Building materials

News

Steel-Reinforced Concrete Building with Severe Corrosion Damage

Move Over, Superman! NIST 'Spectral Fingerprinting' Sees Through Concrete to Detect Early Corrosion

April 26, 2017

When you suffer a fall, an on-the-field collision or some other traumatic blow, the first thing the doctor will do is...

Making Sure that Lumber Measures Up

March 01, 2017

For some, it is a shocking revelation. But most Americans eventually come to accept the fact that a “two by four” board...

Fort Collins, Colorado, Making Community Resilience a Reality Using NIST Guide

July 28, 2016

Guided in part by strategies and procedures developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for...

Colorado County Adopts NIST Community Resilience Guidelines

June 29, 2016

The Boulder County Collaborative, a partnership of Boulder County, Colorado, communities formed in response to the...

Events

Service Life Prediction of Polymeric Materials: Reaching New Heights

March 18, 2018 to March 24, 2018

This conference will establish the current state of service life prediction methodologies and produce the roadmap for future technical, standards, and...

Publications

Influence of Aggregate Characteristics on Concrete Performance

May 16, 2017

Author(s):

Dale P. Bentz, Scott Z. Jones, Paul E. Stutzman, Joshua Arnold, Michael Boisclair, Paul Rothfeld, Jussara Tanesi, Haejin Kim, Jose Munoz, Mengesha Beyene

While the influence of paste properties on concrete performance has been extensively studied and in many cases reduced to quantitative relationships, that...

Assessing Ash Quality and Performance

May 03, 2017

Author(s):

Larry Sutter, Dale P. Bentz

This chapter reviews ash quality and performance issues, with special emphasis on air entrainment and early-age performance. Recent developments in testing...

Low Temperature Curing Strength Enhancement in Cement-Based Materials Containing Limestone Powder

May 01, 2017

Author(s):

Dale P. Bentz, Paul E. Stutzman, Franco Zunino

The incorporation of limestone powder in cementitious binders for concrete in the U.S. has become a subject of renewed interest, in part due to the ongoing...

Neutron Radiography Measurement of Salt Solution Absorption in Mortar

February 01, 2017

Author(s):

Catherine Lucero, Robert Spragg, Dale P. Bentz, Daniel S. Hussey, David L. Jacobson, Jason Weiss

A portion of the concrete pavements in the US have recently been observed to have premature joint deterioration. While this damage has been attributed to a...

Projects & Programs

Measurement Science to Assure the Performance of Innovative Concretes

The concrete industry has developed strategies for making innovative concrete, which is defined as a sustainable concrete that uses less resources for...

Advanced Sensing Systems for Building Energy Monitoring

Advances in sensing technologies through miniaturization of sensors, wireless communications, and the integration of sensors with microprocessing capabilities...

Chemical, Structural, and Kinetic Measurement Technologies for Cementitious Materials

The unceasing quest for more durable, more environmentally friendly, and less expensive construction materials is compelling the concrete industry to adopt...

Measurement Science Tools for Accelerated Weathering of Polymers Project

There is pressure on U.S. industry to develop innovative solutions to meet increasing customer and regulatory demands for sustainable manfactured materials...

Software

Prediction of a Chloride Ion Penetration Profile for a Concrete

Prediction is based on a one-dimensional finite difference solution of Fick's second law of diffusion, with a variable external chloride concentration and a...

Water-to-Cement Distance Analysis Software

(Return to Cement Hydration and Degradation Modeling Software) A menu-based system for computing the water-to-cement distance (proximity) function for user...

Internal Curing with Lightweight Aggregates

(Return to Cement Hydration and Degradation Modeling Software) The American Concrete Institute in 2010 defined internal curing as "supplying water throughout a...

Concrete Optimization Software Tool

(Return to Cement Hydration and Degradation Modeling Software) COST (Concrete Optimization Software Tool) is an online design/analysis system to assist...

Tools & Instruments

Integrating Sphere-based Weathering Device

In the artificial ultraviolet (UV) weathering of materials, a need exists for weathering devices that can uniformly illuminate test specimens with a high level...

Line Heat-Source Guarded Hot Plate

The 1-meter guarded hot-plate apparatus measures thermal conductivity of building insulation. This facility provides for absolute measurement of thermal...