MAKING BETTER C

Northwest teams improve steel-fibe -

concrete link beams to reduce rebar
congestion in seismic-zone shear walls
By Nadine M. Post in Seattle

S
tructural engineer Cary Kopczynski once “THERE ARE
penned a prediction: “There may come a day APPLICATIONS
in the not-too-distant future when concrete FOR STEEL FI-
building structures will commonly be rein- BER THROUGH-
forced with a combination of steel fibers and OUT THE
steel reinforcing bar. Rebar requirements SHEAR WALL.”
could be reduced, perhaps significantl .” He —CARY
wrote “Beyond Rebar: A Revolution in Concrete” for KOPCZYNSKI,
the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce in April 1994. ENGINEER
But the not-too-distant future came and went with-
out a concrete revolution. And the 40-year veteran of
earthquake engineering, who practices mostly on the
West Coast, still is making the same prediction about
reinforced concrete dosed with steel fibers as rebar
decongestants. “Looking downstream, there are ap-
plications for steel fiber throughout the shear wall,”
says Kopczynski, CEO of the 30-year-old Bellevue,
Wash., firm that bears his name. “That’s still a way off.”
In quake-prone areas, rebar congestion has long be-
deviled contractors. Kopczynski’s solution—adding high-
strength wire reinforcement—enhances ductility and shear
strength, allowing for less rebar. That, in turn, increases
constructibility, productivity and material performance.
Kopczynski’s problem: The buildings sector, in ad-
dition to having a general aversion to risk and innova-
tion, “is set up to work with rebar,” says Kopczynski.
And in seismic zones, rebar fabricators and installers
typically don’t like wire in any shape or form.
That hasn’t deterred Kopczynski. About 13 years
ago, tired of hitting his head against a “shear wall” on
the topic of steel-fibe -reinforced concrete (SFRC) in
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CARY KOPCZYNSKI & CO.

seismic cores, he narrowed his sights to focus on the

most shear-stressed and rebar-congested seismic ele-
ment—the link, or coupling, beam.
Like doorway headers, the typically 2.5-ft- to 3.5-ft-
wide link beams span openings in walls. At four or fiv
per floo , there can be hundreds in a tall building.
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1003_CS_Seismic2.indd 30 9/26/16 3:50 PM

R CONNECTIONS Kopczynski views SFRC link beams as stepping-
stones toward structural SFRC in walls, column-beam
joints and other structural elements. “You’ve got to dip
COVER STORY
your toe in the water before you jump in,” he says.
MATERIALS To meet the high shear demand, seismic engineers
specify link beams with heavy X-shaped rebar, in ad-
dition to transverse rebar with ties and stirrups. The
diagonals, which Kopczynski has long called the
“Gordian knot,” often collide with transverse bars. In
that case, frustrated rebar installers have been known
to cut the transverse bars.
Batch-plant-mixed SFRC, which slashes link-beam
rebar by about 40%, not only unties the Gordian knot
by eliminating diagonal bars but also reduces the size
of the flexural and shear bars that remain, says Kopc-
zynski. Less-dense rebar allows beam penetrations for
STICKY MIX electrical conduit, pipes and sprinkler lines, he adds.
At the Lincoln Initially, Kopczynski’s innovation met with resistance.
Square Expan-
sion, a worker “It is now clear that SFRC beams add value, but this was
coaxes a mix of not the case a few years ago,” he says. “The first several
high-strength steel owners we approached were understandably concerned
wire (left, top) and
concrete slurry about being a guinea pig for a new idea, outside the code,
(left, bottom) from whose cost benefit had not been demonstrated.”
a craned-in low-
slump bucket to Thanks to Kopczynski, SFRC link beams, which
form a fibrous link come with their own challenges, slowly are gaining
beam containing
40% less rebar traction. To date, the 45-person Cary Kopczynski &
than is typical. Co. has gained approval for four CKC link-beam
towers—one is finished and three are underway. With
each project, teams improve the new routines and
their rhythms.
CKC’s beams would have stayed a pipe dream were
it not for laboratory tests. In 2009, University of Mich-
igan researchers subjected four-story coupled-wall
specimens to quake-type lateral displacement reversals,
comparing them to conventional beam behavior. The
link beams contained 200 lb per cu yd of Bekaert
Corp.’s 445-ksi steel wire—1.18 in. long and 0.015 in.
in diameter. The tests showed the superior perfor-
mance of SFRC beams (ENR 4/19/10 p. 12).
Kopczynski was at the ready, expecting to move
PHOTOS BY JANINE PIETZ/GLY

forward with two 40-story Seattle towers, but they

became victims of the recession. Undaunted, the trail-
blazer ultimately succeeded in a proof of concept by
pioneering CKC link beams—on a limited basis—in
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1003_CS_Seismic2.indd 31 9/26/16 3:51 PM

 SFRC
LINK
BEAM

the 12 upper stories of The Martin, a 24-story building DISCOVERY At

in Seattle (ENR 2/25/13 p. 10). the 40-story 970
Denny project, the
The $1.2-billion, 76%-complete Lincoln Square team learned, after
Expansion, a 2.6-million-sq-ft multiuse project in recent trial runs in
the below-grade
nearby Bellevue, followed on a grander scale. Of 392 core, that the
link beams in its two 450-ft-tall towers, the 341 that difficult-to-install
steel mesh at the
are above grade have fiber. link-beam ends
LSE’s Kemper Development Co. went with CKC’s (above) was not
fiber system only after it saw a mock-up of a conven- needed to keep the
fibrous mix out of TYPICAL
tional link beam so jammed with rebar that there was the wall sections LINK
(right, top). Typical BEAM
little room for concrete, says Fritz Walter, Kemper’s
link-beam with X-
senior vice president of construction. shaped bars (right,
Next in line is Seattle’s 40-story 970 Denny, a con- in blue) has about support a code proposal and allow other brands and
40%more reinforc-
crete residential tower with 386 fibrous beams in the ing steel than an grades of wire. And CKC aims to reduce the dense fiber
PHOTOS BY JOE FERZIL/CARY KOPCZYNSKI & CO.; DRAWINGS COURTESY OF CKC

core. Workers currently are building the subgrade levels.
Drawbacks
Kemper and its LSE team support future use of CKC’s
beams, with caveats. “There are a few drawbacks,” says
Johnny Luttrull, an associate with HKS, LSE’s archi-
tect. “SFRC requires building-official approval and
bucketing [due to its density], and the steel-fiber cost
is high due to a single-source supply.”
Eyes wide open, Kopczynski is working to eliminate
the drawbacks. More research—now underway—will
32  ENR  September 26/October 3, 2016 enr.com
SFRC link beam. dosage to a pumpable 150 lb per cu yd of concrete.
LSE’s general contractor, which is self-performing
concrete and vertical-element formwork under a
$600-million contract, says SFRC link beams speeded up
the job. “With diagonal bars in the link beams, we would
not have been able to maintain the schedule,” says Alan
Kniffin, project executive for GLY Construction.
The SFRC system, with 3-cu-yd link beams, allowed
for a five-day floor cycle, instead of six, which sliced two
COVER STORY months off the schedule of the 42-story North Tower,
MATERIALS
a hotel-residential high-rise with a cast-in-place rein-

1003_CS_Seismic2.indd 32 9/26/16 3:51 PM


forced-concrete structure and post-tensioned slabs.
The tower, whose lower three floors are set to open
in March, with the rest opening in August, has fiv
3-ft-wide by 2-ft-deep link beams per floor—four in
the core and one in a separate shear wall. Compressive
strength is 8,500 psi.
LSE’s South Tower, a 31-story office building, has
a steel frame with composite metal decking and a con-
crete core. There are five link beams per floor until the
20th floor and two per floor in a smaller core above
that. Beams are typically 2.5 ft wide by 3 ft deep.
GLY built the core to level 20 before starting the
steel because steel goes up faster. If not for CKC’s
beams, GLY would have had to delay the steel another
day per floo . The tower is set to open in January.
GLY embraces CKC’s beams. But its list of disrup-
tions caused by them is longer than Luttrull’s. Until
further notice, all fiber jobs are limited to the wire and
PHOTO COURTESY OF KEMPER DEVELOPMENT CO.
dosage tested in 2009. The lack of competition for wire
did increase the mix cost—$735 per cu yd compared
to $135 for self-consolidating concrete (SCC) alone,
says GLY. But the expenses were offset by eliminating
180 tons of rebar and associated labor.
The job contains 168,300 lb of wire in 841 cu yd of
concrete. GLY says it kept a “continual watch” on wire
1003_CS_Seismic2.indd 33
shipments from Europe to maintain the job’s pace.
Beyond that, extra early effort at the batch plant is
required to create a mix with the proper fiber distribu-
tion and slump, says Keith Smyth, senior sales repre-
sentative for concrete supplier Cadman Inc., which had
learned to use SCC when it supplied The Martin.
“It’s a sticky mix, like a hair ball,” says Kniffin.
Among other tasks, concrete mixers have to be cleaned.
Initially, even getting the mix out of the bucket was
an issue until GLY figured out it needed to use a low-
slump concrete bucket, which has steeper sides.
Quality control is different, too. GLY casting crews
had to get up to speed. The dense mix needed to be
spread with shovels and then vibrated. “There were
early learning curves,” says Kniffin
GLY also had to coordinate two concurrent con-
crete operations: pumping for the shear walls and
crane-bucketing for the link beams.
Kniffin says construction of the North Tower was
more complicated than the South Tower because of
the need to coordinate the core work with the rest of
the concrete structure. But on both towers, the basic
sequence for the cores was the same (see p. 34).
More Straightforward
Ironworkers led with link beam and wall rebar. Tony
Gerde, LSE project superintendent for Harris Rebar-
SCALED UP Central Steel, calls CKC’s approach “more straightfor-
Without the SFRC ward” than any Harris has seen. It made rebar installa-
link beams in
the cores of the tion “faster and easier and helped free up crane time,”
Lincoln Square typically needed to pick diagonal bars, says Gerde.
Expansion’s
31-story office Mike Dolder, senior principal of Mayes Testing
tower (above) and Engineers Inc., which inspected rebar placement and
42-story residen-
tial building, the tested samples of the concrete, is another fan. “Less
contractor would rebar congestion makes our job easier,” he says. “The
not have been strength tests were fine, and the mix performed well.”
able to meet its
schedule. After the rebar, workers installed steel-mesh screens
at each end of the beam to prevent the fibrous mix from
flowing into the wall area. Formwork followed.
Then, crews moved the fibrous mix, trucked about
15 minutes from Cadman’s batch plant, into the low-
slump bucket, which was lifted by crane.
Next, crews maneuvered the bucket into position
so workers could coax the mix into place, using shovels
and vibration. It took seven to 10 minutes to cast each
3-cu-yd beam.
Then, other crews pumped the wall concrete to
either side of the SFRC beam. A finished beam looks
no different from any other.
On the 970 Denny job, all 386 link beams will con-
tain SFRC. Instead of a mock-up, the team decided to
use the below-grade link beams, which typically do not
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9/26/16 3:51 PM
 LINK BEAMS ADD STEPS BUT SAVE TIME
G
LY Construction dipped into unknown territory to build the
fib ous-concrete link beams for the cores of the 42-story residential
high-rise and 31-story office tower of Bellevue, Wash.’s Lincoln
Square Expansion. But the effort paid off. The beams, with 40% less
reinforcing steel, allowed GLY to meet its schedule.
Much of the core sequence was typical. The link-beam rebar work was
actually easier, but the mixing and casting of the dense fib ous concrete
was, early on, more difficult. First, crews raised the self-climbing form to
the next elevation. Carpenters then placed temporary door and opening
block-out formwork, called “door bucks,” says Brian Caudle, GLY’s senior
project engineer. The top of each door buck is the bottom of each link
beam. Like doorway headers, beams link wall openings.
Pre-tied core-wall boundary reinforcing elements were trucked in from
an off-site fabrication yard and craned into place to begin forming the
next lift of the wall. Some floors used up to 12 different boundary ele-
ments to “frame” the corners of the core and the openings.
Reinforcing steel installers placed vertical and horizontal infill rebar,
some with hooked ends, to lace together the boundary elements into
one continuous wall. Concurrently, ironworkers placed link-beam rebar.
GLY carpenters then installed expanded metal mesh on either end of
the link beams to isolate the typical concrete mix from the SFRC mix.
After crews installed all penetrations, embeds and anchors, GLY
closed or slid together formwork panels, inside and outside the core
wall, placing temporary ties to hold together the two opposing panels.
Crews then coaxed in the steel-fiber link beam mix, which had been
trucked from the batch plant, transferred to a bucket and craned up to
the floo . On the heels of that, other crews pumped in the wall concrete
to either side of the beam. About a day later, once the core wall reached the U.S.—is in the seismic code for structural applica-
its compressive strength, crews stripped formwork and the form tions, CKC has to apply for approval—job by job—un-
climbed to the next casting position. n der Section 104.11 of the International Building Code.
Familiar to innovators, the clause allows for use of
alternate materials, design and methods. But the engi-
need diagonals, as trial runs for the above-grade SFRC neer has to demonstrate, through performance-based
link beams. “By the time we get up to the street, we design (PBD), equivalent or better performance com-
will certainly have the cycle down and a good [place- pared to a prescriptive-code-complying structure.
ing] rate,” says Mike O’Leary, general superintendent “As a building department, it is important to be
for the concrete subcontractor, Conco Northwest, open to considering new designs but to be cautious not
which built The Martin. to get too far out ahead of the design community,” says
The trial strategy has paid off. “We learned just a Gregg Schrader, the building official in the Bellevue
few weeks ago that the fiber creates enough internal Development Services Dept.
cohesion that the mix can be cast without” the steel PBDs and shear-wall core buildings taller than 240
mesh at each end, says Kopczynski. ft on the quake-prone West Coast trigger peer reviews
“This is a big deal,” adds Kopczynski. The installed for plan approval. In the case of LSE, the green light
mesh would have cost about $80,000, mostly because was based on the reviewer’s assessment that the design
the installation around rebar is labor-intensive. correlated with the 2009 SFRC link-beam tests. The
PHOTO BY ED SOZINHO

For CKC, fibrous beams take extra time and effort,
so far unremunerated, especially during plan review.
Until SFRC—now used most often for crack control in
34  ENR  September 26/October 3, 2016 enr.com
structural engineer’s experience also counted.
COVER STORY The design had to match the test specimens’ fibe
MATERIALS
dosage, span-to-depth (aspect) ratio and wire tests. The

1003_CS_Seismic2.indd 34 9/26/16 4:45 PM


peer reviewer listed every parameter for each condition
in the building—sizes, configurations and rebar
amounts—and then listed the corresponding shear-stress
parameters and aspect ratios for the 2009 test beams.
“We created a table and did a side-by-side com-
parison to make sure [the design] was similar to test
specimens in shear-stress demands, dimensions and
details,” says peer reviewer Joe Maffei, principal of
Maffei Engineering. “It generally tracked.”
The link-beam review accounted for 10% of the
cost of LSE’s $100,000 peer review. Maffei, who also
reviewed The Martin, says the LSE link-beam review
amounted to about a third of The Martin effort.
Bellevue granted LSE approval in March 2013,
based on Maffei’s recommendation. “As far as this proj-
RENDERING BY STUDIO 216 / WEBER THOMPSON
ect is concerned, we embrace this technology,” says
Schrader. “We think it might be a better system for
seismic resistance, resulting in less, more evenly dis-
tributed damage, and we would support having it in-
troduced into the code.”
But until SFRC link beams are in the code, CKC
1003_CS_Seismic2.indd 35
will have to spend extra time on plan review. That’s
one reason why Kopczynski and other proponents of
SFRC link beams are involved with research aimed at
providing technical material for a code provision.
Recent tests, supported by a $214,240 grant from
the Charles Pankow Foundation, evaluated different
types of fibers, from two suppliers, “to determine if
we can use fibers that are not as good as the Bekaert
fibers [already] tested or if can we use fewer fibers if
we use the same [high-quality] fibers tested,” says
Gustavo J. Parra-Montesinos, principal investigator
and an engineering professor at the University of
Wisconsin who also led the 2009 Michigan tests.
Parra-Montesinos expects Pankow to release the re-
port this month.
Code Change Proposal
For the code change proposal, the aim is to create a
chart with different classes of SFRC, based on bending
performance and linked to a given drift capacity in link
beams. The chart will be wire-brand blind, to keep it
generic for the code, says Parra-Montesinos.
Andrew W. Taylor, an associate with KPFF Con-
sulting Engineers who is involved with the Pankow
research, chairs the seismic subcommittee of the “ACI
318 Building Code: Requirements for Structural Con-
crete,” published by the American Concrete Institute.
“We would like to formulate provisions for SFRC link
beams for the 2019 edition,” but this will depend on
deliberations of both the seismic subcommittee and
the main ACI 318 committee, says Taylor.
LEADERS Teams The recent research, “as well as implementations
are tweaking SFRC
link-beam systems
of SFRC link beams by CKC, have been instrumental
in the two major in laying the technical groundwork and demonstrating
developments to proof of concept,” he adds.
date that contain
the rebar-reducing Though, so far, CKC has focused on tall buildings
beams: the hotel in seismic zones, rebar congestion can be nearly as bad
(far left) and office
towers of Bellevue, in short buildings in seismic zones. “There is definitel
Wash.’s Lincoln a use for SFRC in shorter buildings,” says Kopczynski.
Square Expan-
sion (left)—76%
The engineer also says he isn’t committed to steel
complete—and wire as the fiber. “We’re using steel because that’s
Seattle’s 970 where the research is, but other materials have poten-
Denny building,
which soon will be tial, including carbon and graphite, which have the
at grade (render- same strength and modulus of elasticity as steel,” he
ing, above).
says. “They might be more expensive but they are
more workable,” he adds.
Kopczynski says he hasn’t forgotten his decades-old
dream of expanding the use of fibrous concrete to shear
walls, column-beam joints and other elements.
“Seismic design is largely about maximizing shear
strength and ductility,” he says, adding, “Fibrous con-
crete does both.” n
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