| The Concrete Manual provides the guidance and information that inspectors and related professionals need to become more proficient in relating to concrete field practices and inspection. The Concrete Manual will:
- Introduce you to concrete and explain what it is and why it behaves as it does.
- Explain conventional construction procedures.
- Discuss control and inspection procedures.
- Explore statistical quality control methods and their application to concrete construction.
- Detail proper field testing procedures.
A Resource Reference section includes a list of the concrete industry and technical organizations to contact for additional information. Included is a CD-ROM with the complete Concrete Manual. This CD allows you to navigate easily through the document, search text, copy images from figures and tables, and cut and paste into correspondence or reports. In order to perform inspection of any phase or part of construction, it is quite obvious that the inspector must be versed in the phase or part that he or she is inspecting. The inspector's knowledge of laws, codes and specifications will be of little value if he or she does not have an understanding of the construction to be inspected. This book provides the inspector with a source of that knowledge as applied to concrete construction. The first chapters of the book introduce the reader to concrete and explain what concrete is and why it behaves as it does. A brief history of portland cement and concrete is included in this part. In the second part, materials are presented to the reader as a preparation for the third part, which covers construction. Conventional construction procedures as well as special techniques are covered in sufficient detail to enable the reader to understand and recognize them. Throughout these first three parts, the reader will find information about unsatisfactory materials and methods together with the discussion of acceptable materials and methods. Actual control and inspection procedures are described in Chapters 24 and 25, which should be of immediate interest to the inspector. The preceding chapters provide basic information that can be related to the described inspection procedures. The descriptions are, by necessity, somewhat general, as the responsible building official will designate the details of inspection. Codes, specifications and other requirements differ from job to job. For example, what are the conditions under which the inspector is authorized to order the work stopped or refuse to accept certain material or construction? These administrative decisions must be made by the building official. The statistical quality control methods presented in Chapter 26 are probably of limited value to most inspectors; however, they are included for completeness as concrete mixture proportioning and strength test evaluation and acceptance are based on statistical methods of analysis and the mathematics of probability. The inspector should at least be aware of the basic concepts of statistical quality control and its applications to concrete construction. A "Resource References" list of the concrete industry and technical organizations is included at the back of this book. The reader is encouraged to contact a listed organization for additional information and/or a publication on a specific concrete subject. |
