Sources: Concrete Industry Management National Steering Committee; CP staff
Cemex USA, Holcim (US) Inc., Lafarge North America, Lehigh Hanson Inc. and Titan America have each donated 10 truckloads of portland cement to the 10th annual CIM Auction, February 4 at the Las Vegas Convention Center—in conjunction with the 2015 World of Concrete.
Sources: Environmental Protection Agency; CP staff
In its latest round of national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAP), EPA proposes lower limits for mercury and non-mercury metals, plus hydrogen and chlorine gases from clay brick tunnel (continuous curing) kilns, coupled with target startup and shutdown periods. The agency also envisions work practice standards for more specialized periodic kilns, which are heated up to 2,000° F, then left to cool for several days. Tunnel kilns are typically fired by natural gas or sawdust; periodic kilns, coal.
Read MoreSources: Portland Cement Association, Skokie, Ill.; CP staff
Meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., the PCA Board of Directors elected Lafarge North America CEO John Stull as 2014-15 chairman, succeeding Cary Cohrs (American Cement Co.), and Cemex USA President Karl Watson, Jr., vice-chairman.
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Borrowing from a “rigidity theory” that led Corning Inc. engineers to the high-performance Gorilla Glass, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-hosted Concrete Sustainability Hub is studying potential portland cement reformulation aimed at higher fracture resistance than current ASTM C 150 product.
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The San Francisco 49ers are kicking off the 2014-15 NFL season at a new sustainable stadium thanks in part to West Sacramento-based Clark Pacific as well as Central Concrete Supply Co., a subsidiary of U.S. Concrete. Levi’s Stadium, located in Santa Clara, Calif., is the first LEED Gold certified NFL stadium.
Read MoreFor the third year in a row, we visit a pavement project VCNA Prairie Material helped convert from all asphalt to partial (base slab) or 100-percent roller compacted concrete. More than a routine switch, the Maryhill Cemetery maintenance shop (pages 28-31) marks the commercial debut of RCC Surface Pro, a silica agent emanating from the field of nanotechnology, where particles are measured in billionths of a meter.
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The Construction Calculators Version 4.2 app enables architects and contractors to gauge carbon dioxide emissions reduction when using supplementary cementitious materials to offset portland cement in concrete mix designs. The just-released update builds on one of the industry’s first mobile device-geared software products, launched in 2011, for estimating a project’s ready mixed and aggregate requirements.
Read MoreSource: National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, Silver Spring, Md.
The first of two phases in development of a standard Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)—aimed at assisting ready mixed producers on projects where customers target certification under the new LEED v4 green building rating system—has produced a survey report and list of participating companies and plants, posted (below opening tables) here.
Read MoreSources: Concrete Sustainability Hub at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; Corning Inc., New York; CP staff
Borrowing from a ‘rigidity theory’ that has led Corning Inc. engineers to the high performance Gorilla Glass—its toughness in thin sections equal to smartphone and laptop computer screens—the Concrete Sustainability Hub is studying potential portland cement reformulation aimed at higher fracture resistance than current ASTM C 150 product.
Read MoreSources: Graniterock, Watsonville, Calif.; CP staff
Graniterock’s Construction Calculators Version 4.2 app enables architects and contractors to gauge carbon dioxide emissions reduction when using supplementary cementitious materials to offset portland cement in concrete mix designs. The just-released update builds on one of the industry’s first mobile device-geared software products, launched in 2011, for estimating a project’s ready mixed and aggregate requirements.
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