It’s said there’s nothing more boring than watching concrete dry, but that’s one of the many things scientists are eagerly doing now at a new research facility at Iowa State University. It’s full name is the Portland Cement Concrete Pavement and Materials Research Laboratory, but it’s being called the P-C-C Center for short. Director Dale Harrington says today’s concrete is great, but there’s always room for improvement in every product.is its director.The P-C-C Center was dedicated Wednesday at I-S-U. The Iowa Department of Transportation and the Iowa Concrete Paving Association donated money to help build the new lab. Harrington says the facility will be the home for innovative research in developing long-lasting, cost-effective, low-maintenance road-building concrete. He says they want to be sure that new materials are compatible with the materials that are in use today.Harrington says they’ll focus on things like the setup time of concrete, as well as the mixing, the processing and the manufacturing of concrete, and its durability through a series of stress analysis tests.He says the average lifespan of a slab of pavement is 30 years.
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