Specifying Sustainable Concrete

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Sponsored by Build with Strength, a coalition of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association
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Suggested Specifications

The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) has developed a Guide to Improving Specifications for Ready Mixed Concrete to help designers improve concrete specifications. The following are a few general recommendations for proposed specification language:

Manufacturer qualifications: Concrete shall be supplied with the following current certifications:

  • NRMCA Certified Concrete Production Facility
  • NRMCA Producer Quality Certification
  • NRMCA Green-Star Certification
  • Quality-control personnel with responsibility for concrete mixtures certified as an NRMCA Concrete Technologist Level 3

NRMCA has developed several education and certification programs to help qualify concrete producers to design, batch, and deliver concrete for performance-based products while meeting the strictest environmental requirements.

Concrete mixtures: Prepare design mixtures for each class of concrete on the basis of laboratory trial mixtures or field test data, or both according to ACI 301. Design mixtures shall meet the specified strength requirements listed below in Table 3.

This is where the designer can specify physical characteristics and mechanical properties of the concrete along with durability criteria without prescribing the mix design. NRMCA’s guide provides alternate performance tests and criteria for alkali-aggregate reaction (AAR), shrinkage, etc.

Figure 4: The Triangle Building located in Denver used 15 different types of concrete, including shotcrete, cast in place, high strength, and lightweight. Each variety serves a particular purpose and contributes to the building’s LEED Gold certification.

 

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Originally published in May 2021

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