Our Pulse

10 January 2017

Concrete Petrography Talks in 2017

With the passage of 2016 we look forward to another great year in 2017. In the coming weeks we will put up some posts discussing interesting projects from 2016 that produced particularly memorable concrete petrography images and images obtained from working with other materials.

For the present, know that DRP is off to a running start in 2017. We are currently booked for speaking engagements on concrete petrography and other topics planned for January, February and March.

In just one week David Rothstein will speak on January 20, 2017 in the coveted Friday morning time slot at the World of Concrete in Las Vegas. If you slept in and missed any seminars and need your hours, remember you are always welcome here… The topic of this year’s 90-minute seminar is new and titled “Concrete Under the Microscope: Early Age Behavior”. This seminar addresses issues such as low strength, random cracking, consolidation issues and finishing issues. David will use the microscopic perspective of petrographers to explain the basic behavior of concrete at early ages, tracking the performance of concrete from proportioning and initial mixing through placement and consolidation to finishing and curing. He will show how the interplay between material properties, environmental conditions and construction practices affect early-age cracking mechanisms such as plastic shrinkage, drying shrinkage and thermal stresses. Along the way, he will point attendees to information that promotes best practices and provide guidance toward effective and efficient troubleshooting practices. For more information on this seminar follow this link to the World of Concrete site.

David’s next engagement is at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Concrete Association of Wyoming, held in Laramie on February 16-17, 2017. On Thursday, February 16 David will present a seminar with Kim Basham of KB Engineering titled “Combining Engineering and Lab Methods to Troubleshoot Concrete Slabs”. Kim and I have presented this seminar to great reviews numerous times and are getting good at this one. In this seminar we cover a broad range of topics such as random cracking, finishing and surface defects, scaling issues, curing and more. For more information on this meeting follow this link to the Concrete Association of Wyoming site.

David then travels to Austin, Texas to participate in the University of Texas Forensics Engineering Conference held in Austin February 23-24, 2017. This annual conference brings together the best of academia and industry for an exciting exchange on forensics engineering. David will present a seminar titled “Concrete under the Microscope – Petrographic Methods in Forensics Investigations”. This prestigious conference is full of excellent speakers and well worth your time. To find out more follow this link the Forensics Engineering Conference site.

In March David will be presenting closer to home with the Colorado Ready Mixed Concrete Association. Details of this venue remain to be worked out but we are considering a multi-stop package with presentations in Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs on March 15, 2017. The topic of these presentations will center on the latest research on the impact of deicing salts on concrete durability. Stay tuned for updates on this event. You can also follow this link to the CRMCA site for more details.