Using temperature and maturity monitoring systems in cold weather concreting Continuous temperature monitoring is essential to cold weather con- creting. Using a non-destructive temperature and strength monitor- ing system such as COMMAND Center is the best choice for users to know, throughout the curing process, if their concrete is meeting a project’s thermal specifications. The COMMAND Center system is the optimal choice for monitoring because it is affordable, easy to use, and has been proven to be reliable in the field. The system includes self-powered sensors and powerful software for viewing, analyzing, and reporting data. Sensors come pre-programmed and do not require initialization in the field, and the same sensors that collect temperature data can also be used to measure maturity. COMMAND Center software is free and allows the user to toggle between Celsius and Fahrenheit as well as view and analyze temperature data for individual sensors or compare data from multiple sensors at once—ideal for monitoring the temperature differential be- tween the concrete and ambient to prevent thermal shock.
Conclusion Temperature and maturity monitoring of cold weather concrete is re- quired in most cold-weather concreting applications and is essential to identifying the potential for freezing and thermal shock, optimizing curing, and ensuring safety of a structure. Temperature and maturity monitoring systems like COMMAND Center provide a user-friendly, affordable option for this purpose. By continuously collecting tempera- ture data, users can optimize cold-weather curing and thermal control procedures based on project specifications to ensure structural safety and save money on curing methods.
Prove Your Metal The success of a fabric building project goes beyond the fabric to the steel frame supporting it. By Dwayne Moench and Nathan Stobbe
Constructing a building with fabric membrane cladding has long been an intriguing, cost-effective option for the engineering community. For decades, fabric has proven its value proposition, delivering a variety of benefits that metal-roofed buildings are unable to provide. The translucency of fabric allows natural light to permeate the roof material and reduce the need for artificial lighting inside. Fabric is also inherently resistant to corrosion, making it an obvious solution for storage of corrosive materials or high-humidity environments. For good measure, modern fabric installation methods allow for fabric to be applied far more quickly than the laborious process of screwing in steel roof panels. For building users, consultants, and engineers who have already de- termined that fabric is the clear cladding choice for their particular application, it’s a little ironic that the most important factor to consider actually goes back to another look at metal—this time specifically the style of metal frame used to build the fabric structure. Re-Framing the Debate While traditional fabric building framing approaches—most notably
the use of steel web trusses—are still prevalent in the industry today, a new innovation was developed several years ago by Legacy Building Solutions when the company introduced rigid frame, I-beam design to tension fabric buildings. This marriage of a rigid frame (the hallmark of a metal building) with a fabric membrane (and its unique attributes) quickly transformed the outlook of what users could get from a fabric building; it was the first step toward making customized designs the norm, rather than the exception, in an industry that had been previously dominated by Using finite element analysis software, engineers can provide an optimized rigid frame design to support conveyors or other hanging loads.
24
csengineermag.com february 2020
Made with FlippingBook Annual report