Oregon State team tops PCI Big Beam with Knife River Prestress assist

A three-member Oregon State University team took the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute’s 2023 Engineering Design Competition. Also known as Big Beam, it challenges college or university engineering students to design, build and test a 20-ft. precast, prestressed beam. Teams participate with oversight from a faculty advisor and local or regional PCI producer member—Knife River Prestress in Oregon State’s case. Students are…

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Wine Country precaster presses concrete tank vs. oak barrel efficacy

A Petaluma, Calif. specialty precaster’s latest innovation sets a new threshold for making wine in concrete tanks. With a capacity of just over 1,000 gallons or 3,800 liters, the Sonoma Cast Stone SuperEgg is more than twice the size of any other such vessel, including the producer’s own top gun, the 476-gal. Egg. The SuperEgg will allow users to produce…

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CarbonBuilt, Master Builders advance low carbon mixes, products

A collaboration involving Los Angeles-based CarbonBuilt and MBCC Group’s Master Builders Solutions business will focus on formulating admixtures augmenting the former company’s low carbon concrete technology platform. The CarbonBuilt Reversa process uses carbon dioxide to optimize portland cement contents in mix designs and raise finished concrete performance.  New admixtures developed with Master Builders Solutions could position CarbonBuilt to extend the…

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Balancing Act

A visit with 2021 NCMA Chairman Rocky Jenkins BY DON MARSH Rocky Jenkins’ career in manufactured concrete products was launched from a management trainee program in the house that Florida legend M.E. “Doc” Rinker built. That experience will serve Jenkins as the 2021 National Concrete Masonry Association Chairman. 

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BeCo Concrete ‘bent’ on performance solution for IKEA landing

NS-BeCo-150-1

BeCo Concrete Products has wrapped up production and delivery of a nearly 300-piece Class III reinforced concrete pipe package: 1,080 feet of 144-in. diameter combined sewer sections, including 16 bends, and 1,192 feet of 66-in. diameter storm sewer sections, with 12 bends and six tees. The installation will anchor drainage infrastructure at IKEA St. Louis, a 380,000-sq.-ft., three-level store with 1,300 parking spaces.

 
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Economist links construction materials’ upward pricing to harsh winter

Source: Associated Builders & Contractors, Washington, D.C.

Through April, concrete products and iron & steel prices were up 3.4 percent and 3.2 percent year over year, while overall construction materials prices rose 1.5 percent against the first four months of 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s mid-May Producer Price Index.

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NAHB Improving Markets Index expands to 30 metropolitan areas

Source: Rock Products staff

The number of improving housing markets continued to expand for a third consecutive month in November, rising from 23 to 30 on the latest National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving Markets Index. The list dropped two metropolitan areas and added nine new ones—Fort Collins, Colo.; Hinesville, Ga.; Davenport, Iowa; Monroe, La.; Lima, Ohio; Williamsport, Pa.; Corpus Christi and Tyler, Texas; and, Cheyenne, Wyo.

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