Beton’s Kevin MacDonald wrote an article for the Winter 2019/2020 issue of Development magazine about seamless concrete floors for industrial and warehouse applications. Concrete slabs on ground usually have joints […]
Specifications for mass concrete require thermal control plans to control cracking. Historically, mass concrete meant dams, but many other structures may be large enough —or have high enough portland-cement contents […]
When I was a graduate student in the 1980s, papers about high-performance concrete nearly always started out by explaining that “high performance” means more than high strength. Then they went […]
For the most part, so-called concrete “permeability” tests measure something other than permeability. Permeability is the ease with which fluids can move through a porous material. That matters because most […]
Beton’s Kevin MacDonald designed the concrete mixture proportions and performed thermal control modeling for the I-91 Brattleboro Bridge in Vermont. The bridge took First Place in the Infrastructure Division of […]
When you submit a concrete sample for petrographic examination, how big a sample do you need? That is, what’s the appropriate concrete sample size? We’ve discussed in previous posts how […]
Julie Buffenbarger, our senior scientist and sustainability principal, was recently quoted in the article, Voices of the Concrete Sector, in the October 14/21 issue of the Engineering News- Record. When […]
We often — mistakenly — refer to ASTM C1202, “Standard Test Method for Electrical Indication of Concrete’s Ability to Resist Chloride Ion Penetration,” as the Rapid Chloride Permeability test. Permeability […]
For would-be engineers, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) sets the standards for university education. University engineering departments seeking accreditation must demonstrate how they meet the ABET criteria. […]
Many engineers have no idea how informative concrete petrography can be. That’s too bad, because concrete petrography is one of the most useful techniques in forensic engineering. Failure analysis of […]