Bridge Provides Beautiful Connection Between Work and Recreation

The City of Redmond, Ore., needed an affordable, functional bridge to provide an east-west link across Dry Canyon, a recreational open space within the city.  In addition to enhancing the area’s aesthetics, the bridge needed to be designed so that if necessary, it could be widened in the future. 

A winner of the 2008 PCA Bridge Awards (See below.), the Maple Avenue bridge features three beautiful arch spans of 210 feet and two 75-foot post-tensioned approach spans.  All the substructure elements of the cast-in-place concrete bridge are slender in the profile view, giving the bridge the strength it needs while making it graceful in appearance.  The stem tees of the double tee deck section match the spacing of the arch ribs and a cantilever sidewalk is attached to each side of the bridge.

Jury comments from the 2008 PCA Bridge Awards praised the bridge for sitting “lightly on the landscape.” Additionally, the judges noted that “the strength of concrete in compression is demonstrated best in the arch form and none better in the lightness of the components of this open spandrel design.”

2008 Concrete Bridge Award Winners Announced

Nine winners have been named in Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) Eleventh Biennial Bridge Awards Competition.  The competition, instituted in 1988, recognizes excellence in design and construction of concrete bridges.  Roads and Bridges magazine was a co-sponsor of this year’s competition.

This year's winning projects were:

> South Slough Bridge #91, Snohomish County, Washington
> Agua Hedionda Lagoon Railroad Bridge Replacement, Carlsbad, Calif.
> Otay River Bridge, San Diego, Calif.
> Big Cottonwood Canyon Bridge, Salt Lake County, Utah
> Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway Expansion, Tampa, Fla.
> McEwen Drive Interchange at Interstate 65, Franklin, Tenn.
> Port Columbus International Crossover Taxiway, Columbus, Ohio
> Forty Foot Road Pedestrian Bridge, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
> Maple Avenue Bridge, Redmond, Ore. (See above.)

The 2008 program attracted 42 entries from Canada and the United States, covering a variety of structure types and construction methods.  All structures were completed between June 2006 and March 2008.

The winners will be recognized at the American Concrete Institute's Fall Convention in St. Louis, Mo., in November.

Winning projects were selected based on creativity, functionality, and economy by a jury of three prominent bridge professionals: Edward Wasserman, Civil Engineering Director, Structures, Tennessee Department of Transportation;  Myint Lwin, Director, Office of Bridge Technology, FHWA Washington, DC; and Barney Martin, Jr, President, Modjeski and Masters, Inc.

The next installment of the bridge awards is scheduled for 2010.
Contact David Bilow
More information at www.cement.org

Rocky Mountain Group Latest RPG to Opt for PCA Alignment

Alignment of the Regional Promotion Groups (RPGs) moved forward last week when the Board of the Rocky Mountain Cement Council recommended joining PCA as a region.

It’s the second RPG opting to align with PCA. The Great Lakes Cement Promotion Association also voted to dissolve and become part of PCA.

In February of this year, PCA’s Executive Committee unanimously endorsed a proposal to integrate RPGs into the management and organizational structure of PCA. The goal is to better align national and regional programs in promotion and advocacy. The move will also centralize administrative functions under PCA. Currently, the ten RPGs are affiliate members of PCA and operate under a cooperative agreement that defines the roles and responsibilities of each party.
Contact John Prentice

Ash Grove Joins EPA Climate Leaders Program

Ash Grove Cement Company has partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as one of its newest Climate Leaders.

By joining Climate Leaders, Ash Grove has committed to reducing its impact on the global environment by completing a corporate-wide inventory of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, setting long-term reduction goals, and annually reporting progress to EPA.

Climate Leaders, launched in 2002, is a voluntary program that includes more than 200 companies in all 50 states.

Lafarge North America Inc., Holcim (US), St. Lawrence Cement, and CalPortland are also partners in the Climate Leader program.

Storm Shelter Standard Approved

The International Code Council (ICC) recently announced that ANSI has approved ICC/NSSA Standard on the Design and Construction of Storm Shelters (ICC 500-2008).  The standard has been under development for several years by a joint committee of the ICC and National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA), of which PCA’s Jim Messersmith is a member.  It provides design, construction and testing requirements for community shelters and shelters for residences.  Shelters may be stand-alone structures or incorporated into a portion of another structure, such as a safe room.  Both hurricanes and tornadoes are covered and a shelter can be designed and constructed for either or both of these high wind events.

Under the standard, design wind pressures are significantly higher than typically required for other buildings.  In addition, all portions of the exterior envelope of the shelter, including walls and roof, must be shown by testing to be able to resist the impact of test missiles.  The test missiles are representative of debris likely to impact the shelter.  Since reinforced concrete and masonry construction can be economically constructed to meet these stringent requirements, they are the materials of choice in constructing storm shelters.

The standard does not mandate that storm shelters be constructed.   Rather, local building codes or ordinances likely will adopt the standard and require certain buildings to have shelters.  The International Building Code and International Residential Code are expected to adopt the standard by reference at the ICC Final Action Hearings in September. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to  recognize the standard for construction of hurricane and tornado safe rooms in its Hazard Mitigation Assistance program.
Contact Jim Messersmith.

Concrete Research Library 2008 Edition: This is an updated, searchable DVD of more than 1,200 PCA concrete research reports from 1916 to 2008. Topics range from concrete properties and long-term field performance to durability, high performance concrete, life cycle inventory, sustainability, and structural design.  Also, there is access to more than 600 Serial No. (SN) reports on topics such as masonry, RCC, structural design, durability, concrete technology, soil cement, paving, architectural concrete, residential construction, bridges, and sustainability (DVD021; $90.00, less discount).
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Reliability-Based Calibration for Structural Concrete, Phase 3: The report documents Phase 3 of research carried out in conjunction with calibration of the ACI 318 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete. Calibration was performed to determine the resistance factors that correspond to load factors specified by the ASCE 7 Standard on Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures (1998). (SN2849; no charge; PDF only.)
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Improvements to the Split Loss on Ignition Procedure as a Means of Determining CO2 Content of Hydraulic Cements: The split loss on ignition technique is widely used to determine the CO2 content of hydraulic cements. An apparent bias has been observed in ASTM C 114 procedures for determining CO2 contents in hydraulic cements by this technique. The objective of this research is to provide data to improve the accuracy of the split loss method in ASTM C 114. Findings indicate that a lower temperature of 500ºC results in a bias in the determined CO2 content; using 550ºC, however, provides more accurate results. This report was used to support a change to C114 in 2006 to reduce the apparent bias in the split loss on ignition technique (SN2934; no charge; PDF only).
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Current State of Practice for Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction: This report highlights the current state of practice for the use of selective non-catalytic reduction as a post-combustion control mechanism to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. Included are conditions necessary for nitrogen oxide reduction, potential adverse impacts associated with poor selection of injection points, regulatory issues, and storage and handling issues. The reagents considered include both ammonia and urea (SN3046; no charge; PDF only).
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HPC:   Safe, Affordable, and Efficient – 2008 Concrete Bridge Conference Proceedings: The 2008 Concrete Bridge Conference held May 4-7, 2008,  in St. Louis, Missouri, was sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration, the National Concrete Bridge Council, the Missouri Department of Transportation, and the American Concrete Institute.  The CD includes the Conference Proceedings, consisting of 116 technical papers presented in 22 technical sessions. It is searchable by paper title, authors, and keywords (CD078; $30.00, less discounts).
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Cement Research Library 2008 Edition: The Cement Research Library is a DVD with nearly 2000 technical papers and research reports issued from 1916 to May 2008 on the chemistry, technology, properties, and manufacture of portland and other cements. The DVD includes PCA research bulletins, PCA R&D serial number reports, PCA Fellowship papers, Mill Session papers, PCA-sponsored conference proceedings, papers included in course materials for PCA-sponsored classes on Kiln Process and Mill Grinding, and selected other PCA publications related to cement properties, cement manufacture, safety, environment and energy technology. This DVD replaces and updates the Cement Technical Support Library (DVD020) published in 2005 (DVD025; $100.00, less discount).
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Concrete Construction Engineering Handbook: This new second edition is completely updated and expanded, with 10 of the 36 chapters entirely new. The 36 contributors, all leading authorities in their respective areas, cover both the materials and structural aspects of concrete and masonry, from basic concrete materials, admixtures, properties, and concrete placement to offshore structures, automation, roller-compacted concrete, and architectural concrete. The book discusses  advances in engineered concrete materials, reinforced concrete construction, specialized construction techniques, design recommendations for high performance, and references the latest ASTM and ACI standards (LT227; $169.95, less discounts).
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Pessimism Prevails: Housing Recovery Comes Later Rather Than Sooner

Year to date, housing starts are down 40% from 2007 levels. When do you think housing starts will recover?

> Later this year: 9%
> Late 2009: 42%
> Late 2010: 49%

Notable Comments
“Look for the Chicago Cubs to strongly track the housing recovery. Once they tank, housing will recover. Both are symptomatic of irrational exuberance.”

“Typical homeowners have lost most of their net worth from the value decline in their homes in the last year. It will take two years of a strong recovery before they can even begin to think about building a new home.”

“Full recovery by 2015.  Fuel costs will eat up usual savings for home purchases.”

“The trend is going to continue down until the current economic system is overturned. Improvement may be seen after that in around 2015.

There are several issues:
1) the 2008 elections
2) the ongoing credit crunch and now bank failures
3) a viable energy policy”

“Maybe 2013 for California.”

Take this week’s PCA Poll.