Details of Minutes

Oct 26, 2005: MC² Meeting - Ames, IA

MIDWEST CONCRETE CONSORTIUM FALL 2005 MEETING MINUTES AMES, IOWA OCTOBER 26 & 27, 2005

John Staton welcomed everyone and went over the agenda and housekeeping issues. Introductions of the MCC group were conducted. First item is state reports with the theme of urban reconstruction.

Indiana DOT - Tom Nantung: 1) Both consultants and in-house 2) Urban projects more extensive coordination and traffic plans. 3) Materials are the same 4) Specifications are the same. 5) Generally 20 yrs. Illinois - Not present.

Iowa DOT - Todd Hanson: 1) Mostly in-house except for some city projects. 2) Traffic staging is the biggest difference. 3) Pavements are the same, Bridges used 35% ggbfs and 15 % flyash. 4) Longitudinal tining mandated in multilane urban reconstruction 5) Same 40 yr design life. Ohio DOT - Bryan Struble: 1) Primarily consultants 2) Urban reconstruction is more complex due to traffic and staging. Construction itself is not different. 3) & 4) No difference in materials or specifications for urban vs. rural. 5) Design lives are the same. Missouri DOT - Jason Blomberg: 1) Both consultants and in-house 2) Rural interstate traffic can go head-to-head; urban interstate need to accommodate more complex traffic movements 3) Alternate bidding on almost all projects. 4) No noise specifications; smoothness specs in place. 5) 45 yr. PCCP design life.

Kansas DOT - Rod Montney: 1) Both consultants and in-house. 4) Smoothness specifications.

Michigan DOT- John Staton: 3) Life cycle cost analysis done, higher ADT roadways receive enhanced material characteristics 4) No noise specifications. Ride quality specifications are currently being implemented. 5) Design life is 20 yrs for rural and urban.

Wisconsin DOT - Jim Parry: 1) Both in-house and consultants 3) No difference on material characteristics for Rural and Urban 4) Standard texture longitudinal or random transverse tining. 5) Design life are the same for Rural and Urban.

Nebraska DOT - Bob Rea 1) Both in-house and consultants 2) Mixes may have higher early strength for urban projects 5) Design life is the same for urban and rural pavements.

Georgia DOT - Jay Page: Uses both in-house and consultants except for Atlanta which every project is handled different

New York DOT - Michael Brinkmann: Looking at smoothness specifications,

North Dakota - Clayton Schumaker : Looking at ride specs.

South Dakota - Looking at different grading for bridge decks and conducting work with CRCP. Most of the CRCP is paved during the day. A lot of discussion of what time of day paving is conducted.

Texas DOT - Hua Chen LTRC - John Eggers, North Carolina - Richard Burley

Minnesota DOT - Doug Schwartz: 1) State and consultants 2) No difference 3) 60 yr design life high performance for large projects which is 1-inch thicker, stainless steel dowels, stricter gradation, permeability requirements. Bridge Decks - A lot of cracking issues with microsilica. 30% class F flyash in bridge decks is being used. 4) 1mm minimum texture usually astro turf or burlap drag. 5) 35 - 40 yr for lower volume routes.

Bride Deck Cracking presentation - Bridge deck cracking is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. The first step is defining the problem and quantifying it, or is it really a problem? Deck cracking - A design, materials, or construction problem? Different variables to look at: Simple or continues spans, Rebar sizes, timing and application of curing, maximum wind and evaporation rate limits specified. Controls on thermal shrinkage, pour sequence, traffic induced stresses. Materials solutions - reduced modulus of elasticity, reduced heat of hydration, larger aggregate sizes, water/cement ratios, cement types and SCM replacements, different additives. Construction solutions - pour sequence, max. temp, and placement specifications need to be addressed. Maintenance solutions - sealing cracks or do nothing. Minnesota Bridge Deck Cracking Possible Solutions- Max. cementitious materials 611 lb/yd3, 25- 30 % with Coal Creek flyash, slag, or both, well-graded aggregates (8-20% retained), curing specs, and fill out a bridge deck cracking data sheet. Tracking bridge deck projects with different material and placement. Minnesota is working on standard procedure and is seeing both failures and successes. Interested in a bridge deck cracking seminar? Feds could provide travel for expert speakers. Questions - Intermediate curing procedure? Applying finishing aids to the bride deck. Smaller plants have a difficult time in meeting some of the material needs. The ready-mix association needs to get involved in the seminar. Virginia constructs latex bridge deck overlays so they may need to get involved in the seminar. Have we had cracking on bridge decks prior to pumping? Oregon is rebuilding their bridge structures, they may be interested in attending a seminar. Michigan has placed two-bridge decks with SCMs with enhanced finishing characteristics. Favor in having a bride deck-cracking seminar? Majority of attendants were interested. Putting together an agenda.

Carol A. Hunter-Washington State DOT - Defining the Urban Reconstruction Problem Central Puget Sound Highway Network - Seismic concerns for the bridges and pavements that are currently substandard. I-5 has extreme congestion and needs to be reconstructed. Serious of small projects will replace 85-100 lane miles. Design: 13-inches PCCP, 4 HMA, 4 crushed base. Major constraints - Highly urbanized area with limited batching sites, limited vertical clearances. Looking for opportunities for add/drop lanes, ITS, standard shoulders, and lane striping. Long term improvements - Moving ramp from left to right to minimize traffic weaving, direct access ramps, and managed lanes. Major Policy Issues - Storm water retrofit? Funding: Timing & Color of Money? Future tolling? Planning study conducted in 2003. 2005 Legislature moved construction dollars out to 2013. WSDOT delayed environmental documentation to 2010/2011. Customizing Paving Management - Predict when, where, how, and likely pavement failures. Literature review, sampling and testing I-5, trend models. Timeline is developed: preservation plan, capital improvement plan, definition scope, early designs. How do you balance speed with quality? Not a lot of options because there is no alternate routes. Mass transit is in-place but will not address all the issues. Legislature realizes the problem and is trying to leverage a gas tax. The color of money - different pots of money for specific reasons. The entire gas tax is not dedicated to highways. Some goes to ferries, cities, counties, bike paths, etc. Emergency repairs were conducted on the viaduct. Good chance that the gas tax will be appealed. Planners and designers are both being involved in the planning process.

Gary Whited - Wisconsin DOT - Marquette Interchange The interchange was originally constructed in 1968. Downtown Milwaukee relies on the Marquette Interchange: Access to 24% of statess jobs and residents. The problems are chemical plant located in the middle of interchange, high crash rates, high congestion (300,000 vehicles per day), structures are at end of their service life. Box girder and voided slabs were common designs. The interchange will be rebuilt mostly the standard design. Changes that are proposed: Ramps expanded to two lanes, higher design speeds on ramps due to alignment changes. Sustainable design features- interchange geometrics, 75 year design life for structures, pavements, and storm sewers. Structures: 34 Prestressed I-girders, 18 steel I-girders, 7 steel box girders. Bridge decks will have high performance concrete, 2-inch PCC wearing surface, and longitudinal grooving. Many retaining walls- secant pile, cylinder pile, cast-in-place, MSE, and Sheet pile walls. Community Sensitive Design - community inputs, aesthetics, architectural decisions, and lighting. Miscellaneous facts: 5 miles of new retaining walls, 1,944,000 sq. ft. of bridge deck, 47,315,500 lb of structural steel, 26,447,800 lb of reinforcing steel, 375,000 cubic yds of concrete. The project was broken into 5 major contracts. Coordinated schedule. Key priorities: Safely, on-time, within budget, quality, and involve the whole community. Pavement type selection- 50 yr standard life, 75 yr life, initial cost, Life Cycle Cost (LCC), LCC with user delay. HMA Perpetual Pavement with 7 yr warranty. Concrete Maturity Testing used in job control - opening to service, duration of curing, form removal. Sensors are required for each 2000 yd2 for pavement and 100 yd3 for all others. High performance concrete - central mix batch plant, placement within 1 hour, Max temp of air and mix is 80 degrees, max evaporation rate 0.15 lb/sf/hr, 7-day wet cure and placement provisions. Mandatory pre-pour conference, mandatory limestone with tighter limits, QMP specifications. Self Compacting Concrete for precast wall panels. Concrete mix has 3/8-inch top size aggregate, high range water reducer, no vibrating, 8000 - 10,000 psi @ 8 hours. Cellular Concrete will be used for embankment material for MSE walls. Concrete aesthetics: Concrete staining, form liners, 3D murals. Construction management - Merging the best of the public sector with the best of private sector. Organization structure - WisDOT in charge of work and responsible for decisions, clear lines of authority, integrated interaction between WisDOT, consultants, and FHWA, oversight committee, change management team. Issue management-use of expedition software, RFI submittal process, Issue log, change management log, design issue notice (DIN) process. Schedule Management - Primavera CPM Scheduling and production rate tracking. Budget management - 8% reserved for contract changes, require cost to complete projects, use of pay plan quantity. Other construction management - various meetings and partnering. Safety - Project uses Owner Controlled Insurance Policy (OCIP) with safety program: drug testing/screening, worker orientation and training, on-site safety directors, etc.. Public Outreach to inform public - TV, radio, cameras, etc. Build it with whole community - mandatory subcontract items, minority labor requirements, required new employee training. Project concerns and issues - Underground construction - utilities, obstructions and hazardous materials, weather. 50 year design life concrete and asphalt about equal, 75 yr. Design life with user costs concrete was less expensive. Initial cost was the design choice.

Dan Degraf - Staging Reconstruction Around Special Events, I-94 in Detroit I-94 consist of 97,300 ADT - 19.5 % Commercial. Special features: Henry Ford initially granted easement to construct freeway. Promoted the use of vehicles and against mass transit. I-94 is the main artery between Detroit and Chicago. Wanted project completed in one season, 3-lanes had to be open during the week of All-Star Game, the project had to be completed before Super Bowl in January. Pre-construction - Two major design contracts into one set of plans. Contract pre-construction meeting - can we do this in one season, give contractors time and reasons to think, level the playing field, suppliers given time. The bid: $75,638,000. Existing ground has 40% moisture clay and slope flow issues. Existing pavement is 6-8 inches of HMA over 9-10 inch PCCP, 2-4 ft. of sand over toothpaste clay. The new section will consist of 12.5 inches of PCCP over16 inches of open graded base. Drainage work is a major item. Need to re-direct 3 miles of run off. Cast iron water main replacement. The sand subbase has adequately drained the area since construction. Structures had to deal with struts that tied the foundation of the bridge. Concrete pavement- plant site approval, mix designs (need strength 3-day max) and aggregate gradation based mix, on site traffic control to protect new pavement, moving equipment form pour to pour, not a large work overtime for this project. The project had good coordination and well laid out on the details. Two stringlines were used- one for the paver and one for the longitudinal tining. Lessons to be learned: Optimal pavement section- built well drained system in the 40s, open graded bases may be too open, flow rate through sand is adequate. When concrete paving is not on the critical path then should be well organized and laid out. Project is 80 - 90 % completed. Why not a higher design life? 20-yr design life is standard, the PCCP thickness is already maximized. As long as the bases do not build up pore water pressure, then the bases will provide adequate drainage. Meetings were held with contractors to cover project issues and think about solutions.

Board the Buses for Des Moines Iowa.

Topic of Discussion: Reconstruction of I-235, Des Moines, Iowa. Presentations were given. Project Manager Marty Sanky - Discussed the staging and design packaging of the project. District Materials Engineer John Hart - Discussed material selection and issues for the project. Andy Wyckoff , Fred Carlson Co. - Discussed bidding and scheduling aspects of the I-235 project.

Thursday October 27

John Staton reviewed agenda. Jim Grove led the arrangements for sharing rides to the airport. Jim Cable announced that ISU Concrete cuzies for sale for $5.00.

Sandra Larson presented the pooled fund MCO recap. The pooled fund study should wrap up at the end of 2007. Currently have 16 MCO state participating. Phase I is technology transfer. This phase includes best practices and troubleshooting manual and a field guide. Phase II involves the field demonstration projects that are to be completed in each participating state. The demo projects will continue for the remainder of the states. What next? Technology transfer, additional shadow projects, test analysis, etc& This MCO meeting was very good and is starting to see the results come into view.

Whats in the New Highway Bill for Concrete - Suneel Vanikar, FHWA The new highway bill is called SAFETEA-LU for concrete. The bill proposes money to new innovative research as follows:

Concrete pavement - $4.1 Million / 06-09 Alternative materials - $4.1 Million / 06-09 Aggregate - 2.45 Million / 06-09 Asphalt - $4.1 Million /06-09 ASR - $2.45 Million / 06-09 (preventative and mitigation of ASR) Expanding the use of lithium based technologies Congress will be treating the materials equally in the bill.

Section 1934, Transportation Improvements - Creation of the national center for PCCP technology.

Bridge Concrete Programs High Performance Concrete - $4.125 Million Ultra HPC - $0.625 Million Long Term Bridge Performance - $7.75 Million Exploratory Advanced Research - $ 14 Million LTPP - $10.12 Million F-SHRP - $ 51.25 Million

Stakeholders - State DOTs, Academia, Industry, TRB, committees, etc.

Q) How do we tap into the fund and who will administer the program? A) This has not been decided. The CP roadmap will be followed. Appropriations may begin in January.

Comment: Potassium Acetate is being used as a pre-application for winter maintenance. This is starting to accelerate ASR in the pavements. The State DOTs need to be aware of this and not to consider its use for PCCP.

Comment: There is a big need for pervious pavements. State and industry are not prepared and need to be proactive in developing this technology.

Early Strength and Durability in Reconstruction: How Can We Achieve Both? - Tom Van Dam, Michigan Tech. University

Michigan Tech has the capability to conduct forensic analysis on PCCP. Petrography, image analysis, X-ray, etc& This study focused on patching on older PCC pavements and developing test procedures to ensure a quality PCC patch that would have high early strength and good durability. How do we get high early strength? - Type III cement, higher cement content, lower w/c ratios, accelerators, calcium chloride, etc& Durability problems associated with HES - mixture in-homogeneity, thermal stresses, ASR, altered micro structure, etc&

NCHRP 18-04 B - Extensive field and laboratory study conducted. Laboratory consisted of 30 specimens per batch to determine different properties and material characteristics. Target was 6 - 8 hour opening, use of Type I and Type III cements, 7.5 sk. - 9.5 sk mix design, w/c ratio of 0.36 - 0.40, carbonate/siliceous aggregates, and different accelerators types and dosages.

Conclusions in brief: Field concrete was generally good. Durability issues were ASR, inadequate air void system, infilling of voids with ettrignite, microcracking in paste.

Lab Study: Difficulties were noted in achieving adequate fresh air content with Type III cement and Type F HRWR. Concrete specimens performed poorly in F/T and scaling. Spacing factors were in excess of 0.20 mm. Microcracking in paste was noted. Non-chloride accelerators produced a more uniform microstructure.

The good news - High early strength can be achieved and maintain quality. However, higher risk on maintaining concrete quality as the time-to-open is shortened. The projects need to be reviewed on the most cost/effective closure time.

Specification Recommendations: Use lowest cement content possible, follow state-of-the practice, and verify the actual job mix. Uncertainty of the altered microstructure (probably not a good thing). Difficult in using a standard testing method to relate to field performance. Further research could include some sort of micro sensors to understand what is happening in the micro-structure. The research did not find a good test to predict concrete patch performance. Differences in admixture combinations/cement sequencing of admixtures is important.

Precast Patching Performance - Andy Bennett - Michigan Replacing failed joints in concrete pavements is a typical application in concrete repair work. Precast repairs with load transfer are alternative pavement repair method. Both repair types will provide at least 5 years of service. Transverse cracks developed and reinforcement should be used in slabs longer than 10 ft. Four projects were evaluated and discussed: I 94 - Benton Harbor, I 196 - South Haven, M 25 - Port Austin, and I 675.

Conclusions to precast repairs: Need less customization and more standardization in order to achieve competitive pricing.

Other comments: Challenge the stakeholders to balance PCCP opening to traffic schedules and slow the cure time down if possible. A 5 yr. Patch could last 10-15 years if the time-to-open could be extended. Balance PCCP patch thickness to time-to-open& thicker patches can open traffic sooner. What should be the opening PCC strength? 1500 psi in Georgia.

Planning the Future of the National PCC Center and MCC National PCC Center Model - Tom Cackler PCC Center is now National: Currently finalizing details. Executive Board has been assembled. Advisory Board is being created representing the public and private stakeholders. Also, a small core staff will be needed to operate efficiently. The CP Technical Center will unite key transportation stakeholders around the common goal of advancing concrete pavement technology through research, tech transfer, and technology implementation.

Future of MCC - John Staton John Staton opened up discussions on how to keep states/state reps attending the MCC meetings and being involved. Brainstormed and polled states on what helps them attend MCC. The following challenges and issues were noted from the flipcharts.

Challenges and Issues for States Found at MC2 Workshop

State Challenge/Issue IA Need funding from approved source: pooled fund, FHWA, CP Roadmap.

IN May have problem at Adm. Dept. above DOT. Need funding (pooled fund, etc.)

KS Call Tech Transfer. Need to travel to represent state funding. Need to show benefits. State/industry partnership.

MI Need to have concrete outcome of the meetings.

MN Need funding from FHWA. Under Tech Transfer.

MO Need to show benefits to the state.

NC Need to be important.

ND Need to be covered by others.

NY Need to get something out of the study-funded travel. OH Need funding from approved source: pooled fund, FHWA, CP Roadmap.

TX Third party funding. Need to see benefits.

Other Comments: Al Innis, Holcim: Could write letters of support to state person.

Exec. Comm. discuss need for industry support letters.

Need to go back home and promote whats learned.

Tom-CP Tech Center work with MC2 Exec. Comm. Two options: 1) pooled fund down side-all states may not participate; 2) federal funding through CP Tech Center appropriation.

Next Meeting: St. Louis in the Spring?

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