Extended Joint-Space Paving

Aldi, a large international grocery store chain based in Germany, maintains over 9,000 retail outlets worldwide, with over 1,100 units in the United States. This large collection of facilities requires continual repair and maintenance of a wide variety of concrete floors and pavements, and demands the constant attention of an in-house team dedicated to finding new and better ways to add long-term durability to their facilities. An Aldi construction goal is to achieve 25-year concrete, and project specifications typically call for a minimization of slab shrinkage, cracking, and slab-edge curling. The car-park and light-traffic pavement replacement at the Springfield, OH, facility afforded the opportunity to trial high-volume macro synthetic fiber reinforcement in large-panel sections to help achieve the Aldi long-term goals.

One of the best ways to minimize the potential for future control-joint damage and repairs is to reduce the number of joints in the first place during construction. And a proven and effective way to reduce the volume of control joints is to use a high dosage of macro-synthetic fiber reinforcement along with shrinkage-reducing practices. In the Aldi-Springfield car-park and paving replacement project, the FORTA-FERRO® 2 %” long macro fiber was used at a dosage of 7.5 Ibs/cu yd in over 1,300 cubic yards of 6 in. thick pavement, and eliminated over 7,000 linear feet of control-joint saw-cuts. While conventional practice would recommend joint-spacing at 12 to 15 ft for this pavement thickness, the fiber-reinforced pavement expanded the panels to approximately 40 ft x 40 ft squares, reducing the saw-cutting volume by approximately 2/3. Though neither the ready-mix concrete supplier nor the concrete contractor had prior high-volume macro-fiber experience, no major issues were encountered in the fiber mixing, placement, or broom-finish used on the project. In addition to the up-front savings for saw-cut labor, joint-filler, and any light temperature-steel reinforcement that might be considered for this type of project, owners stand to benefit by saving the cost of future joint-related repairs, and gaining additional pavement toughness and durability in the process.

Project Details:

Type of project: Extended Joint-Space Paving
Owner: Aldi Distribution Center, Springfield, OH
Owner Concrete Consultant: Jerry Holland, Structural Services Inc., Atlanta, GA
Concrete Contractor: H & M Precision Concrete, LLC, Greenville, OH
Ready-Mix Supplier: Ernst Concrete, Dayton, OH
Fiber: FORTA-FERRO® macro synthetic, 2 ” length, 7.5 Ibs/cu yd
Special Note: Won the 2012 FORTA® Special Merit Project Award