More stories about Testing

  • Polished Concrete: It's a Safe Bet

    Polished concrete is a very viable flooring option for commercial and retail facilities, as well as schools and factories.

  • Controlling Moisture in Concrete Slabs

    Controlling moisture in concrete slabs can be tricky, but it's one of the most important factors a contractor needs to focus on.

  • What Caused This Scaling?

    Home builders here in the Denver area recently have had a rash of scaling driveways. Literally hundreds of driveways constructed over the past two to four years are showing isolated to widespread scaling. Our firm and others have met with the builders to help determine the causes. We have conducted...

  • Precisely Measuring an Imprecise Parameter

    ASTM subcommittee C09.60, which deals with testing fresh concrete, met in Tampa, Fla., in December to consider, revisions proposed to ASTM C231-04, “Standard Test Method for Air Content of Freshly Mixed Concrete by the Pressure Method.”

  • Building a Lean, Mean Statistics Machine

    There was a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm in the room when the ACI Committee 117, Tolerances, met in Puerto Rico in October. One interesting item discussed was a change in the measurement protocol for slab thickness testing.

  • Below the Grade: Mix Design for Foundation Walls

    Mix design is based on knowledge of the materials, experience, and testing. If job conditions are different from lab conditions, the trials should extend to the field to replicate job conditions.

  • Why are We Still Having Problems with Moisture?

    Water is an essential ingredient in concrete, but uncontrolled excessive moisture can create a whole host of problems with concrete floor slabs.

  • Concrete Floor Moisture Tests

    Just as the concrete floor construction industry made the shift in flatness tolerances from straight-edge to the more appropriate statistically based FF/FL system, now the floor covering industry faces a major shift from measuring moisture vapor emission rate (MVER) to measuring relative humidity...

  • Getting More Out of Plywood Forms

    The North American plywood industry has been using the same wood veneers and the design values for many years.Changing wood resources, however, have forced North American plywood manufacturers to seek out new sources of veneer and new overlays to provide not only a smoother, more durable product...

  • A Jointless, Crack-Free Walkway

    A concrete expert experiments at his own home.