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> Maine Paper Mill RCC is Pavement of
Choice for Maine Paper Mill
 A
paper mill in coastal Maine made a decision in September 2006 that
a hard surface was necessary in a yard area where new process improvements
were being installed. Like many newer industrial processes, it was
important to keep the raw material feed areas as clean as possible
and free from ground contamination. A hard surface would be necessary
to keep the new equipment in a clean environment to improve the
operating efficiency and lower maintenance costs. The resulting
design called for construction of 75,000 square feet of pavement
for this purpose; however, with winter approaching time was an important
factor.
The contractor for the project (Lane Construction Corp.) approached
the Project Engineer (Woodard and Curran, Bangor, Maine) to consider
the idea of using Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) for the pavement
area. They knew they needed to build the largest pavement area possible
for the lowest cost, and that it had to be constructed quickly.
RCC has been used in many industrial applications, so the strength
and durability of the concrete was well known, but for this project
it had the additional advantage of allowing for rapid construction.
And, given the lower cost of RCC, they would be able to pave 100,000
square feet instead of the original plan for 75,000 square feet.
The pavement was designed for heavy equipment and truck loading,
resulting in a nine-inch thick concrete slab being specified. The
site conditions consisted mostly of organic soils with some gravel
and clay mixed in. This unsuitable material was removed and replaced
with approximately two feet of well-draining gravel that served
as an excellent base for the concrete pavement.
The concrete was mixed using an on-site ARAN pugmill and a blended
cement furnished by Ciment Quebec Inc. that contained 7% silica
fume. This type of blended cement is popular in eastern Canada and
Maine because of its high durability in freeze-thaw environments.
The RCC mix consisted of:
1771 lbs/cy of ½ in. NMSA crushed stone
1645 lbs/cy of sand
510 lbs/cy of blended cement
197 lbs/cy of water
20.3 oz/cy of Grace Daracem 65 water reducer
Paving was completed using a Vogele 2100 high-density paver that
contained one tamping bar and two pressure bars in a variable-width
screed. Excellent compaction was achieved by the paver, with very
little subsequent rolling required. SEM Consultants (Quebec City,
Quebec) performed the mix design and quality control. Field specimens
were tested at seven days with an average flexural strength of 993
psi, and average compressive strength of 6,828 psi. Strengths of
field specimens at 28 days were almost 30% higher than the results
at seven days.
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| Vogele high-density paver and density testing
with nuclear gauge. |
Pavement construction was in early November, right at the end of
the construction season. Even though this was the first RCC paving
project for Lane Construction, the 2,100 cubic yard project was
completed in two days. Mike Atherton, Lane’s Project Engineer
said: “We have been thoroughly impressed with the constructability,
low cost, and high performance of RCC”.
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| Rolling and curing operations during construction.
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Adjacent to the end of the pavement area the contractor also placed
an eight foot wide strip of pervious concrete, using conventional
construction methods. This will capture the surface water draining
off the RCC pavement in a trough area where equipment will operate.
As an experiment, Lane Construction also placed some pervious concrete
in a test area using the Vogele high-density paver, and found that
the placement went very well. They were concerned that the paver
may result in the pervious concrete being overly dense, but were
pleasantly surprised when they measured 26% voids in the pervious
material after the placement.
The engineer, owner, and contractor were all pleased with the results
from their first-time experience with RCC pavement. The high-strength
pavement will provide an operating platform with excellent durability
under harsh conditions. In addition to the performance and cost
benefits, the time savings resulting from the project was also impressive.
Travis Noyes, of Woodard and Curran stated: “The ability for
the entire project team to develop a design, bid the project, and
build it within budget using only two days of construction put the
project literally months ahead of schedule.”
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| RCC pavement after construction. |
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