Wednesday, April 30, 2008

hi strength concrete, surpassing 100mpa


High-Strength Concrete
In the early 1970s, experts predicted that the practical limit of ready-mixed concrete would be unlikely to exceed a compressive strength greater than 11,000 psi (76 MPa). Over the past two decades, the development of high-strength concrete has enabled builders to easily meet and surpass this estimate. Two buildings in Seattle, Washington, contain concrete with a compressive strength of 19,000 psi (131 MPa).

detail 5

Brick veneer, with timber frame detail res


Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Concrete pump demo, fits through warehouse wow!

Chemical admixtures




Chemical admixture can be added to ready mix concrete, it order to design the requirments of the concrete to suit the job/situation,


Five Functions




Admixtures are classed according to function. There are five distinct classes of chemical admixtures: air-entraining, water-reducing, retarding, accelerating, and plasticizers (superplasticizers). All other varieties of admixtures fall into the specialty category whose functions include corrosion inhibition, shrinkage reduction, alkali-silica reactivity reduction, workability enhancement, bonding, damp proofing, and coloring. Air-entraining admixtures, which are used to purposely place microscopic air bubbles into the concrete, to decrease weight of concrete structural conponents


Decorative concrete using glass agregates




source: Concrete construction magazine july 1 st. 2006.


  • Glass aggregate can be exposed in several different ways
  • most typical method exposed agregate procedure using surface retarters addmixes or alternativly, sandblast the surface, diamond cut the surface, glass can also be intergrated in concrete mix, but most commonly broadcast onto the surface of fresh concrete, then conpacted.
  • decorative glass concrete is an idea feature for floors and concrete benchtops.
  • advailable in a wide variety of colours


photos

drawing

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

concrete retaing walls for basement (hawthon)




(ABOVE PHOTO),Can see underpinning(huge steel rods driven deep into the gound on 45d angles maintains footings strength from the forces produced by the earths pressure to push into the excavation





This series of photos gives a great insight into the importance of maintaining faces during construction

the excavation is situated on a corner block that has a road quite close to the excavation therefor this process of retaining the walls of the basement excavation is crutial
i was able to see this process in action upon a site visit, the concrete was sprayed on the areas of the wall between the concrete columns. very interesting to see

Pre-cast conc. panel to steel rafters

end wall detail portal frame