2024 Mid-Year Meeting Highlights and John Ries Scholarship Winner

The Expanded Shale, Clay and Slate Institute held the 2024 Mid-Year Meeting in Denver, Colorado, in conjunction with the IEEE-IAS PCA Cement Conference. The two-day meeting attracted ESCSI producer and associate members and included 10 technical committee meetings and a reception to celebrate prestigious awards winners.

ESCSI technical committee members reported on their active collaboration with and support of professional entities in various fields to promote the sustainable development of resilient infrastructure, including sponsorship of numerous presentations and dissemination of research studies in professional events, including TRB, ACI, and ASCE EMI. The IEEE-IAS PCA Cement Conference was another opportunity for exchanging ideas between ESCSI process technology experts.

Stay tuned for four ESCSI Technical Information Sheets:

• – What about Deflection?
• – Floor Finishing
• – Freeze-Thaw Durability of Structural Lightweight Concrete
• – Structural Lightweight Concrete in the Building Code

During the reception, John Ries and Keith McCabe received the 2024 Thomas A. Holm Award. Further, nine plants received the Safety Award for Zero lost time work-related injuries (LTI):

• – Aquadale, NC
• – Brooks, KY
• – Coalville, UT
• – Erwinville, LA
• – Frazier Park, CA
• – Gold Hill, NC
• – Livingston, AL
• – Mooresville, IN
• – Streetman, TX

Additionally, ESCSI is proud to announce Nima Khodadadi, Ph.D., Research Assistant in the Department of Civil & Architectural Engineering at University of Miami, as the recipient of the John Ries Scholarship in Academic Year 2023-24. Here is a summary of Dr. Khodadadi’s winning proposal:

In the effort to lessen the environmental impact of the construction sector, adopting sustainable and eco-friendly materials is crucial. Geopolymer recycled aggregate concrete (GRAC) presents a promising solution by replacing traditional Portland cement with supplementary cementitious materials like fly ash and slag cement, using recycled aggregates from construction and demolition waste, and incorporating lightweight aggregates. This approach significantly reduces carbon emissions and resource consumption. However, the broad application of GRAC has been limited by the absence of an effective mix design methodology. This study aims to fill that gap by introducing a novel machine learning (ML)-based method to accurately model the compressive strength (CS) of GRAC, which is vital for structural integrity and safety.

We welcome industry partners, associations, design, construction, and manufacturing firms, and other related sectors to join the ESCSI and participate in technical committees and future meetings and events.