NRMCA Concrete Innovations Awards

Now in its second year, the program recognizes outstanding achievement in concrete design and construction. Early this month, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association selected the winners of the 2024 NRMCA Concrete Innovations Awards. Ten projects demonstrate outstanding achievements in performance even as they lower environmental impacts, such as embodied and operational carbon footprints. To help you fully understand the…

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NRMCA – Commitment to Environmental Excellence Awards

The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association honors 11 plants and their owners in the 2020 Environmental Excellence Awards program. Now in its 25th year, the competition offers NRMCA producer members national recognition for outstanding contributions to protecting the environment and maintaining sound management practices in their operations. The awards salute operators that have not only met, but surpassed governmental compliance…

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Rebar-free, but steel-laden, HPC core shoulders 850-ft. Seattle tower

Sources: Magnusson Klemencic Associates, Lease Crutcher Lewis, and Wright Runstad & Co., Seattle; CP staff

A 58-floor mixed-use tower in Seattle has topped out after a 10-month schedule on the strength of a unique core wall system with requisite volumes of high performance concrete but no conventional rebar. Rainier Square Tower marks the debut of what local engineer Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA) dubs the Concrete-Filled Composite Plate Shear Wall (CPSW) system. In contrast to a conventional reinforced concrete wall with large diameter rebar, the system as engineered for the 850-ft. structure redirects steel to composite panels: Half- or ¾-in. thick plates, connected with 1-in. diameter steel cross ties running vertically and horizontally on 12-in. center grids. 

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Seattle Teamsters bask in contract settling disruptive CalPortland strike

Sources: Teamsters Local 174, Tukwila, Wash.; CP staff

Teamsters Local 174 rank & file have approved a four-year contract with the Seattle market’s principal ready mixed operators: CalPortland, Cadman and Lehigh Cement, Stoneway Concrete, and Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel. Ratification of a deal covering nearly 300 drivers had major implications for concrete deliveries in downtown Seattle and areas immediately north, where technology companies and their employees are fueling a wave of mid- and high-rise building projects.

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