DRP & Concrete Petrography in the News in 2014

At this time of year we often look back on unusual or exciting projects of the year. We want to thank our clients for another great year of interesting work. We’ve covered the gamut from basic petrographic analyses of aggregates and microscopical analyses air void systems in hardened concrete to using new tools and techniques to investigate the potential for alkali-silica reaction to participating in major investigations of thermal cracking in massive concrete columns from high-rise hotels.

This year featured a somewhat unusual event when an example of our work was shown as part of a story by a local news channel in the Dallas, Texas area . The story discusses the closure of a high school football stadium in Allen, Texas due to concerns regarding cracking. Our work was conducted for an independent engineering consulting firm retained by the Allen Independent School District. The situation has garnered significant attention due to the high cost of the construction of the stadium ($60m) and the closure of the stadium before the start of the football season. Local news sources apparently obtained the preliminary report using a public records search and used images from it for their story. Its not often that you hear about drying shrinkage cracking or hear the term “microcracking” on the news, let alone see work product from concrete petrography, but here you have it. You can see the story and hear more about the project here.