Projects

The northeast portion of the Calgary Ring Road project consisted of 13 miles of new four and six lane roadway around Calgary, Canada, which included 23 bridge structures and 6 interchanges. CA was retained to provide structural engineering consulting services to assist the general contractor in the fabrication of the precast, prestressed concrete girders under severe cold weather concreting conditions. Among others, work included an assessment and evaluation of the production of the high performance concrete, calibration of the batch plant, and the implementation of quality control procedures and concrete placement procedures.  CA provided recommendations for the production of the high performance concrete during cold and hot weather conditions. During several site visits, CA evaluated the construction needs, quality control procedures, and casting bed and curing facilities available at the casting yard. CA also evaluated concrete production practices, batch plant setup, and mixture proportions. Most importantly, the work included providing recommendations for curing and early age protection of the precast girders thus allowing their fabrication to meet the contractual requirements while ensuring the quality, strength, durability, and long term performance of the concrete in service. Field work also included several trial mixes for adjusting the mixture proportions and providing recommendations for batching high performance concrete. CA’s comprehensive plan for the curing and early age protection and production of high performance concrete resulted in significant benefits to the construction schedule and allowed for the production of precast concrete girders during the severe winter months.