News Room

It is Spring and the time is ripe to ferret out those projects that are specified with conventional secondary/temperature-shrinkage reinforcement and flip them to current generation microsynthetic fiber reinforcement or new generation macrosynthetic fiber reinforcement.

Our principal focus is on slabs-on-ground, both interior, and exterior as well as elevated slabs-on-composite steel decks. Although any project that is using Welded Wire Fabric (WWF) or #3 or #4 rebar at 12″ on center both way or greater as secondary reinforcement are candidates for replacement with the cost-effective Fiber Reinforced Concrete.

Important to our argument today is the fact that ICC in their International Residential Code of 2009 now requires that the conventional secondary reinforcement in slabs-on-ground be placed on permanent supports that are least at the mid-height of the concrete slab. This is a very costly new step both in labor costs and additional materials. Emphasis should be on this new code requirement by the inside and field sales personnel at the ready-mix plants. Even the weekend warrior can no longer put an addition on his house without following this code requirement.

ABC Polymers has a number of synthetic fiber products, both microsynthetic and macrosynthetic, that can fill the bill for residential, commercial and industrial/warehouse floor slabs. Select from Mono-Tuf, Mono-Pro or Fibril-Tuf, Fibril-Pro for those residential projects and most of the commercial projects. Mono-Tuf and Fibril-Tuf are approved as plastic shrinkage crack reinforcement and temperature-shrinkage reinforcement by ICC ES and the report is ESR-1699. Check it out on our website. For the industrial and warehouse projects and some commercial projects check out ABC Polymer’s wide selection of macrosynthetic fibers and blends of macrosynthetic fibers/microsynthetic fibers and steel fibers/microsynthetic fibers. Our website now shows a product grid, which provides dialogue regarding use categories for all our products.

For the industrial/warehouse projects call Bobby Zellers (724.475.1177) for assistance in selecting the correct product and the optimum dosage of that product to use in lieu of the old technology secondary reinforcement. Bobby can also talk to project engineers on behalf of the contractor to ensure the project engineer is comfortable with the replacement proposal and to seal the deal Bobby can provide a Letter of Certification verifying the agreed to the product at the dosage recommended meets applicable codes, specifications and/or project requirements. Finally, Bobby can assist in recommending the optimum mixing, placing and finishing the process.

Give ABC Polymer the opportunity to help flip projects from the old to the new and add positive revenue for the contractor and ready-mix producer. Talk to Denzil Schmitz, Vice President of Sales and Marketing about putting a promotional program together using proprietary mixes with synthetic fiber reinforcement in the mix for residential applications and most commercial applications.

-R.C. Zellers, PE/PLS, Director, Engineering