Concrete Overlay Parking Lot Saves School Maintenance Budget 

Although the initial bid for restoring a 56,000 square foot parking lot for Russell-Tyler-Ruthton (RTR) High School, in Tyler, Minn., was asphalt mill and 2-inch resurfacing, local promotion efforts led to a different outcome.

The original bid was in May 2012, but exceeded district policy for an internal letting award.  The project had to be re-bid and publicly advertised.  PCA-North Central Pavement Engineer April Stier’s well-timed contact to the district superintendent introduced the idea of a concrete overlay.  Stier drew attention to the ongoing maintenance and repair costs associated with asphalt pavements.  This coupled with safety advantages of better lighting, convinced the superintendent and school board to consider concrete.

Although higher in price, the RTR School Board selected the concrete overlay option because of its durability and reduced ownership cost.  The parking lot was paved with 3.5-inches of concrete after sweeping and air blasting the existing asphalt.  The RTR School District plans to  consider longer lasting, low maintenance concrete for future pavement projects.
Contact Doug Burns

MIT Releases Research Briefs on Energy Management, Econometrics

The Concrete Sustainability Hub at MIT recently released two research briefs. The first, titled “Energy Management: City Texture Matters” discusses a novel approach that leverages statistical physics to help describe the complexity of energy use in cities, relating it to molecular structures. Using radial distribution functions to measure density variation from a referenced atom, and applying them to varying building stocks in key urbanized areas, the researchers showed distinctive patterns of city texture and how it may relate to energy consumption. This technique would provide city planners and developers innovative data for effective energy management, including building to optimize heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning.

The econometrics team working on LCCA has just published “Forecasting Prices with Limited Data." Targeting paving materials, the researchers have investigated the degree to which oil price information can be leveraged to characterize the price of asphalt over time. This has been accomplished through a technique called co-integration, which enables the analysis of time-series data that, although they may seem to drift randomly, tend to drift in the same manner. The result is a valid historical dataset that is critical to probabilistically project future prices.

Three promising findings have resulted from this and other related work. First, it has been shown that for paving materials projecting future prices is an effective endeavor and that using them in LCCAs outperforms assuming no price change, as long as adequate historical data are used to create the projection. Second, long-run price equilibriums between major cost inputs and paving materials have been established, and are currently being validated as a reasonable way to project future paving prices to use in an LCCA. Third, and perhaps most importantly, price projections have established the differential price volatility across construction materials by treating projections as probabilistic rather than deterministic.
Contact Mark Justman

Call to Action: Urge Congress to Avoid Fiscal Cliff and Preserve Jobs

Contact your federal elected officials and urge them to take immediate action to avoid the pending “fiscal cliff,” a $500 billion hit to the U.S. economy due to take effect at year’s end, barring congressional action.

As the cement industry attempts to recover from the steepest economic downturn since the 1930s, Congress must help establish a climate of investment certainty to assure that a robust economic recovery gains traction. If Congress fails to address fiscal issues before year’s end, the country faces the risk of sliding back into recession. By contacting your elected representatives in Washington, you can make your voice heard, and urge policy makers to take immediate steps that will grow jobs and promote fiscal responsibility.

PCA lobbyists are currently conducting meetings with House and Senate leaders, urging them to take steps to avert the crisis.

PCA’s Take Action web site makes it easy to write to your elected representatives with sample letters, contact information, and talking points.
Visit the Take Action site
Contact Bryan Brendle

October PPI: Concrete Remains Steady

In October, all producer price indices increased except for steel, which was down 8.5 percent from 2011. This marked the seventh consecutive month in 2012 that steel decreased compared to 2011 levels. Lumber, asphalt, and concrete rose, 4.3 percent, 4.5 percent, and 2.3 percent, respectively, from 2011 levels.

Looking month-to-month, concrete remained relatively steady from September, growing just 0.2 percent. Asphalt had been decreasing for the previous 3 months, but stopped the slide in October when it went unchanged from September. Steel declined 1.9 percent while lumber was down 2.3 percent from the previous month.
Contact Mike Howard

PCA Leadership Honored at Fall Meeting

PCA’s outgoing chair Aris Papadopoulos honored outgoing committee chairs and long-serving directors with a plaque recognizing their service and leadership to the Association. In an awards program on Monday, November 12, nine committee chairs were recognized:

In addition, members of the PCA board of directors with more than 20 years of service were also honored:

>Dave Nepereny, Buzzi Unicem USA, 23 years of service
>George Wells, Ash Grove Cement, 25 years of service
>Jim Gatens, Ash Grove Texas, 26 years of service
>George Doumet, Federal White Cement, 29 years of service

Local Bridge Ceremony Receives TV, Newspaper Coverage

The North Central Region acknowledged local recipients of PCA's 2013 Concrete Bridge Competition Award of Excellence on November 16.  Wapello County Iowa Engineer Brian Moore and representatives from the Iowa Department of Transportation, Bloomfield Bridge & Culvert, and Lafarge North America received recognition for the Wapello County Little Cedar Creek bridge. 

The bridge  was the first in the world to utilize Lafarge Ductal ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) for the precast waffle deck and joint fill material.  Lafarge Ductal UHPC represents an advanced technical solution to the durability and sustainability requirements of deteriorating bridges and infrastructure, as well as other structural and architectural applications.

Also attending the ceremony were representatives of Wapello County Board of Supervisors. The awards were covered by KTVO-TV (CBS, Ottumwa, Iowa) and the Ottumwa Courier.
Contact Doug Burns