The American Concrete Institute is gearing up to develop ACI’s first code requirements specifically for precast concrete. The recent announcement of the initiative comes on the heels of an article in the September issue of ACI’s monthly magazine, Concrete International, that sounds the alarm about the potential for brittle failures of precast, prestressed-concrete double-T parking decks, with flanges reinforced with a non-code-compliant polymer-coated carbon-fiber grid product, called C-Grid.
“Brittle Failures in Precast Parking Structures,” by William L. Gamble, Gordon H. Reigstad and Jason Reigstad, alleges collapses of precast double-T flanges, containing C-Grid, are attributable to “design and fabrication flaws.”