Texas Aggregates and Concrete Association (TACA) held its 3rd Annual High Strength Concrete Competition involving member companies of the association early this year. TACA began the competition in 2006 to showcase the material innovations and techniques that are available in theTexas marketplace.
Southern Star Concrete—Houston Division was awarded first place for achieving a 28-day compressive strength of 18,370 psi. Second Place went to Southern Star Concrete-Dallas Division, which developed a compressive strength of 16,470 psi. Texas Concrete Materials, LTD of Austin received the Third Place trophy with a 28-day compressive strength of 16,360 psi.
Competitors each cast six cylinders of fresh concrete and each company cured their cylinders for no more than 28 days in moist or wet environments. Three of the cylinders from each company were tested at the end of the 28-day period by a third party independent laboratory and an average of those three cylinder strengths was used to determine the compressive strength. The remaining three cylinders will be tested at 90 days to provide longer-term strength-development data.
