The Global Advance- Emerging Opportunities at Home and Abroad

KEYNOTE ADDRESS The Global Advance Emerging Opportunities at Home and Abroad The author discusses worldwide technologi cal advances in precast and prestressed concrete and relates these developments to Ben C. Gerwick, Jr. emerging market opportunities in Narth Chairman America and in other countries. Ben C. Gerwick, Inc. Consulting Construction Engineers San Francisco, California (Professor Emeritus oday is Columbus Day- the anniversary of of Civil Engineering, Christopher Columbus first setting foot on the University of California at Berkeley) T Americas. We are celebrating that great adventure of his. Columbus failed in his mission to discover a short route to Cathay, but he did not fall off the edge of the Earth. What he did accomplish was to capture the imagina For the past 30 years, Ben C. Gerwick, Jr., has been tion of Western Civilization by demonstrating that the chairman of his own consulting firm, which he founded in world is a globe. 1971. His firm provides worldwide engineering-marketing Today, 499 years later, we are witnessing the globaliza services in all phases of precast and prestressed concrete tion of the world's economies, which has its counterpart in construction, particularly for bridges, foundations and the rapidly increasing interchange of ideas, techniques, op marine structures. Recent projects include the King Fahd Causeway, Eurotunnel, Great Belt Bridges and Tunnel, portunities and markets. This exchange occurs in both di Hibernia Offshore Platform and San Francisco Airport rections. We, in North America, are fed with both fresh expansion. In addition to his consulting practice, Professor ideas and techniques from Europe and Asia while also ex Gerwick was for many years on the faculty of the civil periencing growing competition in our own backyards from engineering department of the University of California at well-financed, technically competent foreign companies. Berkeley. Yet, opportunities are also being opened up worldwide for In 1957-'58, Professor Gerwick served as PCI's fourth American expertise in manufacturing, management and president. In recognition of his contributions to the industry, marketing- areas in which we currently excel. he received PCI 's Medal of Honor Award and was also We are well aware of these developments but we have conferred a PCI Honorary Member. Active for many years been slow in reacting to the new realities. Like the Euro in the Federation lnternationale de Ia Precontrainte (FIP), pean Community (EC), which has taken so long to consum he served as its president from 1974-'78. For his mate, we in the United States fail to recognize the dramatic extraordinary services, he was awarded the Freyssinet changes in our global system, changes that have recently Medal. An honorary member of several professional been made strikingly clear in the political sphere, but which societies, he was elected a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering in 1980. Professor are no less far reaching in the economic sector. For exam- Gerwick is the author of three books and more than 160 Note: This article is based upon the author's Keynote Address delivered at PCI's technical papers. 37th Annual Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 14, 1991. 32 PCI JOURNAL pie, the birth of the EC is going to ments for which the American precast, highlight a basic inadequacy in our prestressed construction industry can American system of measures and feel justifiably proud. weights, namely, the failure of indus Second, from a management view try to convert to the metric SI system point, the United States has a unique of units (Systeme lnternationale). competence in precast concrete plant Practically every country in the design and operation. Europe has world has switched to the SI system. largely been captivated by the concept Our neighbor to the north, Canada, has of mechanization and even robots, made the change. Japan has partially which when they work, are labor sav moved from metric to SI, which of ing. But plants in the commercial mar course, in practice represents only a ket need flexibility. The adaptability shift in decimal point. Unfortunately, of concrete is one of its great assets. the American construction industry, America has simplified the process after a half-hearted effort in the 1970s, and contributed its own ingenuity in has abandoned the task. Already, leg material and production flow. islation has been introduced in the EC The third area in which America has to prohibit imports from countries not excelled is in marketing. We are a using the SI system. There is a real po market-oriented economy and we have tential for trade barriers to set in, to respond rapidly to the demands of which could exacerbate the discrimi our market in order to stay in business. meability. Thus, the European effort nation which American engineering Contrast this with some production concentrates on reducing the coeffi and construction firms have previ oriented, centrally controlled econ cient of permeability to 1Q -12 to 1Q -13 ously experienced in Japan. omies which set up year-round pro m/sec (3.3 x I0-12 to 3 .3 x IQ-13 There are three areas in which the duction of standardized units - or ft/sec). Contrast this with our prod American construction industry has with the philosophy that says, "We ucts in the United States which have shown particular expertise: technol will produce our own product effi permeabilities of I0-8 to 10-10 m/sec ogy, management and marketing. ciently and cheaply: if anyone wants (3.3 x IQ-8 to 3.3 x 10-10 ft/sec), a fac First, the United States excels in to buy it, they can." tor of 1000 to 100,000 times as pretensioned manufacture of precast Before moving on, it should be men large! The achievement of these concrete products. Our double tees tioned that there is currently an impor very impermeable, durable con and hollow-core slabs have captured tant multiyear joint research program cretes is obtained by using carefully the world market as a structurally ef between the United States and Japan graded mixes of high cleanliness, fective form. Europe is belatedly rec that is partially funded by the PCI. En high range water reducing admix ognizing the advantages of our !-gird titled PRESSS (Precast Seismic Struc tures, and the addition of microsilica ers and bulb-tees in bridge construc tural Systems), the objectives of the and/or pozzolans to relatively rich tion. Also, the American version of program are to develop effective seis cement contents. A secondary bene pretensioned railway ties utilizes only mic structural systems for precast con fit of this impermeability for ex 20 to 50 percent of the labor of many crete buildings and to prepare seismic posed and architectural concrete is European systems. Our prestressed con design recommendations for incorpo the elimination of efflorescence and crete piles, at least on the West Coast, ration into the model building codes. fungus staining. There are, of course, are now being designed not only to re Let me switch my approach now moderate extra costs for such con sist seismic-imposed curvatures, but to and examine the opportunities we crete, but the long-term results are support the superstructure during an have to learn from abroad. In a sense, dramatic. earthquake in ductile frame action. the world can be viewed as a global • Another advancement is the use of The Precast/Prestressed Concrete laboratory for research and develop high yield strength reinforcement 2 Institute (PCI) has taken the lead in ment. First, let me address the techni [75,000 psi (550 N/mm )] as pri precast concrete building construction cal advancements. mary reinforcement in convention by recognizing the critical role of • One of these is durability. Consider ally reinforced elements or as sec joints and connections in a structure able attention is being devoted in ondary reinforcement in prestressed and has developed engineering and both Europe and Japan to the pro concrete members. In Japan, spiral quality control standards which ensure duction of concrete which will pre reinforcement for piles and columns proper performance. The work initi vent corrosion of the reinforcement is being applied with yield strengths 2 ated by Armand Gustaferro on fire re due to carbonation and chloride ion of up to 150,000 psi (1100 N/mrn ). sistance of prestressed concrete has penetration. The American Concrete • A further advancement is the manu been largely instrumental in the devel Institute (ACI) is now recognizing facture of elements to very close tol opment of worldwide standard fire re the durability issue, although some erances, enabling their assembly sistive ratings. what belatedly. Corrosion is largely with dry joints. The 750,000 tunnel These are technical accomplish- a function of the coefficient of per- liner segments of the Eurotunnel, November-December 1991 33 linking France and England under the English Channel, were manufac tured to tolerances of curvature of less than 1 mm ( ~5 in.) and toler ances in fit of 0.4 mm (Y64 in.). See Figs. 1, 2 and 3. Japanese hollow-core slabs are man ufactured to extremely exacting di mensional tolerances and surface smoothness to enable their use as ar chitectural wall panels. • Alkali-aggregate reactivity, both short-term and long-term, is an in creasing problem worldwide. The United States has coped with this problem by restricting alkalis in the cement and banning the use of ag gregates with questionable proper Fig. 1. Highly impermeable concrete with a water-cement ratio of 0.32 for ties. However, it has been found that Eurotunnel tunnel liners. many aggregates in Europe and Canada have sufficient reactive con stituents that result in long-term problems. In the United Kingdom, delayed alkali reactivity is known as "concrete cancer." Recently, long term problems have emerged in the United States, and we can expect more of these problems in the future.

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