Dome builder flexes concrete muscle for post-Fukushima nuclear plant structures

Sources: American Business Continuity Domes, Inc., Miami; U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

An alliance that engineers, designs and builds disaster-resistant, reinforced concrete domes has completed the first of three Severe Accident Management “FLEX” equipment storage buildings for Atlanta-based Southern Co. The 138-ft. diameter, 38-ft. tall structure affords 15,400 sq. ft. of ground and 2,500 sq. ft. of mezzanine storage at the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant in Columbia, Ala.

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Sound-construction proponents salute Safe Building, FEMA Reform Acts

Source: BuildStrong Coalition, Washington, D.C.

The National Concrete Masonry Association – and National Ready Mixed Concrete Association-backed BuildStrong Coalition has endorsed the Safe Building Code Incentive Act (H.R. 1748), providing additional disaster relief assistance to states that adopt and enforce strong code measures. Uniform, statewide adoption and enforcement of model building codes helps to eliminate long-term risks affecting people, property, the environment and ultimately the economy, the Coalition contends.

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Wood, Awad, Schneider lead 2015-16 ACI officer slate

Source: American Concrete Institute, Farmington Hills, Mich.

ACI elected officers and directors during its spring convention in Kansas City. Sharon Wood, FACI, has begun a one-year term as president. Dean of the University of Texas, Austin, Cockrell School of Engineering and ACI member since 1983, she serves on Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code, and has served as past ETC Product Development Committee chair, ACI Foundation trustee, plus Financial Advisory and International Advisory Committee member.

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$450M Summit-Lafarge deal entrenches Continental Cement up and down the Mississippi

Sources: CP staff; Summit Materials LLC, Denver; Lafarge Group, Paris

Five weeks after it began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Summit Materials has moved to strengthen its largest holding, Missouri-based Continental Cement, through participation in a regulator-driven asset sale tied to the impending Lafarge Group and Holcim Ltd. merger.

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Holcim prepares to dispatch the bulk of its GranCem slag business

Sources: CP staff; Lafarge Group, Paris

U.S. assets Lafarge Group and Holcim Ltd. are preparing to unload shortly after their proposed merger—on track to close in mid-2015, forming LafargeHolcim—include ground granulated blast furnace slag cement grinding facilities unusually strategic to dense population centers: Camden, N.J., 700,000 tons/year capacity, located on the Delaware River, overlooking Philadelphia; and, Chicago Skyway, 600,000 tons/year capacity, on a Lake Michigan inlet near the Illinois-Indiana border.

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