The ASA Outstanding Shotcrete Project Awards Program exists to recognize excellence and innovation on projects in which the application of shotcrete has played a significant role.
ASA’s Annual Outstanding Shotcrete Project Awards Program provides an exciting real-world demonstration of the exceptional advantages of placing concrete via the shotcrete process. Many sustainability advantages are also inherent in the shotcrete process and play a significant role in winning projects as well as the project owner’s ultimate decision to use shotcrete as the method of concrete placement. Projects must be completed between January 1, 2022, through September 1, 2024, and can be submitted in the following areas: Architecture │ New Construction, Infrastructure, International Projects, Pool & Recreational, Rehabilitation & Repair, and Underground.
To assist in your submission, we have provided submission resources to inform you of the submission guidelines, a list of questions, and a copy of the owner release form. Please email any questions to [email protected].
During the summer of 1970, on my 18th birthday, my father woke me up and told me they needed me on a job. I drove out that morning in July to the Crucible Specialty Steel plant in Midland, PA. It was my first experience working on a Gunite job. We were gunning refractory in a vessel, and I was throwing 100 lb (46 kg) bags of pre-packaged refractory into a paddle mixer to pre-dampen the material. We emptied the paddle mixer on sheets of plywood and shoveled the pre-dampened refractory material into the dry-mix shotcrete gun’s hopper. The Jetcreter was a continuous-feed gun, and it was tough for us to keep up with it. It was a very long day for me because it took 15 hours to complete the gunning. I left the house that morning in the dark and returned home in the dark. That was my introduction to “Gunite” (now referred to as dry-mix shotcrete).
Deep in the heart of London’s financial centre, work has been continuing to make one of the world’s largest stations safer and easier for passengers to use. Finding your way around the existing labyrinth of tunnels, connecting five London underground lines, is a task worthy of the most experienced navigator.
In recent years, shotcrete has been widely used for ground support in civil tunnels and mines in North America. Shotcrete technologies have advanced with robust robotic sprayers, high-performance shotcrete mixture designs, and high-performance fiber reinforcement in conjunction with rigorous qualification of shotcrete nozzlemen and QC inspection and testing programs. Design engineers and contractors are using shotcrete more and more often for various underground applications including ground support and final linings in tunnels in soft ground and hard rock mines, as well as in repair and rehabilitation projects in railway tunnels and other underground openings. Large underground caverns have been constructed using shotcrete as the initial liner in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and for both the initial liner and final liner in New York and Washington D.C. This article focuses on recent underground shotcrete technology developments from project experience and provides lessons learned. It also demonstrates that proper quality control and shotcrete qualification programs are critical for successful shotcrete projects.
Shotcrete’s ability to encapsulate dense structural rebar support makes it an ideal candidate for seismic retrofits or other structural support elements. The high velocity compaction of shotcrete placement and real-time visual inspection of placement make shotcrete a valuable placement method where proper encapsulation is difficult to see and access.
The ASA Technical Questions and Answers is a free service offered to all users, but primarily intended for engineers, architects, owners and anyone else who may be specifying the shotcrete process and/or has need for a possible answer to a technical question.
User agreement: The answers provided to submitted questions are intended for guidance in planning and executing shotcrete applications. This information is intended only for the use of individuals who are competent to evaluate the significance and limitations of its content and recommendations, and who will accept responsibility for the application of the material it contains. The American Shotcrete Association provides this information based on the best knowledge available to them and disclaims any and all responsibility for the information provided. The American Shotcrete Association will not be liable for any loss or damage arising therefrom.
Shotcrete is a placement method for concrete. With proper equipment and placement techniques, concrete shotcreted in place will have strength, unit weight, permeability, and other hardened properties equivalent or superior to cast concrete consolidated by vibration. Due to delivering concrete material through relatively small diameter lines (1.5 to 2 in.) [38 to 51 mm] concrete mixtures for shotcrete placement typically limit the maximum coarse aggregate size to a nominal 3/8 to ½ in. (9.5 – 13 mm) size.
Thus, answering your specific questions:
We are not aware of any expansion bolt manufacturers tests that used shotcrete placement of concrete for their test samples. However, tests on cast concrete should be equivalent with a given compressive strength and aggregate size/type in the concrete mixture.
We expect that as answered in #1, that the tests run with ACI 355.2 requirements in cast concrete would have similar results when used with shotcrete placement of the concrete mixtures with similar hardened properties.
Also, note that ACI 318-19 directly includes shotcrete as a placement method for structural concrete.
Freeze-thaw deterioration is dependent on the concrete being saturated in multiple freezing/thawing cycles. In an overhead application, where water can’t stand on the surface, the concrete can’t be saturated unless water permeates through from the upper surface. And with good quality concrete in the tunnel, water shouldn’t permeate through, so it should be functionally watertight. As a result, freeze-thaw likely isn’t a critical durability issue.
A steel trowel finish does require extra working of the surface and would require the contractor to be very attentive to the proper time to obtain the finish yet not overly disturb the fresh concrete. Gravity is working against the overhead concrete staying in place.
Having a smooth steel trowel finish would make minor shrinkage cracks more noticeable. However, in the tunnel without exposure to sunlight or much wind exposure, and with proper attention to curing, perhaps surface cracking will be minimal.
Shotcrete, both dry-mix (gunite) and wet-mix are a placement method for concrete. Wet-mix uses premixed concrete while dry-mix simply adds water to the concrete materials at the nozzle. Both dry-mix and wet-mix with proper materials, equipment, and placement with produce quality concrete sections. The embedded reinforcement in the pool shell is designed to carry tensile loads. This may be bending stresses from structural loadings (settlement or water/backfill), or volume changes from drying shrinkage and temperature changes. Cutting a reinforcing bar would certainly negate its ability to carry loads in the vicinity of the cut and reduce the load carrying capacity until the development length allows the reinforcing bar to start carrying it full load.
The layout of your cracked section isn’t clear from your description. An 8 to 10 mil (2 to 2.5 mm) crack is sizable in a water-containing structure. Fixing the existing crack with a reinforcing bar epoxied in place across the crack may be effective. However, that solution would only carry any additional load on the section (structural or volume change), as the existing loads have already created cracks. Thus, you should also address filling the crack as part of the solution. This may be with epoxy injection or swellable polyurethane grouts. You should consult with the pool design engineer for their recommendation on the best method for repair.
Shotcrete is simply a placement method for concrete. Thus, fire resistance of any shotcreted concrete section can be evaluated by consulting ACI CODE-216.1- 14(19) Code Requirements for Determining Fire Resistance of Concrete and Masonry Construction Assemblies. There are many factors that affect the fire resistance so you will need to review the code to establish what’s appropriate for your structure.
