A 4-inch thick residential concrete street? We must be talking about a sidewalk, right? Actually, four inches is possible when the street base is properly designed and consolidated. And Beton recently won an award for that 4-inch design.
The Minnesota Concrete and Masonry Contractors Association (MC&MCA) bestowed a 2017 Honor Award for Excellence for residential concrete design and construction on Beton Consulting Engineers, the designer of record for the residential concrete pavement in the Bellerieve development in Eden Prairie, Minn.
“There is no secret,” said Kevin MacDonald, Beton’s president and founder. “I just made sure that the base material was properly compacted with a modulus of subgrade reaction measured at 200 psi/in with a plate load test before the pavement was placed.”
Rigid pavement is more than the concrete layer we drive on. The base layer is also integral to success. The modulus of subgrade reaction is a measure of how supported the concrete layer is by the base layer. The base layer is a layer of Class 5 aggregates (or other well graded material) directly below the concrete layer. Often, the specifications or inspection fails to assure that the base layer is as rigid as it should be.
With assurance of adequate base layer stiffness, the factor of safety on the concrete-layer thickness is reduced resulting in a concrete pavement only 4 inches thick.
Thank you to Gresser Companies for the opportunity to work on this project and to MC&MCA for the recognition.