Webinar Archives

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Many issues related to construction can be alleviated by a fundamental understanding of the basics of concrete. This starts with knowledge of the standard components of a concrete mixture including cementitious materials, aggregates, water, and admixtures and their importance on the properties of fresh and hardened concrete. The combination of these materials in various proportions can produce mixtures suitable for a wide range of applications and placement methods. Once placed, the concrete must be properly cured to develop its intended properties. This presentation introduces the basics of concrete and describes its importance and application as a construction material.

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Ultra High Performance Concrete (UPHC) describes a class of concrete material with a unique set of properties including: Strengths of 21,000 ksi plus, high ductility, low permeability and rapid strength gain. With these unique material properties, UHPC facilitates short development lengths, thin overlays and the potential for further development in optimized prestress girders for longer spans with less material. UHPC continues to play an important role in Accelerated Bridge Construction serving as the connecting material between precast elements allowing for small joints with short lap lengths while obtaining full connectivity between the elements. This presentation will introduce the audience to UHPC, the basic material properties, applications and lessons learned.

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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.

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Hot weather conditions are not solely related to the air temperature when placing concrete.  Those conditions are defined in ACI and ASTM documents.  This presentation will focus on being able to define hot weather conditions and its effects on concrete in the plastic and hardened state.  This presentation will also provide details on how to overcome the conditions of hot weather when placing concrete.

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Part of the Sustainable Structures Webinar Series: Look around and you’ll see many five to seven story projects being built today with a one- or two-story concrete pedestal, supporting up to five floors of steel or wood frame. These “pedestal” projects are assumed to be the cheapest way to build while longer term ownership implications of these designs are not well understood. This one-hour presentation dispels the myths that are driving the popularity of pedestal construction and demonstrates the value concrete provides.

The developer/owner’s perspective on building multi-family housing projects with Insulating Concrete Forms (ICFs) will be presented, and will include design, construction, and energy-efficiency implications, as well as tenant satisfaction. The presenter will overview his use of ICF’s and concrete for the exterior wall system at Kendal Lofts, a 42-unit project in Waukesha, Wisconsin. In addition, the presenter will also discuss his latest all-concrete residential projects in Wisconsin and Florida.

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What is mass concrete? ACI 207.1R defines mass concrete as any volume of concrete with dimensions large enough to require that measures be taken to cope with the generation of heat from hydration of the cement and attendant volume change to minimize cracking. But how does one predict whether mass concrete problems will occur and what steps should be taken? This presentation will discuss how to identify mass concrete, ACI 301 requirements pertaining to it, and good construction practices.

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Forms, shores, and re-shores are a temporary structure that carries the weight and construction load of the permanent structure until it is strong enough to stand up for itself.  While serving this temporary duty, forms, shores, and re-shores impact construction safety, cost, productivity, and schedule, and influence appearance, deformations, tolerances, and cracking of the hardened reinforced or prestressed concrete. 

This presentation introduces Codes, standard specifications, OSHA, and ANSI documents that address responsibilities for forms and shores.  By an example of a multi-story building, we look at how shore and re-shore systems work, including how shoring & re-shoring plans must be synchronized with rate-of-strength-gain of the concrete, as influenced by mix-design and ambient temperature.  This complex topic demonstrates how schedule, concrete mix, weather, construction technology, lab and in-place testing all come together.

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Mass concrete (or thermally controlled concrete) typically requires implementing thermal control measures to reduce maximum temperature and mitigate temperature difference. Specified temperature limits and thermal control requirements can affect mix design proportions, materials selection, reinforcement details, construction operations and compliance to specifications for the work. Many specifications still limit concrete temperatures to overly conservative default values without recognizing concrete properties and performance that allow alternative temperature limits more suitable for the specified work while maintaining quality and improving constructability. This issue frequently results in challenging scenarios that create design difficulties and unnecessary constructability problems for mass concrete. This presentation focuses on the implementation of today’s knowledge of mass concrete and best practices to overcome mass concrete challenges and facilitate solutions in projects. A special emphasis will be given to the technical updates provided for mass concrete requirements and guidance progressing in North America industry standards.

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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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This presentation reviews strength and serviceability problems in concrete parking structures. The effects of environmental exposure, vehicular loading, and deterioration will be discussed with an emphasis on key differences between buildings, parking structures, and bridges. Case histories will be provided to illustrate common problems, failures, and remediation methods. Precast concrete and cast-in-place systems will be discussed, including problems that occurred during construction. The presentation will include examples of changes that have occurred in the industry to enhance safety and long-term performance.