Webinar Archives

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There are five commonly used procedures for designing industrial floor slabs. All of them are effective when their recommendations and details are followed. So, how does a designer choose the best method for a particular floor?  The most common approach is to determine the type of floor construction needed for expected loading conditions. Then, from the design procedures, select the most appropriate method for determining floor thickness, reinforcement, joint spacing, and other details.  This presentation will discuss the ACI 360 “Guide to Design of Slabs on Ground”.  It will briefly address the planning, design, and detailing of slabs. Background information on design theories is followed by discussion of the types of slabs, soil-support systems, loadings, and jointing. Some worked design examples for various types of concrete slabs-on-ground will also be covered.

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The webinar introduces the concepts of Product Category Rules, Environmental Product Declarations and Life Cycle Assessment. Legislative and Industry developments are addressed to inform the audience of why these concepts will likely become a part of daily lives in the near future.

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WJE carried out independent studies related to the 2018 collapse of the FIU Pedestrian Bridge in Miami. Most significantly, WJE developed and tested full-sized specimens to evaluate the significance of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB’s) finding that the construction joint between the northernmost diagonal and deck was left in an as-placed condition, rather than intentionally roughened as required by the project specifications. The webinar also describes WJE’s independent review of shear friction strength in accordance with the AASHTO Code.

The presentation describes the details of the experimental program that demonstrated that, had the construction joint been roughened as required by the project specifications, the collapse would not have occurred. Contrary to NTSB’s findings, the contractor’s failure to roughen the surface was the primary cause of the collapse.

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Concrete provides structures with strength, rigidity, and resilience from deformation. These characteristics, however, result in concrete structures lacking the flexibility to move in response to environmental or volume changes. Cracking is usually the first sign of distress in concrete. Cracking of concrete flatwork is natural, expected, and accepted. However, cracks may affect appearance, performance, and maintenance costs.  This presentation will discuss the various types of concrete cracks and how to best minimize their occurrence.

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The webinar covers Minnesota's cement/concrete trends and where the market is headed in the next few years. We will examine economic growth scenarios that may unfold under differing assumptions regarding COVID-19. Where are the growth opportunities? Will there be structural changes to the construction market following the recession? The presenter is Dave Zwicke who is Sr. Director of Economic Analysis at the Portland Cement Association.

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The use of Fiber Reinforced Concrete continues to evolve and become more common place in everyday concrete construction. Learn how the new ACI 544.4R document can help ready- mix producers, engineers and contractors by providing a roadmap to designing FRC for many applications including floors, precast, shotcrete and paving applications. An update will also be provided on other CODE approvals such as UL fire classification for composite deck designs, various DOT initiatives for paving with FRC and the improvements in ASTM and other test methods to verify correct fiber selection and quantities in concrete.

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Part of the Sustainable Structures Webinar Series: Now that architects have a good understanding of environmental impacts related to energy use, the next design frontier in tackling climate change is reducing the embodied carbon in buildings. This live webinar will focus on best practices for determining the embodied carbon in a building, including credible sources for embodied carbon data. It will introduce common practices and misconceptions about comparisons of embodied carbon. A case study will be presented that highlights how design decisions may be influenced when comparing among up-front carbon, use-phase carbon, or whole-life carbon. The presentation will highlight existing tools related to quantifying embodied carbon.

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Part of the Sustainable Structures Webinar Series: Prescriptive building code requirements represent provisions for the least safe structure that may legally be built in a jurisdiction. Over the past 20 years, the building design and construction industry have witnessed an increase in the number of trade-offs of passive fire safety features for active systems. As natural disasters attributed to climate change continue to escalate, the population of neighborhoods located along with the wildland-urban interface increases, and fire and emergency access to buildings in densely populated areas is obstructed, multiple drivers arise to consider more robust construction for our built environment.

The presentation will provide an overview of increased risks from natural and human hazards, identify approaches to mitigate their effects through voluntary and mandatory strategies and demonstrate the importance of incorporating standards for resiliency beyond minimum code requirements.