It would be nice to get a civil engineers take on the reduced...

It would be nice to get a civil engineers take on the reduced curing times and the impact on project construction programs.

I had a chat to a couple of Civil Engineers I work with and gave them all the information ADN released regarding the strengthening benefits to try and get a grasp of the potential impact on real projects. I come from and Electrical/Control Systems background, so when they started talking about tensile and compression strengths...I glazed over a bit, but did take a few notes.

My takeaway was that it really depends on the application of the concrete, and where it fits on the critical path as to how much time it saves the project in overheads. Keeping in mind that when programming concrete curing times into a schedule, it's programmed at 24 hrs per day, 7 days per week. So over a 28 eday curing period, 8 of those days are over non-productive weekends (on a 5 day site of course), so a 14 day decrease in curing time saves 10 days on the program (still great). But again, depends on the application.

They mentioned that where the improvement in compression strength is a real benefit is when you need to "get on" the concrete ASAP i.e. airport runway pavements. Perhaps this is because compression strength is reached sooner and not tensile strength?

Civil contractors are notoriously risk averse. I can see that concrete companies will really have to "hit the pavement" and make larger civil contractors aware of the strengthening characteristics so they can take the savings up at tender and essentially take the risk. Any real savings in the program, and therefore overheads, will be taken up at time of tender and passed to the client in cheaper construction costs. So the decision to use halloysite concrete will be made at tender, and if the construction team wants to make program, then they have to use halloysite.

What I'd really like to know is, if halloysite concrete will be nominated by the client i.e. TMR, VicRoads, not only for the strengthening properties and reduced construction costs, but also for lower environmental impacts (replacing/reducing clinker which hasn't really been discussed). If government is prepared to make the investment and nominate halloysite concrete in their projects, private industry will follow as market awareness increases and DA conditions are enforced......

I am pretty optimistic about how this will help the economy as a whole, as construction becomes more efficient.