Best Practices for Replacing Warehouse Drive Paths

[buck1017]

I was tasked with designing a concrete specification for a major company that has warehouses around the world. Their drive path at one of the facilities was deteriorated and we embarked on a project to remove all of the concrete in the drive paths and replace it. In order to avoid shut-down, they needed to be able to drive on the slab in 3 days, so we used high early strength concrete to give them a chance to do that. After the project was complete, the owner reached out and wasn't very happy. There was a lot of curling that happened at the corners of the new slab that had to be ground down where it curled past the edge of the existing slab, there was crazing everywhere, and there was terrible discoloration. I'm trying to fix some of these issues with admixtures, mix designs, and specifications, but I'm at a loss. Especially with the crazing. My contention is that it's doing it because they had to start finishing it so quickly and they drove on it right away. And even though it's a non-structural issue, the owner is concerned about long term durability. Does anyone have some best practices they can share when pouring long strips of concrete slab on grade between existing concrete slab?

 

[XR250]

What curing practices were used?

 

[AskTooMuch]

Sounds like construction issue. And possibly engineering as well if you didn't specifically specify continuously wet the surface specially this hot summer.

 

[jerseyshore]

It's very hard to match a new slab with an existing slab and have them finish perfectly along the edges. Especially when the new one is using an accelerated process. Without some sort of physical connection between the two slabs I think it'll be really tough to marry them up.

And I agree that the finishing part of it does sound like a construction issue. Not every mason is familiar with this type of work. You can find a lot of guys that can lay down a pretty good warehouse slab, but not nearly as many that can do it quickly and be ready to go in 3 days.