Concrete Construction articles from September 2006

Concrete Construction archives from September 2006

PCA staff in Capital's first green office building.(News & Events)
September 1, 2006... The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has relocated its Washington, D.C., offices into a sustainable building, re-affirming the cement industry's commitment to sustainable development. PCA moved its D.C. offices to the National Association...

Building with concrete competes with steel.(News & Events)
September 1, 2006... According to the Boston Globe, the developers of a new luxury condominium in Providence, R.I., scrapped plans for a steel structure and drew up a new design in concrete. Other parts of the country favor concrete, which is more expensive, but in...

Study details advantages of performance-based specifications.(News & Events)
September 1, 2006... A study by the NRMCA Research Laboratory compares the properties of concrete mixtures optimized for performance that may not comply with typical prescriptive provisions in specifications for concrete construction. The Prescription to...

TCA forms seismic design task group.(News & Events)
September 1, 2006... The Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA) has announced the formation of a seismic design task group. According to Jim Baty, technical director of the TCA, the task group was formed as a proactive measure to involve the experts in the tilt-up...

A long or short 50 years.(Hime & Erlin on Concrete)
September 1, 2006... Fifty years, five decades, half a century is a long time to some. To others it seems like an instant, or just a period when memories were created that provide things to think about, including things you did or things did not do but intended to...

Putting the industry on the record.
September 1, 2006... Over the years many people have written for CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION. Their thoughts, as recorded on the pages of the magazine, form a solid foundation of practical knowledge and experience upon which the industry continues to build. The following...

Fifty years that flew by: Concrete Construction--born of a hard working founder, for a hardworking industry.
September 1, 2006... Many of today's readers of CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION have never heard of Bill Avery--but his ghost hovers over every word we publish, every booth at the World of Concrete, and even lingers on our Web sites. As the founder of CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION...

50 years of Concrete Construction progress: people, projects, materials, equipment, and techniques that have defined the concrete industry.(Cover story)
September 1, 2006... Progress is like people walking to their departure gate in an airport--some stroll along as if time is of no concern, confident they will get there on time, others frantically rush ahead swerving around the slowpokes, no time to spare. Progress...

Concrete and the future.(The Next 50 Years)
September 1, 2006... No one can say with certainty what the future will bring, but we know that change will come. Improvements in existing products combined with new technologies and techniques will lead to advances in efficiency and better end products. We...

Best of Concrete Construction: concrete paths of the past.(Best of Concrete Construction)
September 1, 2006... Some readers may have memories of ducking under their school desks during routine A-bomb drills half a century ago. Others associate the term energy crisis with today's news rather than events of the 1970s. And so it is with concrete trends and...

Decorative concrete comes of age: fifty years of innovative and creative people.
September 1, 2006... Most of the decorative concrete movement came about since CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION was first published, and some of it unfolded in the magazine. For instance, in 1956, the first issue shows Brad Bowman stamping concrete. Individuals and company...

False set.(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... October 1956 Q. What is meant by false set? A. False set is a premature stiffening that differs from flash set in that the cement paste does not liberate heat at a rapid rate and in that very mild mixing will restore plasticity. False...

Cold weather concreting.(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... October 1956 Q. How soon after concrete has been poured can it be frozen without sustaining damage? A. In "Recommended Practice for Winter Concreting," ACI Committee 604 [now ACI 306] noted that the principal factor is the rate at...

Compressive and flexural strength.(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... April 1963 Q. In normal concrete work, the maximum compressive strength that can possibly be obtained is generally reckoned to be about 7500 psi for a 28-day cylinder. It would be interesting to know if there is a conceivable maximum limit...

Radioactive?(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... December 1956 Q. Is there any truth to reports that concrete buildings are radioactive? A. Yes, but it doesn't seem to justify any anxiety. All structures are somewhat radioactive, but masonry materials, including concrete and brick,...

Sugar.(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... May 1961 Q. How much sugar is required to keep concrete indefinitely in a plastic condition? A. The amount of sugar that should be used to keep concrete from fully hardening ranges from 1.0 to 1.5 percent by weight of cement. It is...

Plastics.(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... May 1963 Q. Occasionally one sees hints that plastics may eventually oust portland cement concrete in construction. Is this really feasible? A. At the moment plastics, and chiefly the thermosetting (permanently hardening under the...

Air entrainment.(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... November 1956 Q. Has the entrainment of air in concrete any advantages besides increasing its resistance to freezing and thawing? A. Yes, air entrained concrete has less tendency to bleed, it is considerably more plastic than ordinary...

Efflorescence.(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... April 1972 Q. I have a concrete wall that builds up heavy efflorescence in the spring. There doesn't seem to be any other source of efflorescence except the wall itself, but I have cleaned it two years in a row and the white deposit still...

Productivity?(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... February 1975 Q. Lately we have had contractors placing too large an area of concrete floor slabs, so that finishers are not able to properly finish it before it rains or darkness falls. Is there any rule of thumb about the number of...

Slump variation.(Problem Clinic)
September 1, 2006... August 1987 Q. What can cause a wide variation in mixing water needed to get a uniform slump for ready mixed concrete? For a 4-inch slump, I normally need to batch about 150 gallons of water in a 5-yard load. Sometimes, though, it takes as...

50 wonderful years Eugene Boeke, Beers Construction Co. Atlanta.(Contractors to Watch)
September 1, 2006... What would you see on a construction site in 1956? Set up: The general contractor's office was a job-built wooden structure equipped with a pot-belly stove. On one side there was a plan table and the super's desk, on the other side was the...