Fiber Reinforcement Solution
With warehouse construction up over 1400% since 2010, and contributing to one third of the overall market, it is crucial to have a design for these distribution centers that can keep up with the growth. This 12,000 square-foot facility was under a tight deadline and needed to get built to meet the current demand of the owner. However, there was an issue getting wire mesh due to supply chain shortages. This unexpected interruption in the schedule would have pushed everything back, costing time and money to the owner and contractors on the job. Thankfully, there was a better solution.
Instead of waiting for wire mesh to complete the job, Ozinga concrete experts were able to flip the job to using fiber reinforcement instead. This is usually done through a simple conversion of figuring out how many pounds of reinforcement are needed for the amount of cubic yards of concrete being poured. In this particular case, there was 200 cubic yards of concrete needed for the warehouse floor and for the design and specs, it was determined that the contractor would need three pounds of macro synthetic fibers per yard.
Making the switch from wire mesh to macro fibers did not change anything about the workability or finishability of the concrete and allowed the job to continue as planned. In fact, this allowed for a safer jobsite since the finishers did not have to step over and around the wire mesh. This change to the material was also a better solution for the increased durability and strength that fiber reinforcement provides. Ultimately, this ended up saving construction time in the schedule and helped the customer save on labor and materials. Learn more about using fiber reinforcement in your next project.