Concrete Research Council funds tall building, pervious pavement, hollow core projects

Sources: ACI Foundation, Farmington Hills, Mich.; CP staff

The ACI Foundation’s Concrete Research Council has announced grants up to $50,000 for projects focused on seismic design of tall buildings, mechanistic pervious concrete pavement design; chloride ion, freeze-thaw and sulfate durability; and, steel fiber hollow core plank.

A call for proposals drew an unprecedented high volume of 2016 research proposal submissions, notes CRC Chair Joe Bracci, adding, “The efforts of the CRC will boost the impact that the ACI Foundation’s funding will have on the concrete industry. The increase in grant amount [from $10,000 cap] and more competitive selection process has brought more proposals from researchers, and more interest and support from ACI Committees.”

The Council offers an overview of each themed project:

Update to Guidelines for Performance-Based Seismic Design of Tall Buildings. Examines performance-based design, review, acceptance, and construction of buildings using materials, structural systems and devices that may or may not be covered by the prescriptive provisions of today’s building codes. Updated Guidelines will provide building owners and developers with the ability to create more efficient and functional buildings. Stakeholder will have clearer design requirements allowing for a more streamlined design and review process. Finally, the updated guide will benefit the public by the creation of more buildings that renew urban centers and are more environmentally friendly. Principal investigators are Jack Moehle, University of California, Berkeley; and, Ron Hamburger, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. Major funder is Charles Pankow Foundation.

Towards Mechanistic Pavement Design of Pervious Concrete Pavements. Explores a technology that is often a desirable pavement option for city streets, bike lanes, parking lots, and sidewalks due to its fast infiltration of storm water. Pervious concrete pavement (PCP) minimizes ponding, spraying and hydroplaning. While PCP is gaining in popularity for low volume applications, no fatigue model is currently calibrated for use in mechanical pavement design procedures. Field and laboratory testing on several PCP installations will target fatigue behavior. Findings will be integrated into pavement design procedures, specifically PerviousPave, and coupled with future field performance in order to create a workable PCP fatigue model. Principal investigators are Washington State University Professor J. Daniel Dolan and Assistant Professor Somayeh Nassiri. Co-funders are Washington State University and Boeing Co.

Establishing Unified Durability Guidance on Chloride Ions Limits, Freeze-Thaw Performance, and External Sulfate Attack for ACI Documents. Aimed at rectifying discrepancies between ACI documents that pertain to chloride limits, freeze-thaw attack, and sulfate attack. Project developers would like to bring chloride limits in new concrete, strength requirements, and air content for avoiding freeze-thaw related damage, and strength requirements for avoiding sulfate attack all into harmony. Researchers will analyze existing data from concrete durability field exposure sites, laboratory testing and published literature to make recommendations. Principal investigators are Oregon State University’s Jason Ideker; Georgia Institute of Technology’s Kimberly E. Kurtis; University of New Brunswick’s Michael D. A. Thomas; and, CTLGroup’s Anthony Bentivegna.

Deformed Steel Fibers as Minimum Shear Reinforcement in Deep, Prestressed Concrete Hollow-Core Slabs. Addresses the web-shear cracking strength of relatively deep hollow core slabs, which has been shown to be substantially lower than calculated per ACI Code provisions. The only feasible solution in the past, when increased shear strength is required, has been to fill the cores with concrete—adding weight plus material and labor costs. A potentially more cost effective solution is to use deformed steel fibers to increase the sheer strength. The proposed research is aimed at generating necessary experimental data to evaluate the conditions under which steel fibers may be used as minimum shear reinforcement in precast, prestressed hollow-core concrete slabs. Principal investigator is Gustavo Parra Montesinos, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Principal funders are Wisconsin-based Mid-States Concrete Industries, Beloit, and Spancrete, Waukesha.