St. Louis— Clayco Inc. has received two Tilt-Up Achievement Awards from the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA), including one of only two Excellence in Achievement awards granted in 2008. Concrete Strategies Inc., a Clayco partner, performed the tilt-up construction for both projects.
TCA's highest honor was granted for Clayco and Concrete Strategies' work on the Saint Louis University (SLU) Walk in midtown St. Louis. The firms' other winning project is the new Casino Queen in East St. Louis, IL.
The SLU Walk is a walkway connecting SLU's new Edward A. Doisy Research Center to other health sciences facilities. The project started as cast-in-place, but the team recommended a switch to tilt-up because it was more cost-effective, safer, cut the schedule in half, and provided better quality. However, tilt-up had never been used before for an arched walkway like the SLU Walk.
Barclay Gebel, vice president of operations for Concrete Strategies, explained, "Because of the shape of the panels — they are not level at the bottom — we had to pick up the panels flat from the casting bed and then rotate them plumb in the air using special rigging. It took approximately 10 hours to prepare each panel. There are cast brick slots in the back side of the panel, and we had to use a lintel beam to support the load of the brick."
He adds, "In addition to the challenge of placing each panel, the walkway goes uphill. To overcome this challenge, we poured all of the panels sistered together and then erected them vertically as they were cast on the casting bed."
