Landscape Architect Articles

Hard News March 201503-20-15 | News

Hard News
Advances in the Hardscape Industry

Top Block's MBM500 is designed for DIY manufacturing of concrete products using local aggregate to make numerous types of bricks and blocks including pavers, wall blocks and edgers. Shipped ready for assembly, it switches from dry mix forming to wet mix casting in minutes.
https://topblock.com/mbm500

A sustainable alternative to tropical hardwood, Kebony has a patented process that permanently modifies the cell structures of non-durable soft-woods, which gives them premium characteristics.
pinerivergroup.com

Atlas Copco recently released the BV30, a compact, single-beam vibrating screed that allows contractors to level concrete in a variety of applications, including in confined areas. Weighing as little as 28 pounds, it has five interchangeable blades, ranging in size from 6 to 14 feet long.
https://www.atlascopco.us/usus

Expected to hit the market later this year, the Coolbox is a toolbox that comes equipped with built-in Bluetooth speakers and a 20v rechargeable battery that can power electronic devices through its two USB ports for over ten hours, and it can power tools for over 40 minutes using the built-in, three-way splitter.
https://www.coolbox.io

Tech Tools

Just announced at World of Concrete, the American Concrete Institute's ACI University is an online, on-demand learning portal for topics ranging from concrete basics to curing concrete from the inside-out. There is also an app available to simplify the portal's use.
www.ACIUniversity.com

The Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute's Permeable Design Pro Software v2.0 for permeable interlocking concrete pavement now features CAD output of design solutions, PICP cross section drawings with base and sub-base thicknesses, CAD drawings with calculated hydrologic and structural requirements from user-designated rainfall events, runoff flows, underdrains and soil subgrade characterizations.
https://www.permeabledesignpro.com

Enhanced Blends

Quikrete asserts that its Q-Max Pro Concrete is the first concrete mix to deliver one-hour working time, three-hour walk-on time and 6,500 psi compressive strength with crack, freeze-thaw and corrosion resistance.
www.quikrete.com

CTS Rapid Set cement's new formula exhibits near-zero shrinkage at 60 days according to the manufacturer.
www.ctscement.com

SAKRETE® ShapeCrete™ is a concrete mix that produces a clay-like material with up to 60 minutes of working time to be shaped, molded and sculpted.
shapecretemix.com

What's in Store

As recently reported in Science Daily, Mexican company Plastinova is using recycled plastic and agave fibers to develop a new building material with physical properties somewhere between wood and aluminum but with greater resistance at a lower price for use in concrete formwork. Future generations will contain coconut fibers, which laboratory tests found are sturdier and have more suitable physical properties.

Creating concrete formulas isn't necessarily rocket science but two researchers from Rice University successfully applied atomic-level analysis on calcium-silicate-hydrate; cement, to simulate how concrete's mechanical properties can, in future practice, be made superior.

A separate study from Rice University found that the best time to grind clinkers, the round lumps of calcium silicate that are crushed into fine powder to make cement, is when they first come out of the rotary kilns used to form them, as that is when they are the most brittle, and so make a powder that is the most reactive to the water it is mixed with, which ultimately determines the strength of the cement. Modifying the manufacturing process in this way would also make it more energy efficient.