| 2005 ND Ready Mix & Concrete Products Association, Inc. Excellence in Concrete - 1/4/2006 |
Commerical Category Award Winner
Integrity Doors and Windows, West Fargo, North Dakota
"The Integrity Windows, Inc. complex is the largest commercial construction project in North Dakota in recent years. Using Design/Build contracting through ICS, its construction almost maximized the utilization of concrete for all construction components, from the precast concrete walls and cast-in-place substructure and floors, to the large concrete parking area and truck load-out routes.
The judges noted special attention to design and construction details for the industrial floors, the most inportant component in a effectively operating factory and warehouse. Designers had to provide optimal conditions for the finished floor, accomplishing a suitably flat, durable and crack free work surface for the Integrity Windows factory operation. Goals for the floor were met through the utilization of concrete tools which allow economical construction together with a surface durability for heavy duty fork-lifts and hard wheel carts. These tools include usage of 45lbs. per cubic yard of one inch long steel fibers for surface toughness and cracking resistance. Joints were doweled for load transfer, curling reistance, and thus, additional crack resistance. Concrete was placed in mulitple pours, using a Telebelt and laser screed. Strata Concrete supplied a total of 5385 cubic yards of concrete as placed in the foundations and floors. Through careful planning and execution of construction, these floors will offer many years of servceability.
With winter rapidly approaching, construciton of the parking area for this project was necessarily compressed into a very tight working window. In order to gain the optimal level of production, Opp Construction used a slip form paver to construct the majority of the parking areas. Thicknesses varied from 5 inches in the automoble parking areas to 10 inches thick for the dolly pads for semi-trailers. Even with wet site conditions and inclement weather related to the mid-October construction start, the parking area was completed within 3 1/2 weeks. Mix supplied by Aggregate Industries included optimized aggreagate and a low water/cement (W/C) ratio of 0.40. And in spite of the cool weather, the project could be completed with a 25% replacment of cement with flyash (a recycled product), and important component of durable concrete.
The precast walls used on this project represent the optimum building product for fast-track construction. Once the footings were in place, the erection of the walls took less than two weeks to finish. Without the precast concrete wall options, deadlines would not have been met. Plus the durability and energy efficiencty of precast sandwich construction will combine with the concrete parking areas to meet any architect's or owner's objectives for a Substainable Development type project. In other words, Integrity Windows will be optimizing both their initial construction costs with the future operating and maintenance cost to meet their ecomonic needs and the benefits to the environment for decades to come through the use of concrete."
North Dakota Ready Mix & Concrete Products Association, Inc.
|
 |
 |
|
|
