Material Provides Concrete Solution

With reference to the Dec. 20 article “Concrete Solutions or Lots of Controversy?”, it is becoming quite clear that we need to rethink drastically how we go about attaining effective connections of precast concrete structural members. Merely adding more reinforcing ties at the connections or improving the quality of the concrete construction will only provide incremental benefits.

What is required in the connections is not only a material of high strength but also one which has considerable ductility and which, in addition, has inherent seismic damping characteristics. Such a material is available to the construction industry in the form of fiber-reinforced polymer concrete (a non-hydraulic cement concrete in which the binder is a polymer).

This material clings tenaciously to conventional concrete as well as steel reinforcing rods and ties. It is high time that city authorities and the construction industry woke up to the potential of polymer concrete for construction applications and initiated the slow process of incorporating it into the appropriate (building) codes on the basis of thorough investigations of its structural connection properties.

MUTHIAN GUNASEKARAN

Woodland Hills