All owners want the 3Ms: minimal joints, cracking, and curling. Concrete with a proper mix design that is properly placed, finished, and cured by a qualified contractor can achieve these results in the hardened state.
Installation of interior slabs on grade for large distribution centers can be both simple and complex: simple in that slabs are large, open areas, flat and generally free of obstructions; complex in the difficulty of maintaining an aggressive schedule, controlling the placing environment, and ensuring consistency in materials and workmanship. Through careful planning, communication, and attention to detail, the project team for the new Ace Hardware Distribution Facility in Loxley, Ala., installed a high-quality slab at a blistering pace.
When high-performance concrete for industrial floors is specified, the concrete must not only perform well in its hardened state, it also must possess certain plastic properties so contractors can properly place and finish it.
The use of admixtures is commonplace in today's concrete mixes. Does the addition of the various admixtures increase or decrease the drying shrinkage of concrete? Does it affect shrinkage at all? These are the questions we asked two distinctly different members of the concrete industry: Ross Martin, vice president of engineering and technical services, Baker Concrete Construction Inc.; and William Phelan, senior vice president of marketing and technical services, the Euclid Chemical Company.
After collection, solid waste is usually dumped on what are called tipping floors at facilities such as transfer stations, balers, and incinerators. Vehicles tip the garbage onto the floor and bulldozers or front end loaders push or scrape the material into pits. All this dumping, pushing, and scraping subjects floors to extreme abrasive forces of impact and attrition. Conventional concrete floors lose the top inch of their surface in a few months under these harsh conditions. Only metallic toppings, installed at 1- to 2-inch thicknesses, can withstand the daily abuse tipping floors receive.
