What I Learned at World of Concrete 2018

The 2018 World of Concrete was a swirl of products, educational events, and meetings. Here are a few of the things that rose above the noise:

The American Society of Concrete Contractors hosted a workshop on laser scanning at the jobsite that provided me with a few surprises. Contractors, like Largo Concrete, that are aggressively scanning their projects do up to five scans to follow the construction from rebar placement to setting forms, stripping forms, to final as-built. Many contractors, it was noted, do a poor job with registration to tie all the scans into a single point cloud, which results in unreliable data. Also of interest is that using scanning to measure the flatness and levelness of slabs is not the ideal use at this time.

Portland Cement Association economist Ed Sullivan presented his annual economic forecast and predicts continued strong growth in 2018 and for the next few years. He did sound one note of caution, though, noting that the shortage of qualified workers will act as a governor on the economy, “If you stimulate an economy that is near full employment, the economy reacts by increasing inflation, which increases wages and causes the Federal Reserve to accelerate its interest rate increases. Down the road, this could lead to an eventual cooling of construction markets. If this scenario plays out, it will likely take time to gestate and not materialize to a significant degree until after 2019.”

There were many companies at WOC that are transforming construction with technology. From jobsite cameras (Sensera) to heavy & highway site and equipment management (B2W) to overall project control (Trimble). What I found most interesting about Trimble is the combination of software and hardware that “connect the physical and digital worlds.” From the initial surveying and digital scanning to BIM to communication onsite between the contractor and ready mix producer, the integration greatly increases productivity and control as a project from an idea to reality. They have also introduced “mixed reality” in the form of a HoloLens-equipped hard hat.

Terex introduced a new front discharge mixer truck that is more than a foot lower than current front discharge trucks, weighs less, and with a shorter wheelbase is more maneuverable. And they accomplished all this in a lower-cost truck that is price competitive with rear-discharge trucks. Front discharge has lots of advantages, especially for contractors, with the truck operator able to control the chute eliminating the need for a chute man. This could increase the number of front-discharge trucks, which today stand at 25% of total mixer truck sales, 90% of them east of the Mississippi.

At the sold-out Polished Concrete Luncheon, 160 show attendees learned about tooling and how it matches up with the proper equipment to satisfy the owner’s expectations, as long as the expectations were properly managed in the first place. The right equipment for polishing depends on the size of the project and the power options, noted Chris Rains, Rainstone Services, Saginaw, Texas.

Joint-free industrial slabs can be successfully constructed in several different ways, according to the panel at the Quality in Concrete Slabs Luncheon, including macrosynthetic fibers, shrinkage-compensating concrete, MaxxCrete steel-fiber floors, Ductilcrete, and PrimXComposite. The only thing holding this back is the willingness of engineers and owners to take a chance, even though chance has little to do with it today.

If you missed the action this year, next year’s show is scheduled for January 22 to 25, 2019.