“This year’s Technology Forum in Portland was especially successful, in part due to growing attendance, but also in how diverse members of the concrete community engaged to discuss issues in our industry,” stated Ann Masek, executive director of ACI Foundation. “For instance, concrete strength is a critical parameter in determining the cost, quality and durability of the concrete and greatly affects the construction schedule. The debate on the opportunities and challenges of introducing new technologies that directly measure concrete strength in situ offered interesting commentary from several perspectives on how to solve this industry challenge.”

The 2023 Technology Forum included 15 presentations that highlighted new technologies, advances in research and new test standards. NEU – An ACI Center of Excellence for Carbon Neutral Concrete sponsored the group lunch, which was followed by several carbon-neutral topics.

The event concluded with a debate that discussed new technologies for determining concrete strength and how such methodologies can find a path to be used in acceptance criteria for concrete, including accommodating in-place measurements evaluated using machine learning algorithms. Participants discussed a few currently available new technologies for in-place strength testing. The panelists debated how the industry could develop more rapid and reliable acceptance criteria based on those methods.

To learn more about the Technology Forum or to receive the latest information for the 2024 Technology Forum scheduled for May 14-16, 2024, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, visit https://www.acifoundation.org/technology/forums.aspx.