SolutionsDufferin Concrete Newsletter

June 2014

Low Carbon Concrete –Reducing CO2 emissions up to 50 %

2Structural Shotcrete – A durable, affordable solution

4Winning in the water –News from the Holcim World

A specialized mix and a strict pour schedule for the TTC

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Strength. Performance. Passion.

Fast Track Concrete Page 5

Message from Peter Evaluating the long-term legacy of our infrastructure is becoming more and more important in our industry. At Dufferin Concrete, we are committed to providing you with the tools and innovative, sustainable solutions you need to ensure your business is at the forefront of innovation to sustain profits and meet your customers’ needs.

In this issue of Solutions, we’re spotlighting a few of our innovative solutions that can add value to your business so I urge you to explore the next few pages and contact your sales representative to find out how you can benefit from some of the solutions we provide.

With everything from low carbon concrete to fast track concrete and the new Dufferin U-Track mobile truck-tracking application, we have developed engineered solutions and value-added services to meet your current and emerging market requirements and can provide value by addressing your business’ challenges.

Peter Moylan General Manager Dufferin Concrete Peter Moylan

General Manager Dufferin Concrete

Low Carbon Concrete

Reducing CO2 emissions up to 50 % Designing and building “green homes” that incorporate environmentally friendly concrete structures is a growing trend. An innovative initiative called the Smart Home Project allowed Holcim Canada to contribute sustainable

concrete solutions to such a project. Holcim Canada utilized Low Carbon Concrete (LC2) to fill an insulating concrete form made with recycled wood fiber concrete blocks. In a joint development of Holcim Canada and Holcim Technology Innovation,

Low Carbon Concrete was designed to not only fulfill the strength requirements for the applications, but particularly to include the CO2 and cost calculations in the concrete optimization.

LC2 combines state-of-the-art know-ledge, research and Holcim methods to assure optimized use of the asset base clinker and aggregates. The Smart Home Project shows that the use of LC2 can reduce CO2 emissions up to 50 % – bringing substantial benefits to Holcim and its clients.

“With their significantly low CO2 emissions and carbon footprint, the LC2 concrete products of Holcim Canada satisfied the goals of the SmartHome project, which include high environmental performance and efficiency, durability, resiliency, and use of innovative materials and designs – and therefore they were selected to construct all concrete components of the project.”

Jerry Chwang, Owner of a SmartHome.

Low Carbon Concrete is poured into the insulating form.

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The team from Aggregate Industries UK (AIUK), a group company of Holcim Ltd, has good reason to be proud, having participated in what might be a world record breaking task at the new Forth Bridge site in Scotland. As part of a skilled team, they undertook what is believed to be the world’s largest continuous underwater concrete pour, which took 15 days to complete.

The Major Projects department, part of the Construction Solutions division, worked closely with the UK and overseas businesses on this prestigious contract, and the results were spectacular. Daniel Morgan, General Manager for Cementitious Materials at AIUK, described the process: “The concrete was used to form a huge plug inside one of the new bridge’s enormous steel caissons that formed part of the bridge’s foundations. This one was placed 20 meters below the seabed, almost 40 meters below sea level, making it a very challenging pour.”

To ensure maximum control, the consortium responsible, Forth

Crossing Bridge Constructors (FCBC), built its own on-site concrete batching plant, so the team focused on the development and supply of the required cementitious materials.

Morgan continues, “To meet FCBC’s needs, we had to put our logistical expertise to the test by delivering 2,000 tonnes of cement and 4,700 tonnes of ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS). It was an intensive, to-the-minute coordinated effort, and we’re proud of our performance.” To deliver the materials to the caisson, they were loaded into concrete mixers mounted on a fleet of four barges. These operated 24/7, traveling

over 1,800 kilometers in more than 270 separate journeys to the caisson. By the end of the project, a record-breaking total of 16,869 cubic meters of concrete had been poured.

After the pour was successfully completed, Greig Cunningham, Batch Plant Manager at FCBC, said: “This job has required the highest levels of teamwork—and thanks to that we have been able to successfully execute one of the largest continuous underwater concrete pours in the world.”

Winning in the water

News from the Holcim World

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Structural Shotcrete

A durable, affordable solution Structural Shotcrete is an efficient method of placing high quality durable concrete in a wide variety of shapes and forms, or when using the standard “Cast-in-place” concrete forming method is a challenge.

Dufferin Concrete is proud to help introduce structural Shotcrete as an affordable solution to contractors’ challenges in Ontario.

Shotcrete is a great alternative solution allowing contractors to substantially reduce the use of forms as formwork does not have to be designed for internal pressures. It is ideal for tight or restricted wall access including overhead and underground jobs and great for irregular forms and shapes. As Shot-crete can be placed simultaneously with other structures, it helps ensure projects stay on schedule. It also provides a variety of finishes and is

limited only by the architect’s vision and the contractor’s skills.

As with cast-in-place concrete, the quality of the Shotcrete placement depends on the quality of the materials, proper mixing and transport, substrate/subgrade preparation, placing process, and protection until the specified strength is reached

In order to achieve ideal results, proper equipment and protection is required. The crew must be prepared to properly finish, protect, and cure freshly placed Shotcrete. It requires constant communication between

the ready-mix plant dispatch and contractor to maintain continuous concrete flow on the job and avoid excessive truck waiting time on site. One of the most critical elements for Shotcrete application is the contractor’s knowledge about the several stages of the application process. Depending on the size and complexity of the project, several properly trained and qualified Shotcrete crew members are required to successfully complete the application.

With proper application, Shotcrete provides an innovative solution to otherwise challenging applications.

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Working alongside Buttcon, Dufferin Concrete recently completed a job for the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) on the Patten Building, providing not only innovative products, but ensuring flawless service and technical support.

Dufferin Concrete (DC) has worked with the TTC in the past and is familiar with their strict guidelines around quality, schedule dates, health and safety, and security controls. During construction, the building remained completely functional with the exception of the ground parking level, where the new concrete reinforcement was added. Due to the reduced working area and limited space to delimit a construction zone, all concrete pours were scheduled for Saturdays, leaving no room for error.

The DC team worked to design a completely new Self Consolidated Concrete (SCC) mix that would meet the TTC’s strict specifications. The concrete was pumped from an offsite location across from the job site and had to flow through the forms between two layers of rebar and stir-ups. The team needed to ensure that the complex formwork was completely water tight and valves and ports were installed to release air and eliminate air pockets. As an extra measure of care, camera ports were added so the TTC could confirm that all voids were filled. There were three scheduled days to complete the six phases of the pour in a designed sequence in order to reduce the stress of the structure and possibility of voids. The largest of these phases was 50+/-m3.

Two testing companies, comprising of 35 testers and monitors, were on site to perform several tests on each load of SCC going into the pour. The compressive strength was achieved on average three to five days after pouring. TTC and Buttcon were pleased with the excellent quality of the concrete, workability, uniformity and performance of the SCC mix supplied by Dufferin Concrete as well as the technical support the DC team brought to the project. TTC has indicated that this would be the preferred mix for future similar TTC projects

Dufferin Concrete (DC) launched the first Fast Track concrete product on the market 15 years ago for the Ministry of Transportation (MTO). Since then, DC has continuously improved upon this innovative product, and has developed a strong reputation with the MTO for completing concrete work on projects with overnight closures. These overnight closures require the concrete to set and gain strength extremely quickly (currently 20 MPa in 5 hours) in order for the highway to re-open for the morning commute.

In 2012, MTO modified its Fast Track concrete specifica-tions to include air void system (AVS) requirements, and addressed potential concerns about concrete cracking. As a result, Dufferin Concrete re-developed their Fast Track concrete by using advanced chemical technologies and further optimizing the aggregates blend. The new product achieves up to 30% less shrinkage, greatly reduces crack-ing potential, and more consistently attains the required strength development.

The new Fast Track concrete product has greatly increased slump tolerance and extended slump life, which widens the construction window, and allows the concrete to be easily installed with numerous finishing methods (roller screed, float, etc.). The new mix is also less sensitive to ambient temperatures and was successfully poured for the first time in winter months in 2013. Advanced chemical technologies enable the addition of most admixtures at the concrete plant, which reduce the need for mix readjustment on site, and effectively accelerate construction efficiency. Furthermore, drivers use Dufferin Concrete’s unique Envirogaurd system to complete the final closing of liquid additives, which further increases safety measures on the job site.

Fast Track concrete is another example of DC’s ability to deliver innovative market leading product solutions to successfully meet complex customers needs.

Fast Track Concrete

A specialized mix and a strict pour schedule for the TTC

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Track your concrete delivery on your smartphone or tablet. Keeping you informed no matter where your work takes you.

For more information or to register, contact your sales rep or self register at www.duferinconcrete.ca.

The app is available at www.dufferin-utrack.com once you have registered.

>>>>>U-Track >>>>>>P o w e r e d b y D u f f e r i n C o n c r e t e

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