CONCRETE PAVEMENT PROGRESS 18 WWW.ACPA.ORG RCC (INDUSTRIAL) Nevada Knight/ Swift Trucking Terminal Reno, Nevada CONTRACTOR: Andale Construction*/PRS, Inc. OWNER: Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings, Inc. ENGINEER: Andale Construction* SILVER Walmart Distribution Center Topeka, Kansas CONTRACTOR: A.G. Peltz Group, LLC* OWNER: Whiting-Turner Company ENGINEER: Langan Engineering & Environmental Services The Reno/Sparks, Nevada, area is one of the most challenging climatic conditions for roads and pavements. The climate, along with diverse regional materials, make producing an economical and highly sustainable concrete a challenge—especially when the pavement must handle the constant truck load of a freight trucking company. The owner had experience with RCC on other facilities and knew it was a good choice for this facility. Andale Construction tapped local contractor Pavement Recycling Systems for the RCC paving construction itself. Dozens of local engineers, labs, contractors, providers, and engineers came from private industry as well as the Nevada Department of Transportation to see the construction because RCC on a large facility is new to the area. The ability to walk on and roll immediately, the fast strength gain with no shrinkage cracking or crazing—which is common to the area—and the quality of the troweled and finished surface impressed the client as well as the visitors. The RCC produced for this project was batched locally using a mobile pugmill plant owned by PRS. The mix was somewhat revolutionary for the area as 4,000 psi strengths were achieved using less than 500 pounds of total cementitious material. Mixes used local Fernley I/II cement. The mixes even showed that Nevada Cement’s new Portland Limestone Cement (PLC) met strengths. The ability to achieve such great strengths is significant for the Reno region, which typically sees values between 600 to 800 pounds. This represented cost savings, environmental sustainability, and durability increases for the project. Walmart Inc. is the largest retailer in the country, with year-over-year net sales growing by 8.7% in the fiscal year 2021 compared to the prior period. To address this growing demand, Walmart continues to invest heavily in increasing supply chain capacity and automation. A significant part of this investment includes building new company distribution centers. While not a large metropolitan population center, Topeka, Kansas, has the logistical advantage of being centrally located, taking less than three days to reach anywhere in the continental United States. This central location played a prominent role in Walmart’s decision to build a new $200 million distribution center in Topeka. The new center is Walmart’s largest in the state, with more than 1.8 million square feet at approximately a 35-foot clear stacking height. In late 2020, the general contractor contracted A.G. Peltz Group (AGP) to mix and place over 173,000 square yards of dual-lift 12-inch roller compacted concrete (RCC) pavement for the Topeka project. The timetable on this project was highly challenging as Walmart’s accelerated project schedule required AGP to pave six-day workweeks and work in sub-optimal temperature conditions. Topeka has difficult weather conditions with both temperature and wind extremes. In fact, during the construction process, windy conditions resulted in portions of the newly installed roof blowing off. AGP relied on the widespread use of blankets on the grade, pavement, and material stockpiles during the harshest weather. Other unique attributes of this project included meeting Walmart’s request to trowel finish the entire RCC surface, the interfaces between the RCC and the concrete dolly pads, the replacement of traditional concrete with RCC for a dolly pad, and the sawing and sealing of over 280,000 linear feet of joints. Despite these challenges, AGP completed this project on schedule, averaging close to 1,000 cubic yards per day of paving. GOLD
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