2022 ACI Awards of Excellence Winner

Proform Concrete Services

We are honored to be the recipient of the 2022 ACI Awards of Excellence in Concrete in the category Advanced Concrete Construction for our Cummins Fort McMurray Yard Reconstruction & Bonded Concrete Overlay project.

The Cummins project marks the first time a bonded concrete overlay was utilized in an industrial application in Alberta. The solution for this project evolved through a team collaboration approach with Cummins Fort McMurray, Beairsto & Associates Engineering, Parkland Geotechnical Consulting, Knelsen Sand & Gravel, McMurray Concrete Cutting & Coring and of course, all the Proform Concrete Services crew members, each bringing innovation and out of the box thinking.

Project Details:

Cummins was looking for a long-term solution to asphalt that failed after 4 years of operation in their new industrial facility in Fort McMurray.  ParklandGEO in conversation with Beairsto proposed a rigid concrete pavement solution.  With limited construction time due to winter approaching, Proform and Knelsen suggested a cost effective two-phase, hybrid solution that allowed the asphalt and base construction to be installed as phase one, keeping the customer operational through winter, and the second phase of bonded concrete overlay following in summer.  This combination of asphalt and concrete was chosen to withstand the heavy loading of a large capacity forklift on-site and deliver a longer lifecycle. 

Bonded concrete overlay was the best solution from a cost and timing perspective because it utilized a combination of flexible and rigid pavements and delivered a 15 year lifecycle.  Longer lifecycles have not yet been evaluated by the American Concrete Pavement Association or Federal Highway Association for this type of design because it’s relatively new.  However, a comparable project in Edmonton with a similar design has surpassed this lifecycle with no maintenance performed.

What makes this project unique is that bonded concrete overlays normally utilize older existing layers of asphalt but this project placed new asphalt under the concrete. This gave added confidence that the overall 200mm of the concrete and asphalt pavement layers would give the owner a quality product for his needs.