Underwriter’s holding company takes majority stake in Metromont

South Carolina-based Metromont LLC, a top five precast, prestressed producer, has agreed to sell a majority interest to old-line, specialty insurance provider Markel Corp. of Richmond, Va. Subsidiary Markel Ventures functions as a holding company with long term investments in businesses serving industrial or consumer markets. Family-owned Metromont operates six plants from Virginia to Florida, offering architectural, engineering and construction…

Read More

ULTRA HIGH PERFORMANCE CONCRETE GUIDE

UHPC has been commercially available for more than a decade. A contributor to NPCA’s UHPC White Paper, Lafarge Group has promoted its branded mix, Ductal, for precast and cast-in-place applications around the world.

The National Precast Concrete Association recently published an overview of ultra high performance concrete (UHPC), a material on the leading edge of innovation with potential to expand producers’ architectural and structural offerings. UHPC mix designs vary. Reinforced with high-carbon metallic fibers, structural product formulation can achieve compressive strengths up to 29,000 psi and flexural strengths up to 2,900 psi. UHPC for architectural elements typically incorporates polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers, and can achieve compressive strengths up to 17,000 psi and flexural strengths up to 2,900 psi. Due to the material’s superior compressive and flexural properties, the need for passive reinforcing can be eliminated or greatly reduced, depending on the application. UHPC is also highly moldable and replicates form materials with extreme precision.

Read More

PRODUCERS February 2014

West-Sacramento-based Clark Pacific, one of the West Coast’s leading architectural and structural precast concrete producers, received the Associated General Contractors of America Construction Safety and Excellence Award. AGC grants the awards each year to recognize construction companies committed to safety, risk control, and occupational health management. Judges consider a broad range of criteria, including evidence of commitment to safe practices in management, active employee participation, work site hazard identification, safety program innovation, and more.

Read More

Pour function enriches latest Tekla Structures

Schedule

A leader in bringing building information modeling (BIM) software and online tools to the architectural, engineering and construction markets, Tekla Inc. has included in its latest version of 3D modeling software, Tekla Structures 19, a new graphic feature to help contractors and ready mixed producers plan concrete orders in optimal delivery sequences.

Read More

Feds fund project to integrate carbon metrics in building material databases

Researchers at Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, have been awarded a $600,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop measurement and assessment tools to be integrated with building material databases and architectural design software to provide real-time, “on-the-fly” carbon footprint metrics.

Read More

Self-consolidating concrete specifications spread

The fifth North American Conference on the Design and Use of Self-Consolidating Concrete, or SCC 2013, offered strong market and technical perspectives on one of the industry’s best value propositions to the architectural/engineering/construction community of the past two decades. Presenters at the mid-May event in Chicago demonstrated how stakeholders have compelled American Concrete Institute and ASTM International committees to develop guidelines and standards indicating self-consolidating mixes’ quality in plastic and hardened states.

Read More