Masonry Magazine March 1973 Page. 32
Standard Published for
Minimum Design Loads
An American National Standard has been published covering building code requirements for minimum design loads in buildings and other structures. ANSI A58.1, 1972-a revision of A58.1, 1955-specifies assumptions for dead, live, wind, snow and earthquake loads suitable for inclusion in building codes.
The basis of the requirements is discussed in an appendix which also supplies supplementary information useful to those engaged in preparing and administering local building codes.
Copies of the standard may be purchased at $6.25 each from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), 1430 Broadway, New York, Ν.Υ. 10018.
Geiringer Acquires Firm
Paul L. Geiringer & Associates of New York City has announced the acquisition of Albert C. Jones Associates, a civil engineering company located in Mount Holly, N.J. for the past 40 years. The acquired company, renamed Geiringer-Jones Associates, will broaden the spectrum of services already offered by the Geiringer organization, which consists of Paul L. Geiringer & Associates, Utility Systems Corporation and USYMCO.
Chopper 'Plants' Pools
For areas too tough to get into on the ground, Swim Gard has come up with this unique method of delivering and installing its swimming pools. A helicopter is pressed into service to bring the pool right to the site and plop right into the already prepared excavation. The firm specializes in a complete line of one-piece-construction pools in a variety of sizes and shapes. The pools can be installed in from 48 to 72 hours.
Possible Break-through
In Foiling Concrete
Cracks Is Announced
General Portland, Inc., Dallas, Texas, has announced what it believes to be an important break-through in the development of a cement designed to control historic shrinkage cracking in concrete.
L. James Wade, Jr., chairman of the board and chief executive officer, said that the company has filed a patent application for a new-concept expansive cement as a result of a series of proprietary product developments in its research laboratories.
Over the past ten years, structural engineers have explored numerous possibilities of an expansive portland cement for "chemical pre-stressing" as a means of producing stronger, crack-free concrete. Several products have been introduced which utilize sulfo-aluminate constituents in formulations difficult to control uniformly during manufacture. Generally, those products have not met performance expectations and have been more costly to manufacture than anticipated.
Wade said that the new General Portland cement does not depend on sulfo-aluminates, the constituent generally blamed for inconsistent results in presently available materials. In addition to its more uniform expansive and stressing properties, the new product works better under hot weather conditions, another improvement which has been sought in all portland cements. He said that strengths are equal or better than standard A.S.T.M. Type I cements, and that the overall characteristics of the product could bring about a major shift to this type of cement from those in common use for the past century.
Wade said that the new cement will be produced from essentially the same raw materials and will require only minor plan modification. He expects the new product to be available to the construction industry by mid-1973.
Slattery Acquires Firm
Alpha Portland Industries, Inc., Easton, Pa., announced that its heavy construction subsidiary, Slattery Associates, Inc., has completed the acquisition of Underpinning & Foundation Co., Inc., a New York-based pile driving and sub-surface construction firm.
Bernard Richards, president of Alpha, said that Slattery now holds 80.5% of the stock of the new company called Underpinning & Foundation Associates, Inc. The balance of the stock is held by the management of Underpinning.