This paper reviews the opportunities that the Portland Cement Association has taken to address part of the education needs of the cement and concrete industries. Addressed are current educational efforts and a review of how research at universities addresses both the educational and technical needs of the industry. A. list of concrete related web sites is included. Through education the concrete industry can meet the need for informed professionals who are necessary to sustain concrete as the building material of choice for this century.

Shrinkage is a critical characteristic of concrete that can lead to undesired cracking, thereby limiting the serviceability of concretre structures. The ability to design concretes with significantly lower shrinkage is, therefore, of great practical importance. Along these lines, new shrinkage reducing chemical admixtures have been developed in order to reduce the extent of shrinkage strains. The present work analyses the effectiveness of the incorporation of three such admixtures using long-term drying shrinkage tests. The results indicate a remarkable reduction of the shrinnkage for two admixtures based on polypropylene glycol formulations while no significanty improvement was obtrained in the case of a wax-based admixture. Additionally, the influence of these shrinkage dreducing admixtures on other basic properties of the concrete, such as workability and 28-day compressive strength, has been quantified. A plasticizing effect, which can be exploited for reducinf the superplasticizer dosage or the water/cement ratio, was observed in the case of the two glycol/based admixtures. A slight decrease of the compressive strength was measured in all the cases due to the incorporation of the admixtures.

Mechanics and materials are essential elements in all of the transcendent techynologies in the twenty first century and in the New Economy. Information technology and biotechnology. Research opportunities and challenges in theoretical and applied mechanics as well as engineering materials, including cement-based materials, in the exciting information age are presented and discussed.

Top-down premature mid-slab transverse cracking was investigated for a jointed plain concrete pavement project with joint spacing of 4.88 m and located on I-96 in southeastern Michigan. The environmental (curling/warping) stresses were evaluated using conventional linear temperature gradient analysis (1) and a recent developed method for non-linear gradient analysis (2). Slab deflection profiles and temperature gradients for different times of day demonstrated that a built in upward slab curling was present, equivalent to a linear negative temperature gradient of 0.03 C/mm or greater. This condition increases curling stresses at mid-slab and outer edge during morning hour temperature conditions as the built in curling condition provides added negative thermal gradients. In addition, increased joint and corner uplift occurs, a condition, which favors loss of slab base support. For these conditions, finite element analysis for truck tandem axle loading at the edge of transverse joints predicts substantial increased slab deflection and top tensile stresses. Further, loss of contact moves the maximum tensile stress towards the mid slab region along the outer edge, where also curling stresses are highest. The combined tensile stresses were found to be significant and can initiate top down transverse cracking. Once surface cracks are initiated they tend to propagate inward and downward from repeated truck loading.

Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world with over 8 billioin tons of it being produced yearly. Much of this concrete is steel reinforced since the concrete/steel composite has improved ductility over concrete alone, and the concrete provides a protective environment for the steel. However, reinforced concrete must be used in severe corrosive environments such as found in marine and deicing salt applications. The ingress of chloride leads to corrosion of the steel resulting in early repairs of the structure. The subsequent costs are over $50 billion/year in the United States, and represent a major drain on infrastructure resources throughout the world. In this paper the use of improved concrete designs to control corrosion of steel in concrete are addressed. These designs incorporate the use of low permeability concrete, corrosion inhibiting admixtures, reduced shrinkage and increased toughness with fiber reinforcement. It is demonstrated that this holistic approach to the concrete design provides a lower life-cycle cost.