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Hot Topic at The Concrete Convention and Exposition

4/14/2015

Session attendees have a wide range of sessions to choose from at the Concrete Convention and Exposition in Kansas City, MO, and many of those presentations have a core theme of resilience. Session attendees are discussing everything from the impact of climate change on concrete structures to resilience as a design objective.

At the Hot Topic Session: Building Resiliency sponsored by ACI Committee 130, attendees learned that the road to resilience lies in adapting. Cities, towns, and communities, working with the construction industry, continue to rebuild and prevent against the challenges that face our buildings—both from natural disasters and aging structures. The presentations offered knowledge that stricter standards and design elements can go a long way to reaching our goal of being "resilient."

Attendees learned the two approaches to disaster mitigation: voluntary community based enhancement strategy and a mandatory adoption of stricter construction standards; why resiliency is a priority for the nation; the metrics of resilience including time to recovery, percent functional, casualties (collapse prevention), cost, and social and environmental impacts; and the concept of "resilience."

Many of the effects of climate change, including temperature rise, increase in pollutant concentrations, changes in relative humidity, precipitation, wind patterns, frequency of severe events, and rising water levels (causing increased scour), will have a significant impact on infrastructure life. Climate change is exposing our concrete infrastructure to impacts it was not originally designed to withstand. Assessing the impacts are difficult, as the relationship between degradation and climate is complex.

In the session titled: Is Global Climate Change Killing Our Concrete Structures? interactions between climate change and concrete infrastructure were discussed. The main mechanisms by which climate change induced deterioration of concrete occurs were explained, as well as the potential impacts of climate change on concrete infrastructure and potential mitigation mechanisms.

Other upcoming environmental themed sessions include: Ternary Blends and More; Toward Sustainable Infrastructure with Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites Session; and Resilient Housing: Making the Case for Sustainable Residential Concrete.

In addition to these sessions, other initiatives include the Strategic Development Council’s Vision 2020. Facilitated at the request of the concrete repair and protection industry, the focus on goals for repair is also related to the major issue of sustainability, because extending the useful life of existing installations is a key factor in producing a sustainable environment. Over 100 industry leaders including contractors, engineers, material manufacturers, researchers, educators, owners and industry association executives participated in focused workshops to define the most important industry issues and needs used to establish the goals in Vision 2020.

ACI’s Technical Committees 130, Sustainability of Concrete, 377, Performance-Based Structural Integrity & Resilience of Concrete Structures, and 133, Disaster Reconnaissance, are all meeting at the Concrete Convention and Exposition.

ACI is a charter organizational member of the The Concrete Joint Sustainability Initiative–a coalition of industry associations representing companies who make or maintain concrete structures.  We share a goal of educating ourselves, our members, and our customers about the role and responsibilities of concrete in sustainable development. Learn more about resiliency from The Concrete Joint Sustainability Initiative.

ACI is committed to providing leadership to ensure our customers are equipped to sustainably address the needs of a changing world. Learn more.