Cell-Crete Corporation

In 2009, the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) began, what is considered, the largest public works program in the City of LA. This is a Capital Improvement Program to modernize the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The New Tom Bradley International Terminal (New TBIT) is the centerpiece of the project.

We are placing our Lightweight Insulating Concrete (LWIC) Roof Deck System on the New TBIT. The LWIC Roofing System will be installed over a flat vented metal deck, per the required specification, and will achieve R30 minimum. This is one of multiple projects we are working on at LAX as part of the modernization plan.

Alexandria Real Estate, a dominant player is life science commercial real estate, is building a 78,600 SF Class-A lab facility with sweeping canyon views. Spectrum III is part of a 5-building campus located in San Diego, CA, a leading life science hub.

We provided an R 19 minimum Lightweight Insulating Concrete (LWIC) Roofing system. By using our system, the project saved time and money. Installation takes less time than traditional roof insulation systems because our method allows for your first row of insulation to go down as quickly as your last.

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The Michigan Department of Transportation has begun a multi-year project to modernize seven miles of I-94 in the City of Detroit. This project includes the reconstruction of the Cadillac Avenue, Frontenac Avenue, and Burns Avenue bridges to upgrade to current design standards. The goal of this modernization project is to balance safety, mobility, lifecycle costs, aesthetics, and environmental sustainability.

We poured lightweight cellular concrete as backfill material for the bridge abutment structures. LCC is a great alternative to traditional granular fill to provide settlement mitigation and resistance to lateral movement. Cellular concrete is a self-compacting material, allowing us to place higher lifts than other materials that require compaction.

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El Toro Underground Storage Tanks

The Orange County Health Care Agency and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board required the closure of five Underground Storage Tanks (USTs) at the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro in Irvine, CA. Originally constructed in 1953, these five USTs held a whopping 591,426 gallons of jet propulsion fuel and needed to be decommissioned by filling the tanks with an inert solid material in order to achieve regulatory closure concurrence.

Each of these USTs measured 88 feet wide and 13 feet high. Due to their size, and their unique placement underground, the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro needed a solution that would be strong enough to reinforce the ground above, while providing little to no additional environmental impact. To add to an already challenging job, there were only ten days before the cutoff date to finish the project to avoid interruption to the breeding season of threatened species California Gnat Catcher.

Cell-Crete’s Engineered Fill team rose to the challenge and finished installation of the foamed concrete in just six days. This enabled the contractor, Rore, Inc., to finish the grading and hydroseeding of the area without incurring liquidated damages.

“We chose Cell-Crete because they are the only installer of cellular concrete that could complete the job to the incredibly tight schedule — notably, their ability to produce more than 3,000 cubic yards of cellular concrete per day,” said Steve Siefert of Rore, Inc.

“Because of their seamless installation in six days, we had the opportunity to complete our responsibilities on schedule,” he finished.

The tanks were filled using class II cellular concrete material, the material also complies with the strict environmental standards set by the Orange County Health Care Agency. With the tanks safely decommissioned, the city will turn the site into the Orange County Great Park.

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Fuel Tanks Closure at the Defense Fuel Support Point, San Pedro

The general scope of work for this project included the closure of twenty large cast-in-place concrete underground storage tanks (USTs), six large steel USTs (2,100,000 gallon capacity each), and one small steel UST (567,000 gallon capacity). Each tank had appurtenances removed, filled with a cellular concrete flowable fill, and abandoned in place. The underground pipelines were permanently disconnected, filled with the foamcrete (also referred to as foamed concrete or foamedcrete) mixture, flanged, and abandoned in place. The valve pits associated with the tanks and pipelines had all contents removed, the piping flanged, and the pits filled with the foamcrete mixture. The seven pumphouses had contents removed, piping flanged, and the facility demolished or filled with the foamcrete mixture. The multiproduct lines associated with the seven pumphouses were be emptied, cleaned, and filled with foamcrete. A vegetative ground cover was reestablished with in-kind indigenous plants and grass in areas impacted by abandonment operations.

Cellular concrete (foamed concrete) was used to backfill the tanks, the benefits of using cellular concrete on this project included the lessened disturbance to the Ghat Catcher and the endangered Palos Verdes butterfly.

Working around the direction of the biologist, we were able to string out hoses over 1000′ to areas where disturbance of the Ghat Catcher or butterfly was sensitive. We were also able to lessen the impact of trucking to the site by a factor of ten by using bulk cement to create a neat slurry and introducing a lot of foam to produce class II material to backfill these tanks. The total duration of the backfill operations including all the associated piping abandonment took six months and 297,000 CY of class II material.

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The Groveland Mountain Tunnel has been in service for more than 90 years. The tunnel begins at Tuolumne River and extends 19 miles west to Priest Reservoir, near the town of Groveland. Inspection of the tunnel showed deterioration of the tunnel lining and other deficiencies. These deficiencies resulted in reduced flow rate, increased groundwater intrusion, and increased turbidity. The deficiencies also diminished the ability to provide reliable drinking water to its 2.7 million customers in the Sierra Foothills and San Francisco Bay Area and increased the difficulty of performing maintenance in the tunnel during normal operation.

Part of Cell-Crete’s scope of work was to grout the annular space of a 106” inner diameter (ID) steel liner and the upstream bypass tunnel from a newly built flow-control structure. The grout requested for this job was the first of its kind for Cell-Crete. The specs called for a material that would not exceed a max heat of hydration temperature rise of more than 40 degrees Fahrenheit (F) above ambient temperature, nor a maximum of 130° F. In addition, the minimum UCS needed to be over 1,500 PSI.

Cell-Crete developed a mix that met both difficult requirements of heat of hydration and USC limit. The material was placed in 2-foot lifts filling a tunnel that was about 15’ in depth. In the end, we exceeded the 1,500 PSI requirement, met the 40° F max temperature rise, and had a max heat of hydration peak of 110° F in temperature.

Cell-Crete is continually adding to their custom mixes to provide customers for more diverse projects. We don’t only specialize in cellular concrete; we have a variety of other mixes to help you on your complex project needs.

Please call us to request a quote.

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The Pacific Coast Highway features some of the most scenic turnouts and historic bridges in the world. Maintenance of this stretch of road and bridges is a task that requires creative solutions. The steep hillside geography, tidal intrusion, and age of the infrastructure post technical challenges for any repair efforts when damage is discovered. Tidal forces undermined the lagging wall at the Lime Kiln Creek Bridge, in Lime Kiln State Park. This lagging wall is intended to support the bridge abutments and supports ahead of a redesign of the bridge in the coming years.

Cell-Crete crews installed permeable lightweight cellular concrete in the voids behind the lagging wall to prevent structural failure and further tidal damage to the abutment sections. The PLCC was pumped from the bridge, down the hillside and installed with minimum crew effort. Once the PLCC filled the voids, the structure was capped with shotcrete and prepared for the upcoming wet season.

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99 Ocean Protection Slab

The project site has limited access and doesn’t leave a lot of room for contractors to work. With stockpiling material, staging utilities, and attempting to grade the area, the contractor is faced with a challenge in leveling the site and beginning vertical work.

The contractor would typically install a mat slab or a working pad on top of the site so the activities on top no longer compromise the grading while allowing for staging of materials more effectively. These working slabs can be made of concrete; however, that prevents being able to dig through it in the future and has a much higher cost per unit material.

Lightweight Cellular Concrete (LCC) is easily installed on site. Because LCC is batched locally, we don’t need to coordinate multiple trucks like we would with traditional concrete. This coupled with the lower unit price makes LCC the best option for working slabs such as this one.

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The proposed action in the P‐704F MILCON involved the construction of a new fuel storage facility. The relocation of the fuel storage facility was needed to improve fuel receipt, storage and delivery capabilities at NALF SCI. The existing underground jet fuel (JP‐5) storage tanks at the NALF SCI Fuel Farm still need to be addressed. Three USTs are at risk of failure due to age (50‐70 years) and their proximity to the ocean where continued erosion is undermining the adjacent cliff wall. This scope of work includes regulatory closure of these three existing JP‐5 tanks for the SCI fuel farm (USTs 125, 126 and 127), piping and aging infrastructure and soil stabilization. The concrete UST has an operational capacity of 210,000 gallons. The two steel USTs have an operational capacity of 25,000 gallons each. The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requirements for actions to close the USTs in place and demolish associated piping and appurtenances for the old fuel facility are covered under the Final Environmental Assessment published in November 2012.

Cellular concrete was used to backfill the tanks, due to the ease of sourcing material to the Island. Cell-Crete barged over material and equipment to the island and completed the backfill operation in 4 days, the crew also had the pleasure of staying in the barracks and enjoy the company of our service men while on the base.

The tanks were filled using class II cellular concrete material, the material also complies with the strict environmental standards.

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As growing concerns of sea-level rise plague our coastal cities, Foster City, CA has begun construction on a multi-year improvements project. The goal was to raise the 4.5-mile long levee and remove the flood zone designation for local homeowners as a result.

We are using Lightweight Cellular Concrete (LCC) as a key component in this endeavor, as the additional levee height must be balanced against unique geotechnical challenges. We’re pouring a variety of densities of our foamed concrete to meet design needs ranging from a lightweight 30 PCF mix all the way up to a whopping 90 PCF foamed slurry.