Sunday, March 15, 2020

Annotated Summary


National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. (n.d.). Concrete in Practice: CIP 17- Flowable fill materials. Retrieved from https://www.nrmca.org/aboutconcrete/cips/17p.pdf

This article discusses on the characteristics and properties of flowable fill. Flowable fill is a self-compacting low strength material. Generally, flowable fills are used for construction needs such as backfilling in sewer or utility trenches. Most applications of flowable fills in trenches comprises with an ultimate strength of not more than 1.4 Megapascals(Mpa). This is to allow excavation by equipment. However, for manual excavation the ultimate strength should be less than 0.3Mpa.

Flowable fill is beneficial as it safes cost in labour and equipment. The article also added that manual compaction is not required and flowable fills are able to fill up inaccessible areas. This improves worker safety as they do not need to enter trenches as often. Depending on the cementitious material used, the pH value of flowable fill may be able to shield surrounding metal from corroding. This is important as utility pipes are placed in trenches which is then backfilled with flowable fill. Therefore, maintenance of these pipes will not be as troublesome for construction workers.

The article provides useful background information for our research project on integrating fly ash into flowable fill. It explains the strength provided from flowable fill in order to be excavatable. Todays flowable fill used has a much higher ultimate strength. By integrating fly ash into flowable fill, it reduces the overall ultimate strength to the point where it can be manually excavated which is economical and sustainable as explain in the article. This article is a good reference to support the benefits of using flowable fill.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Wei Zhang,

    Your annotated summary was detailed on the topic of flowable fills and well read. The concept of self compaction is very interesting and I wonder if it is a possibility to, someday, integrate that concept in high rise building constructions.
    Overall, great effort on your annotated summary and you managed to link it to your group's research project as well. Hope to read more of your future writings.

    Regards,
    Thoufeek Ansari

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  2. Hi Wei Zhang

    This is a detailed summary, stated the important key point for Fly Ash. In this summary, you illustrated the cost and productivity well.

    Overall, you linked this summary to your research project well. Thumbs up for that.

    Regards

    Frank

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  3. Hi Wei Zhang

    It is a well written summary about flowable fill. It is very informative to read with statistics given. Great effort in linking the content toward your group’s research project.

    Cheers
    JiaYing

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Hi Wei Zhang,

    The annotated summary you wrote is short yet full of details, i can tell that you understand your research topic very well. However, i am a little confused when you state "adding fly-ash will reduce the overall ultimate strength", because adding fly ash will improve the strength of cementitious material significantly over time. I supposed you mean adding fly-ash will improve the workability(because of the circular shape of fly-ash atoms, that lubricate cement particles) of the flowable fill, which makes it easy to excavate

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