Tilt-Up Concrete

The Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA) – a non-profit international organization that serves to expand and improve the use of Tilt-Up as the preferred construction method – is sponsoring several educational events at the 2008 World of Concrete, to be held in Las Vegas from January 21-25.

Some of the offerings from TCA include: "Creative Forming and Finishing of Tilt-Up Walls,” “Tilt-Up: It's a System” and “TCA/ACI Tilt-Up Technician/Supervisor Training.”

For more information, go to www.tilt-up.org.

Edmond, Oklahoma-based concrete commercial builder Errol Russell recently decided to build himself a concrete home. That’s not unusual, but this is: Russell builds tilt-up commercial buildings, and wanted to build himself a tilt-up home.

“I haven’t seen any others, not built with the rock like I did,” Russell says. “I wanted a rugged rock Old English-style home. I wanted the rock as much as I wanted the concrete home, and I did the rock so I wouldn’t have to pay a mason for weeks and weeks to come out and stack.”

Although he says there were many points during the building process when he wished he could abandon the whole project, Russell says he is now very pleased with the finished product, adding that the home is extremely energy-efficient, with a thermometer that never moves from where he sets it.

“The biggest challenge is that it is a commercial product, and the residential folks have no idea what to do with it,” Russell says.

Working on a sand bed without the floor being poured, Russell says the process of stacking panels was one of the most difficult parts of the job.

“It’s just like trying to stack bee-bees,” he says.

Concerns for time and cost are leading more developers and their clients to consider tilt-up construction, according to a trade group that promotes the method.

Tilt-up, in which concrete walls are poured into giant frames on a job site and left to harden before being tilted up to form a building, was used last year on an all-time high of 309 million square feet of walls in the United States, according to the Tilt-Up Concrete Association. The group’s director says the growth has been fueled by increased use of the method in office and retail.

The Raleigh, NC News & Observer recently reported that office developers in the Raleigh area are less inclined to object to resulting aesthetics because they realize they can save time and material costs by using tilt-up. At the same time, more practitioners of tilt-up are adding design techniques including brick and glass accents, different shapes and different colors.

Some brokers estimate that tenants can save 15 percent on rents in buildings constructed using the tilt-up method.

That's particularly important to office developers who are exploring ways to undercut competitors as surging construction costs cause rents to rise. Many say they can save up to 15 percent by using tilt-up, which reflects the recent rise in the costs of triangle steel, construction labor and gasoline.

Cement industry associations have agreed to provide insulated cement-based wall panels for the U.S. Air Force Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, to test the blast-resistance of different concrete building systems.

Included in this research scope are several double wythe insulated masonry wall systems (NCMA and Brick Industry Association - BIA), two precast/prestressed sandwich panel systems (PCI), two tilt-up concrete sandwich panels (TCA), three different insulating concrete form wall systems (ICFA) and an exterior insulated cast-in-place wall (CHC). Predictive analytical models, laboratory testing and full-scale explosive experiments are the primary research components.

Through this study, they hope to be able to predict the blast response of these COTS wall systems for both new construction and retrofit structures. The research program will comprise three phases. The first phase will examine existing COTS insulated cement-based wall systems, designed with standard mix concrete to meet a specified wind load and seismic design. The second phase will examine several unique concrete wall systems. The third phase will look at any modifications that could significantly enhance the blast performance of phase one and two products.

The research began in 2006 with the evaluation of 30-foot precast/prestressed insulated sandwich panels. Although, the blast effects are still being analyzed, the damage observed appeared minimal. The next wall assembly test scheduled in 2007 will be the reinforced masonry systems. A third wall assembly planned later in 2007 will be either an insulated tilt-up sandwich panel wall or one of the three ICF wall systems.