of the Construction Industry Coalition that has been extremely successful in the legislative and regulatory arenas. Cawley also developed and organized a CRMCA member campaign that expanded membership by 30% and implemented updated educational programs that doubled the number of course options. During his time with the Michigan Concrete Association (MCA), Cawley developed and implemented regional promotion councils which resulted in regional campaigns and programs that increased business for participants and formulated a MCA proprietary "Washwater Program" that was approved and lauded by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

 

Bernie Cawley Memorial Fund

US Bank Routing Number 102000021

 

Donations may also be sent directly to CRMCA Office Manager Stacy Ehrlick at the CRMCA offices, 6880 South Yosemite Court Suite 100, Centennial, CO 80112.

NRMCA requests its members, the concrete industry and interested parties who want to deliver an education session at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014 to submit their proposal(s) no later than Friday, May 31. Speaker proposals can only be submitted online. Submittals will be reviewed by the CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014 Education Committee for topic and audience balance within the total program, application, newness and practicality of session material; relevance and significance to the marketplace; structure and organization of a session and speaker's ability to engage the audience. Commercial product sessions are not acceptable topics. Contractors, by far, are the heaviest attendees at education sessions.

Session tracks include concrete, aggregates, asphalt, safety and regulatory compliance, heavy machinery, equipment management and maintenance, workforce development and business best practices. The CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014  seminar program will run Tuesday, March 4, through Friday, March 7, 2014. Seminars may also be scheduled on Saturday, March 8, 2014. Presentation dates of a selected proposal is the sole discretion of CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2014.

The Portland Cement Association (PCA) – Northwest Region has appointed Diane M. Warner, PE, as pavement engineer. She will represent the cement and concrete industry in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana as a resource to public and private owners, designers, and consultants in making value added pavement selection decisions for concrete and cement-based product applications.

Prior to joining PCA, Warner was employed by Contech Engineered Solutions. She brings over 15 years of experience in sales and engineering support to her new assignment. Warner holds a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Southern Florida and recently completed her MBA from the University of Portland. She is licensed to practice engineering in both Washington and Oregon. Warner may be reached at 503-780-9505 or dwarner@cement.org.

 

The March/April 2013 issue of the Concrete Bridge Views newsletter is now available online. Highlights are below:

Eliminating Bridge Joints – A Preservation Strategy, Houston Walker, P.E., Tennessee Department of Transportation. The use of jointless bridges with integral abutments can be an economical strategy to help preserve bridges from the ravages of salt induced corrosion damage, while providing several inherent design advantages. Full Article

Fully Precast Bridge System Used in Washington State Highways for Life Project, Part 2: Bridge Design and Construction – Bijan Khaleghi, Washington State DOT. The Washington State Department of Transportation’s Highways for Life project offers a precast concrete bridge system that is suitable for high seismic regions and accelerated bridge construction projects.Part two of the article discusses the bridge design concept and construction. Full Article

Crystalline Silica Rule Under Review at the Office of Management and Budget –   Thomas Harman, Portland Cement Association, and Tony Kojundic, Elkem Materials Inc. Worker exposure to RCS has been on OSHA’s agenda for some time. OSHA is believed to be considering three permissible exposure limits (PEL) for exposure to crystalline silica in the proposal. Full Article

Space is still available for the NRMCA Concrete Durability Course on June 3 - 5 at the office of CTLGroup in Skokie, IL (metro Chicago). The course is taught by Michael Thomas, University of New Brunswick, Kevin Folliard, University of Texas at Austin and NRMCA Engineering Staff. The course provides a fundamental understanding of the nature of cement and concrete as they relate to durability of concrete. Topics will cover cracking, alkali aggregate reactions, sulfate attack, corrosion of reinforcing steel, freeze-thaw durability and other aspects. A group exercise will be facilitated to walk attendees through ConcreteWorks software that can be used to develop concrete mixtures for durability.

The course also discusses the new provisions for durability in ACI 318-11 and how specifications can be structured to address durability. Attendees at previous courses have given this program rave reviews. This course also offers those with the NRMCA Level 3 certification the opportunity to obtain the NRMCA Concrete Technologist Level 4 certification. It also provides required learning units toward the technical track of the NRMCA STEPS certification program. Please register early if you wish to attend.

A recent article by the chief supply officer of 
Anheuser-Busch InBev, Claudio Braz Ferro, highlights steps to build a culture of sustainability to achieve environmental goals. As we have noticed, sustainability has captured the attention of much of the world over the last few years. Trends suggest that companies with "sustainable" supply chains significantly outperformed their counterparts in terms of both stock market and accounting criteria. 

The concrete industry faces some of the same challenges as the brewing industry, notes NRMCA's Tien Peng. Challenges range from the age and capabilities of equipment to the variety in quality and supply of natural resources. It takes between five and more than 100 liters of water to make one liter of beer depending on the location and plant. This often means that implementing a "one-size-fits-all" green solution is often impossible.

The author believes that incentivizing and challenging their colleagues to make changes wherever they could – large and small, in each of their more than 140 facilities – was the only way to reach their three-year targets. The authors shares his steps for achieving a sustainable culture:

1. Elevate sustainability initiatives to the same level as other business-critical functions

2. Encourage global best practice sharing, tailored to local conditions

3. Empower employees to continually drive improvement

By sharing the responsibility for achieving sustainability targets with all colleagues and empowering them to make changes, businesses will be able to achieve a level of commitment and performance that wouldn’t be otherwise possible, he says.

Media articles on Congress, transportation infrastructure, regulation, taxes and other subjects, each of which relate to the ready mixed concrete industry, are updated each week by NRMCA's Government Affairs staff. To access the most recent compilation of articles for the Week of May 6 - 10, please click here.

NRMCA's Technology in Practice series cover brief technical topics in the popular "What?, Why? And How?" format and are developed as educational topics for ready mixed concrete industry technical personnel. The topics are selected and developed by the NRMCA Research, Engineering and Standards (RES) Committee. NRMCA releases two more topics in the series:

TIP 9 – Density of Structural Lightweight Concrete – discusses the relationship between oven-dry density, equilibrium density and fresh bulk density of lightweight concrete. The density of lightweight concrete is critical when used for design load on structural members, fire rating of building assemblies and overall mass of a structure in seismic conditions. The TIP discusses procedures used in ASTM C567 to calculate or measure the density of lightweight concrete in different moisture conditions and to develop information required in project submittals.

TIP 10 – Mixing Water Quality for Concrete – addresses the process of qualifying non-potable sources of water, such as well water or mixer wash water, for use as mixing water in concrete. It discusses the details of ASTM C1602, Specification for Mixing Water and the testing requirements to qualify non-potable sources of water for use in concrete.

May 20, Webinar

Roller Compacted Concrete: Your Third Choice for Pavement

Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152

 

May 22, Free Webinar

Environmental Product Declarations

Email: Lionel Lemay, 847-918-7101

 

May 29, Webinar

Drivers' Hours of Service

Email: Karen Bean, 888-84-NRMCA, x1168

 

May 31, Webinar

ACI 330 R-08 – The Gold Standard of Concrete Parking Lot Design

Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152

 

June 3-5, Chicago

Concrete Durability Course

Email: Karen Bean, 888-84-NRMCA, x1168

 

June 3, Webinar (Part I)

Designing and Specifying Pervious Concrete

Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152

 

June 10, Webinar (Part II)

Designing and Specifying Pervious Concrete

Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152

 

June 11, Webinar

Concrete Overlays for Streets and Local Roads and Parking Lots

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

June 19, Free Webinar

Environmental Product Declarations

Email: Lionel Lemay, 847-918-7101

 

June 25, Webinar

Controlling Moisture in Concrete Slabs

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

July 8-11, Online Course

Design of Concrete Pavements

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

July 15–19, Skokie, IL

2013 Professors Workshop: Teaching Buildings, Bridges, Materials, and Pavements

Email: Lionel Lemay, 847-918-7101

 

August 11-15, Montreal

ISARC 2013: 30th International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction, Mining & Petroleum Industries

Email: Chantal Murphy, 514-939-2710, ext. 1309

 

August 12-15 Online Course

Pervious Concrete: A Stormwater Solution

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

August 13-16, Silver Spring, MD 

Plant Manager Certification Course

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

August 27, Webinar 

Concrete Pavement Jointing Plans

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

August 30, Webinar

ACI 330 R-08 – The Gold Standard of Concrete Parking Lot Design

Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152

 

September 22-24, Las Vegas

Concrete Works & Board of Directors' Meeting

Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152

 

November 8, Webinar

ACI 330 R-08 – The Gold Standard of Concrete Parking Lot Design

Email: Jessica Walgenbach, 888-84-NRMCA, x1152

 

November 19-21, Silver Spring, MD

The Effective RMC Supervisor Course

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

October 1-4, Silver Spring, MD

CCSP I: Introduction to Concrete Fundamentals—Concrete 101

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

December 3-5, Silver Spring, MD

CCSP II: Customer Business Knowledge

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

December 4-6, Orlando, FL

Environmental Professional Certification Course

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154

 

December 10-13, Orlando, FL 

Plant Manager Certification Course

Email: Shawnita Dickens, 888-84-NRMCA, x1154