International Concrete Abstracts Portal

Title: Quality Attainment and Common Sense in Nuclear Concrete Construction

Author(s): Lewis H. Tuthill

Publication: Concrete International

Volume: 1

Issue: 3

Appears on pages(s): 32-37

Keywords: air entrainment; cement content; compressive strength; inspection; quality control; slump tests; specifica-tions; tests. .

Date: 3/1/1979

Abstract:
Concrete work for nuclear power plant construction, just because it’s nuclear, has been handicapped by an amount and kind of testing, inspection, and controls far beyond that which many years of other first-class concrete constructions have shown are necessary or worthwhile in securing and ensuring excellent, reliable results, fully up to the practical possibilities of the state-of-the-art. The attempt to go beyond this is impractical, needless, and unproductive, as well as expensive. It is needless because concrete for nuclear construction (other than for radiation shielding) does not have to be any different or better than the first-class concrete commonly produced for and performing well in countless water project dams, control works, spillways, power and pumping plants, and in the interstate and other highway structures. The nuclear proliferation of testing and unrealistic rigidities of inspection are not a proper or effective means Of attaining such results which,it attained, are in spite of them, not because of them. This paper cites some flagrant examples of these excessive practices which, despite their considerable first and secondary costs, do not create nor ensure a measure able improvement in strength, safety, or serviceablility Attention is called to the importance of proper inspection of many operations that cannot be specified by a number value, or thus be measured or recorded. [Author]