News Detail

Reorganized for the Future of Structural Concrete

11/27/2013

The reorganized ACI 318-14 is intuitive, consistent, and provides a platform to introduce new design concepts and materials in future versions.

Understand the rationale behind the code reorganization and how it will benefit the concrete industry for years to come.

The current nature of structural concrete design, enhanced computational tools, advanced seismic behavior laboratories, and innovative engineering have led to design-related changes that occur much faster than in previous generations of the structural concrete code. How does one of the most influential concrete codes in the world remain a leading-edge industry resource for the next generation? Through reorganization.

The American Concrete Institute’s 318, “Building Code requirements for Structural Concrete” is one of the world’s leading standards for the design and detailing of structural concrete. Through its adoption into virtually all U.S. model building codes, the code plays a key role in many areas related to concrete including education, design, production, construction, and repair. ACI and Committee 318 are challenged with the task of keeping the Code at the forefront of concrete design and construction in a rapidly evolving industry.

The fundamental organization of the Code was not changed from 1971-2011. During this time period, the industry experienced major advances in technology, practice, innovation and research. Consequently, the Code grew from 78 to 430 pages, from 750 to 2500 provisions, and from 250 to more than 1500 internal references. In response to the Code’s increase in complexity, ACI Committee 318 saw the need for, and began work on, a strategic reorganization.

After 6 years, dozens of meetings, and scores of ballots, Committee 318 developed a leading-edge reorganized code that is easier for the next generation of engineers to learn and understand; that increases user confidence that the Code has been satisfied; and provides a platform for the introduction of new topics and materials.

Greater Ease of Use; Increased User Confidence; Ability to add new topics

From 2006-2007 ACI surveyed code users and held focus groups to obtain feedback about the Code’s usability. It became clear that:

• Engineers wanted all related information for a member’s design and detailing easily located
• Engineers wanted the Code to be more closely related to how they design members

The resulting code is reorganized from an engineer’s perspective, and centered on a member chapter format. When designing a member, such as a column, all relevant design and detailing requirements are noted within that member chapter. Furthermore, the information in each chapter has a parallel arrangement of design and detailing requirements, thus providing users with an explicit roadmap of relevant provisions.

Requirements that apply to the entire building structure, such as load factors, or are common to several member chapters, such as rebar development lengths, are collected into several “toolbox” chapters. These “toolbox” chapters are simply used as reference information for member and system chapters.

All Code requirements related to construction are also located in a single chapter and existing construction documentation and inspection requirements are gathered from throughout the Code. The engineer can review this chapter to ensure that construction documents are in compliance with the Code. ACI 318-14 maintains the requirements from the 2011 edition, and appendices A and D from ACI 318-11 are incorporated into main body of the Code.

The code language and presentation of related information has also been updated. The reorganized Code includes dozens of concise tables that will increase the engineer’s speed of understanding. Code language has been edited for consistency; ensuring that terms and symbols carry the same meaning from chapter to chapter.

Timeline for Publication and Resources for Transition

The Internal ACI technical review ended in fall 2013. The next major step in finalizing the document is the public comment period which will be held in May of 2014. ACI encourages all future and current users to view the Code in its entirety and provide comment. The committee will then prepare a response to the public comment and finalize the document for publishing by late 2014.

ACI 318-14 will be available in English, Spanish and Chinese, and will be published in U.S. Customary units and S.I. units. The Code will also be available in various electronic formats that will include enhanced searchability functions and internal links.

Understanding that current users of the code have invested a significant amount of time into learning the code, ACI is providing a numerous resources to aid in an efficient and easy transition to ACI 318-14:

• Concrete.org/ACI318 – Includes Learning Tools, Teaching Tools, Updates, and more.
• ACI has developed a one-hour presentation to highlight the key benefits of the reorganized code. Presentations may be provided to regional ACI chapters or organizations. Click here to view upcoming presentations in your area.
• When the code is released, transition keys will be available to map 318-11 to 318-14, and 318-14 back to 318-11 to ensure that users can easily find where everything is.

In summary, ACI 318-14 is aligned with ACI’s vision of providing the industry with the knowledge needed to use concrete effectively to meet the demands of a changing world, and will provide a platform for efficiency and innovation for years to come.

To join the conversation about ACI 318-14 on Twitter, follow @ConcreteACI and use #ACI318 #ConcreteCode in your tweets.