News Detail

Leading by Example—ACI Research and Innovation

7/12/2017

Strut Efficiency-Based Design for Concrete Deep Beams Reinforced with FRP Bars: ACI Structural Journal

For more than 110 years, the American Concrete Institute has been the global authority on concrete knowledge, moving the industry forward by innovation, research and development, proper design and construction, and sustainability.

To continually improve the quality of concrete knowledge, research is needed on a continual basis. Research has always been part of ACI’s mission. From its committees who incorporate the latest research into new documents, to the newest research published in ACI’s Structural and Materials Journals, to ACI Foundation’s  Concrete Research Council (CRC).

CRC works closely with its sister councils – the Strategic Development Council (SDC) and the Scholarship Council – to explore and put into motion opportunities to support research that is essential to ACI and the concrete industry. CRC also works closely with several foundations and other organizations to fund, coordinate, and promote research initiatives.

This year the ACI Foundation will provide $200,000 of research funding through four $50,000 research grants. The awarded projects are:

• “An Experimental Study on The Effect of Wall-Slab Connection Details in Liquid Containing Structures”
• “Minimizing the Effect of Pumping on Self-Consolidating Concrete Workability and Freeze-Thaw Durability”
• “Benchmark Tests on Anchoring Columns to Foundations”
• “Evaluating the Performance and Feasibility of Using Recovered Fly Ash and Fluidized Bed Combustion Fly Ash as Concrete Pozzolan”

More details on the projects can be found here.

Earlier this year CRC announced two new completed research products. The first, a two-part study, was conducted to help define both feasible and structurally acceptable mechanical properties of high-strength steel reinforcing bars—“Low-Cycle Fatigue Performance of High-Strength Steel Reinforcing Bars (Part 1)” and “Defining Structurally Acceptable Properties of High-Strength Steel Bars through Material and Column Testing (Part 2).”

The second research product evaluated the use of Fiber-Reinforced Concrete to allow the design of coupling beams that no longer require the use of diagonal bars. “Evaluation of Seismic Behavior of Coupling Beams with Various Types of Steel Fiber-Reinforced Concrete,” was funded by CRC and several other financial supporters.

The ACI Foundation, through its Councils' Work, has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to worthy research projects designed to advance the technologies and practices within the concrete industry. This year’s proposal submittal will open late summer 2017 and continue through December 1, 2017.

ACI produces two bi-monthly technical journals – the ACI Materials Journal and the ACI Structural Journal. The peer-reviewed Journals, edited for professional and technical personnel in engineering, construction, design, research, manufacturing, and education, contain technical, archival papers from around the world. ACI Structural Journal offers cutting-edge, investigative, and/or potentially transformational research papers on topics such as analysis of buildings and bridges, shear and torsion, and structural concrete. Similarly, ACI Materials Journal offers “innovative papers on” topics such as mixture proportioning, creep and shrinkage, and materials research.

Seismic Response of Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Coupled Walls: ACI Structural Journal

The ACI Foundation’s SDC facilitates advancement of concrete technology by providing a forum for visioning and prioritizing key challenges facing the concrete industry, assisting ACI in timely adoption of innovative technologies, problem solutions, and best practices, and providing a framework for development of programs that respond to industry opportunities to accelerate technology acceptance.

Every new technology that is introduced and presented through SDC is offered several options to gain exposure and to address barriers or obstacles that are preventing or slowing adoption of the technology within the concrete industry.

ACI ITG-9R-16, “Report on Design of Concrete Wind Turbine Towers,” is the result of cooperation between the ACI Foundation’s Strategic Development Council and industry leaders, who identified concrete wind turbine towers as an industry-critical technology for the concrete industry.

ACI also conducts Research in Progress sessions at its conventions, featuring presentations of original, unpublished results from ongoing research projects and leading-edge concrete technology and research throughout the world. The sessions discuss recent techniques, research methods, and describe emerging ideas in concrete research.

ACI is a global authority in research and innovation in concrete, and is committed to leading the way in disseminating research knowledge to benefit all participants in the concrete industry, with the vision to provide everyone with the knowledge needed to use concrete effectively to meet the demands of a changing world.