Pervious Concrete: The Road Less Raveled

ASTM Pervious Concrete Winter Meeting 2011 Update

To say the body of knowledge in pervious concrete is growing is an understatement -- it is exploding!  This week the ASTM meeting added to that explosion with the first ASTM Symposium on Pervious Concrete.

The symposium featured eight speakers covering some of the latest research and updates on test methods for pervious concrete.  Some of the more interesting presentations included:

 

• "Validation of the Performance of Pervious Concrete in a Field Application with Finite Element Analysis (FEA)" Md. Ashraful Alam, Liv Haselbach, William F. Cofer, Washington State University, Pullman, WA USA 
• "Pervious Concretes Pore Structure Characterisation by 3D image analysis - Impact on their Permeability" Samuel Meulenyzer, Eric Stora, Fabien Perez Lafarge Centre de Recherche, Saint-Quentin Fallavier, Franc
• "More Information on ASTM C 1688 Variability" L. K. Crouch, Ph.D., P.E. Tennessee Technological University,  Cookeville, Tennessee, USA; John Hendrix, P.E. Tennessee Technological University,  Cookeville, Tennessee, USA; Alan Sparkman, CAE, CCPf, LEED AP Tennessee Concrete Association, Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Daniel Badoe, Ph.D. Tennessee Technological University,  Cookeville, Tennessee, USA 
• "The Development, Implementation and Use of ASTM C1701 Field Infiltration of In Place Pervious Concrete" Heather J. Brown, MTSU, Murfreesboro, TN, USA; Alan Sparkman, Tennessee Concrete Association, Nashville, TN, USA 
• ...and, of course:"Development of a Test Method to Determine the Raveling Potential of Pervious Concrete" Matthew Offenberg, W.R. Grace, Canton, GA, USA 

The papers and presentations are not available, yet.  But I'll post an update as soon as they are, or you can sign up to get an alert from ASTM here. 

ASTM's subcommittee on pervious concrete also met on Monday.  The raveling test has moved a step closer as it passed the main committee ballot, so is headed off for staff review.  The hardened density and voids test likewise is advancing, but had a few negative votes to resolve by the close of the meeting.  The compressive strength task group has a draft standard, but will also be testing out a new compaction technique using a hammer drill.  They expect to open their first ballot this coming spring.

BREAKING NEWS: New UFGS Pervious Concrete Specification

BREAKING NEWS:

The United States Federal Government's new pervious concrete specification has finally been published!

The new section, numbered 32 13 43, replaces the old section 32 13 13.06 which was the plain concrete pavement spec that had pervious language scattered throughout.  Likewise, an updated 32 13 13.06 has also been published to remove the old pervious concrete references.  A copy of the new pervious concrete specification can be downloaded for free from the National Institute of Building Sciences. 

Many thanks to the project team that made this happen.  Specifically, Chuck Weiss from the Army Corps of Engineers, Toy Poole, and the NRMCA staff who participated along the way.