Related Links: Dispute Flares, Accusations Fly Over Claims in Pipe Lawsuit A federal jury in California on Nov. 14 found pipe manufacturer JM Eagle liable for making false claims about PVC water pipe it sold to states and municipalities over the course of nearly a decade. JM Eagle pipes are used extensively in drinking water, irrigation and other public systems. The jury's verdict opens the company to potentially billions of dollars in damages, with an exact amount to be determined in a separate trial.JM Eagle says it plans to appeal the verdict, stating in a press release that "we believe
Related Links: Solidia Technologies Portland Cement Association Concrete technology is not an easy business to break into. There have been many attempts in recent years to "green" the concrete business, from cements that fix CO2 during the curing process to industry attempts to increase the use of fly ash in concrete. But while new companies have come and gone, Parsippany, N.J.-based Solidia Technologies thinks it's onto something new.The venture-capital-backed firm recently signed a partnership agreement with France-based concrete giant Lafarge and is now working to bring its CO2-cured cement to market. Lafarge will work with Solidia on demonstrations of commercial-scale
Photo Courtesy of First Solar Overcapacity in China has contractors refocusing their efforts on downstream powerplants. Related Links: Rooftop Solar Set To Soar Solar Sees Growth But Clouds Loom A new $300-million solar-panel factory sits just outside Mesa, Ariz., waiting to be sold for a $50-million loss. Never used by Tempe-based First Solar, the plant is symbolic of how solar-panel manufacturing has been hit hard by Chinese overproduction. Other solar plants have been mothballed, and General Electric has scrapped plans for a major Aurora, Colo., production facility.Things could be looking up for U.S. manufacturers, however, as China, the global production
Photo Courtesy of Schuff International, Inc. Concrete is the primary building material in all of Latin America, including Panama, but builders are starting to take advantage of steel on some projects, such as Torre V, a high-rise office building. Related Links: The Top 600 Specialty Contractors Arrival of Gates Marks Milestone in Panama Canal Expansion When the largest steel fabrication and erection company in the U.S. began looking for opportunities for growth, it expanded its horizons beyond the border."We could sense a slowdown in the U.S., so we started looking overseas," says Jay Allen, executive vice president of sales and
Related Links: Delaware Utility's Road From Bloom Box to Grid Bloom Energy Delware State Assembly Bill SB 124 Row after row of glossy black boxes hum away on an acre of land between a cornfield and the banks of Delaware's Red Lion Creek. "It's basically a fuel-cell farm," says George Gottuso, senior project manager with Hill International. "Right now, it's delivering 5.8 megawatts to the utility."These refrigerator-sized cabinets are Bloom Energy Servers, natural-gas-powered fuel cells manufactured and owned by Bloom Energy, Sunnyvale, Calif. Each energy server contains a stack of solid-oxide fuel cells, made with Bloom's patented process and design.One
Related Links: High-Strength Rebar Market Is Heating Up Charles Pankow Foundation Steward of Charles Pankow Foundation Supports Building Innovation One Grant at a Time The Charles Pankow Foundation, which, since 2006, has spent $7.4 million funding 42 mostly unrelated research projects, is switching gears. To improve construction practice, it will now focus on larger research concepts that could have an impact on all structures, not just buildings.The group has picked high-strength reinforcing steel for its first wide-impact research program. The goal is to update the concrete code, which currently limits the use of higher-strength rebar in all types of structures.Pankow
Trailblazers seeking a faster, safer and less costly way to build concrete shear walls in seismic-zone high-rises have pioneered the use of steel fibers as link-beam reinforcing-steel "decongestants."
Related Links: Tony Illia's WOC 2013 Photo Gallery Cement Use to Climb 8% in 2013 Putzmeister Expands Into Ready-Mix Trucks Ahern Rentals' Sales Soar Despite Bankruptcy New Bricklaying Champion Crowned Utah Case Dealership's Fifth Generation Hilti Introduces Hollow Drill Bit STIHL Unveils The Rock Boss Wagner Meters Launches Rapid Moisture Tester Brokk Highlights New Demolition Machine Chicago Pneumatic Unveils New Breaker After a long, harsh downturn, concrete contractors and suppliers are looking up as they face a "huge pent-up demand," said Portland Cement Association chief economist Ed Sullivan, who spoke Feb. 5 at the World of Concrete in Las Vegas."The
Illustration courtesy of MIT/Mehdi Akbarian Pavement deflection produces the effect of a car rolling uphill, hurting fuel economy. Related Links: Concrete Goes To College Download MIT's Pavement Report Fuel economy has been largely the province of automakers and government initiatives, such as Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. However, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are looking at ways to boost fuel efficiency and cut greenhouse- gas emissions by building better roads.Pavement design can play an important role in fuel economy, researchers say. "The understanding has always been that roughness matters more than deflection" when it comes to fuel usage,
Photo by Tudor Van Hampton Navistar's switch to SCR will impact supply deals, such as the truck it makes for Caterpillar. Related Links: Navistar Goes It Alone In 2011 Navistar Submits 13-Liter Engine for EPA Certification Navistar International Corp. is abandoning its decade-long Class 8 diesel-truck-engine strategy and turning to rival and onetime supplier Cummins Inc. for a viable solution. The move marks a setback for the Lisle, Ill.-based Navistar, which had been bullish about exhaust-gas-recirculation, or EGR, its in-cylinder technology worth about $700 million in development costs since 2001. The truck engines still do not meet Environmental Protection Agency
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