Practical Implementation of Marine Concrete Specifications for Waterfront Structures

The U.S. Navy has developed and implemented design and quality assurance procedures intended to improve the quality and durability of new marine concrete construction. Several Navy piers constructed according to this guidance have exposed opportunities to refine the government guidance to provide a more balanced approach to concrete mixture design criteria. Recent changes made to the guidance provides concrete producers freedom to innovate and optimize concrete mixtures. This optimization enables architects, engineers and contractors to accomplish more sustainable concrete structures through the allowance of greater amounts of supplemental cementing materials as a partial replacement to portland cement in the concrete mixture. Quality Assurance procedures have been streamlined to cost less and take less time while enhancing confidence that the completed structure will meet its service life expectations. Lessons learned have been summarized and form the basis for many significant changes that are being incorporated into revisions of the Uniform Facilities Guide Specification (UFGS) 03 31 29, Marine Concrete. The methodology for the implementation of the Marine Concrete specification needs to take into account a variety of practical considerations, such as: material supplier limitations, schedule and cost constraints, and an industry-wide lack of familiarity with the unique requirements of this guide specification. In all cases, early communication between the Owner, engineer and construction contractor is required for a successful outcome. This paper will use the Pier 31 Replacement project for the U.S. Navy at Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut as a case study for the implementation of the Marine Concrete specification. The implementation efforts described in this paper will be of interest to conference attendees since it highlights some important revisions to the UFGS.