We are the local chapter of ACI International, and we invite you to join our chapter if you are not already a member. ACI International members can join for a mere $65 per year; non-members of ACI International can join as affiliate members. With this membership come the following benefits: Networking, Education, Recognition and Information.
 
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Gary Horninger

Welcome to EPDACI Version 2011.0! I’ve been involved with the chapter for several years now and I don’t think there’s been a more exciting time to be here! Some of the activities coming up include new certifications, new dinner meetings and tours to help meet new Licensure requirements in Pennsylvania. We also have the upcoming challenges of the 2016 Fall National American Concrete Institute (ACI) Convention here in the City of Brotherly Love!

Part of my goals for my tenure as your President will be to prepare the chapter for the upcoming convention and provide interesting, thought-provoking meetings that will leave you thinking and discussing them after you leave. In case you haven’t heard, there’s a change a-brewing in that performance specifications may be part of upcoming ACI codes, adhesive anchor certifications are being developed and implemented, flatwork finishing certification is available, and the industry is re-examining the way it does business.

There’s a lot for all to learn, whether you’re a skilled tradesman, specifying engineer, structural designer or architect. 

If that’s not enough reason to attend our meetings and events, networking opportunities abound included the opportunity to meet peers in the local industry, members from ACI National and colleques from surrounding universities. It’s so exciting, even my wife and daughters have been known to attend meetings occasionally!

With all of the good events happening, I hope you’ll take the time to participate in your chapter, help shape the future of the chapter and local industry, and take in the benefits that involvement has to offer.

Sincerely,

Gary Horninger
Schnabel Engineering

President of EPDACI

During what may be called the golden age of concrete shell construction, from the 1920s to the early 1960s, a variety of innovative landmark shells were constructed.  The first large thin concrete shell in the U.S. was a barrel shell for an ice hockey arena in Hershey, Pa., designed by Anton Tedesko in 1936.  In more recent years, however, interest in thin concrete shell construction has faded.  Reasons for this decline were explored in a paper by Christian Meyer and Michael H. Sheer, published in the October 2005 issue of Concrete International.

Many prominent structural engineers in the United States consider concrete shells to be too expensive and currently out of style.  Perhaps provocative wierd shapes are more popular this week than structural elegance.  Large graceful concrete shells continue to be built in Europe.  A few experts in this country have found that more shells are being built using novel methods such as modular formwork and air-inflated forms.  Two recent concrete shells are shown here.  The shell in the photograph above was constructed using a system created by Italian engineer Dante Bini in which concrete and reinforcing steel are placed on the ground over a form which is then inflated to form the desired geometry.  The Public Works Complex in Price, Utah, shown below, was constructed using a system developed by David and Barry South in which polyurethane foam is sprayed onto the inside of an inflated fabric form to provide stiffness, reinforcing steel is placed, and shotcrete is applied to the interior of the form.

Author Christian Meyer, FACI, PE, is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Columbia University in New York City.  Author Michael H. Sheer, PE, is an ACI member, EPDACI Chapter member, and Project Manager at Joseph L. Barbato Associates in Chadds Ford, Pa.  The Board of Directors of the Eastern Pennsylvania & Delaware Chapter ACI would like to commend the authors for their insightful exploration of this elegant structural form.  Do concrete shells deserve another look?