intelliRock temperature loggers are hard at work monitoring concrete temperatures on submerged mass pour elements in Ras Laffan, Quatar. Currently the worlds largest LNG exporting facility, Ras Laffan's $1.7 Billion (USD) port expansion project includes construction of quay walls for the LNG berths, container berths, coast guard jetty, administrative buildings and electricity substations. Located between the Far East and Europe, products from Ras Laffan can quickly reach world-wide markets. Ras Laffan houses elite energy companies such as ExxonMobile, Shell, and Dolphin Energy.

We're proud to contribute to London's 2012 Olympic Stadium!

The Stadium' innovative design combines 25,000 permanent seats with 55,000 dismountable seats that will be removed after the games.  After the games the stadium will be converted to a 25,000 seat stadium for sporting, educational and other community uses.

The Team Stadium Consortium consists of:

• Construction Contractor - Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd
• Architect - HOK Sport Ltd
• Sports Venue Designer - HOK Sport Ltd
• Structural Engineer - Buro Happold Ltd
• Building services engineer - Buro Happold
• Landscape architect HED
• Planning Consultant - Savills Hepher Dixon

Baker Concrete has two projects at the Miami International Airport/Miami Intermodal Center* with about 470 mass concrete placements: the Miami International Airport Automated People Mover (“MIA Mover”), which includes a light-rail bridge that is 6,200 feet in length, and the Orange Line Metrorail extension, on which Baker is constructing 9,000 feet of elevated heavy rail. Each mass concrete element requires round-the-clock monitoring of multiple temperature sensors for seven to ten days with a data review every six hours.

Initially, the Baker team downloaded temperature readings manually using a handheld device. But Baker Concrete Construction's MIA Mover & Orange Line Project Executive Michael Hernandez recognized the safety issues and physical difficulties of manually downloading data every six hours on such large projects with nearly 100 excavations up to 15 feet deep and over 350 piers and pier caps up to 58 feet high. “When we multiplied four probes per pour times 470 mass concrete pours times four downloads per day times seven days it resulted in about 53,000 downloads” said Hernandez.

“We also realized there would be a substantial labor savings too versus having a crew working seven days per week for 12 months performing and recording manual downloads.” These conditions made the intelliRock wireless system an attractive alternative to sending a person from pier to pier at midnight trying to connect to and record data from dozens of probes on a three-mile long construction site. “The safer working conditions alone make the intelliRock investment worthwhile” says Hernandez “And the reports intelliRock generates are informative and easy to understand.”

Using the intelliRock system, Baker currently monitors up to 29 concrete placements simultaneously. With four probes in each placement, data from all 116 probes can be downloaded in about 10 minutes from a vehicle equipped with a laptop. If the locations are close enough to the fixed wireless base station, the system sends updates round-the-clock to Hernandez, the general contractor and the project engineer via the internet.

*The Miami Intermodal Center is a program of the Florida Department of Transportation
Rendering courtesy of the Florida DOT, MIC Program

Baker Concrete’s commitment to excellence and innovation brought the new CEMEX headquarters in on schedule, under-budget, and with LEED points.

The 325,000 square foot CEMEX headquarters is one of the largest green buildings in Houston. What made this possible? Use of a leaner mix design containing fly ash and a maturity program with intelliRock. This combination also saved money,kept the project on schedule, and earned LEED points for the environmentally-conscious owner.

“The CEMEX headquarters project should serve as the poster‐child for intelliRock because everything went exactly according to plan and we kept right on schedule.” – Aaron Smith, Senior Project Executive, Baker

Read the Baker/CEMEX case study!

Visit with us at the ACI Sprint 2010 convention in Chicago March 21st - 25th!  Jim Mikulanec and Tom Luby will be attending and you can catch them during the week in the Exhibit area.  They would be happy to discuss concrete maturity or temperature profiling technology and share their experience from the field. 

In addition, Tom Luby, P.E. will be presenting ways to use concrete maturity to reduce material costs  (Monday at 3pm).  Bidding and starting the job with multiple approved and calibrated mix designs can really make a difference on your bottom line!  He'll show you how it's being done in the northestern US. For continuing education credits, use the session attendance tracking form located at the back of the program book provided at the convention. This form can be submitted to state boards that allow self-reporting of Continuing Education activities as evidence of participation. In most cases, 1 contact hour is equal to 1 Professional Development Hour (PDH). Check with your state board for acceptance criteria.

For more information on the convention, click here.

If you would like to schedule a time to chat with Jim or Tom, you can get their contact information here.

We'll see you there!