Sources: Holcim (US) Inc., Waltham, Mass.; CP staff
A new tool Holcim (US) has developed for cement and ready mixed customers enables Android, Apple 4 & 4S iPhone and Blackberry smartphone users tailor mix design and slab pour schedules according to a four-day forecast of building site evaporation rates.
The free weatherAPP charts by zip code or smartphone-relayed GPS location an average wind speed, relative humidity, air temperature and evaporation rate profile, indicating whether plastic shrinkage cracking is not likely, probable or most probable to occur in those conditions. Holcim (US) programmers created the application with an ACI 305R-10: Guide to Hot Weather Concreting formula.
Unveiled at World of Concete 2012 in Las Vegas, weatherAPP is the company’s first in a series of concrete practice-geared smartphone tools. It follows recent deployment of calQ, a web-based program assisting users in quantifying their concrete and aggregate products’ contribution to LEED credits; and Cement-Online, an order- and account-tracking program for concrete producers.