Hess propels world leader in leader in product machinery
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- Published: Friday, 28 February 2014 15:55
- Written by CP Staff
A merger of Burbach, Germany-based Hess Group, spanning namesake block & paver plus Schlosser-Pfeiffer pipe & precast machinery, and Top-Werk GmbH, parent of German peers SR-Schindler (concrete slab and coating) and Prinzing (pipe and drainage products), yields the world’s number one source of automated, manufactured-concrete production equipment.
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The National Precast Concrete Association recently published an overview of ultra high performance concrete (UHPC), a material on the leading edge of innovation with potential to expand producers’ architectural and structural offerings. UHPC mix designs vary. Reinforced with high-carbon metallic fibers, structural product formulation can achieve compressive strengths up to 29,000 psi and flexural strengths up to 2,900 psi. UHPC for architectural elements typically incorporates polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers, and can achieve compressive strengths up to 17,000 psi and flexural strengths up to 2,900 psi. Due to the material’s superior compressive and flexural properties, the need for passive reinforcing can be eliminated or greatly reduced, depending on the application. UHPC is also highly moldable and replicates form materials with extreme precision.
In its “PVI Mechanistic Model Gen II” research brief (December 2013) CSHub extends earlier observation of pavement-vehicle interaction, which impacts truck fuel consumption and, in turn, concrete and asphalt life cycle assessment. The new model can account for the impact of temperature and vehicle speed, plus other pavement structural and material properties, on fuel consumption, and is thereby applicable to viscoelastic (e.g. asphalt concrete) pavements. Model Gen II provides what CSHub staff affirms is “a rigorous tool for comparative studies and LCA of the roadway network.”
St. Louis design studio yo_cy took first place in the APPLIED: Research through Fabrication competition with Cast Thicket, a precast piece that artists Kenneth Tracy and Christine Yogiaman dub “an exploration in tensile concrete.”
A November 2013 CSHub research profile letter, “Early hydration: A local business,” charts calorimetry (heat measurement) curves from tricalcium silicate paste experiments—with specimens of three particle size distributions (PSD)—to support a proposed model of microstructure-based kinetics. It suggests a “reaction zone” extending a few micrometers in from the cement particle surface, and can reconcile longtime observations on PSD and water/cement ratio.