Artificial stone retaining wall - GIF

[ToolTalkBot]

Artificial stone retaining wall.





Previously:

Bulldozer cutting a hillside road
Hillside landslide
Workers carrying roofing sheets up a hillside

[cognitdiss]

Did an install with a company that did these out of Southern California in a new roundabout on Highway 1 in Carlsbad. The site was only a few towns away from their yard, which was a novelty for them. Talked to the foreman, apparently they keep three or four crews on rotation on jobs around the country, prearranging the rentals and supplies (not to mention the job design and permits of course) and then hopping out to rock the job over a couple of weeks, then off to the next site. They even retain geologists in addition to the soil engineers to match the local strata, that actually might have been what impressed me the most. I considered it to have as much craftsmanship as the artwork that my shop and I were installing. They were into it since it was so close to their headquarters.

Kind of a shitty screen grab from our website, but you get the idea:
(from https://stollerstudio.com/work/coastal-helix/ )

[sossol]

They're spraying shotcrete. The statement that they don't have to quarry stone is ironic since shotcrete is usually made on-site out of locally quarried stone that is ground to powder and mixed into concrete.

Neil

[cognitdiss]

The "stone" you speak of is the the gravel aggregate that is mixed with cement to make concrete. All concrete has aggregate.
Indeed the concrete itself is "locally quarried" limestone.
Both usually come from within a few hundred miles of the mixing plant, which should be within 50 miles of the site.
That said there is little to any coarse aggregate in shotcrete, from what I saw. It is more akin to grout, with very fine aggregate such as sand. It's probably a pretty hot mix at that, I don't know how they keep it watered.

Quarrying actual stone that is recognizable as such is a much more difficult and expensive undertaking.
Cutting said stone is even more expensive and difficult.

[sossol]

The "stone" you speak of is the the gravel aggregate that is mixed with cement to make concrete. All concrete has aggregate.
Indeed the concrete itself is "locally quarried" limestone.
Both usually come from within a few hundred miles of the mixing plant, which should be within 50 miles of the site.
That said there is little to any coarse aggregate in shotcrete, from what I saw. It is more akin to grout, with very fine aggregate such as sand. It's probably a pretty hot mix at that, I don't know how they keep it watered.

Quarrying actual stone that is recognizable as such is a much more difficult and expensive undertaking.
Cutting said stone is even more expensive and difficult.

No, I don't mean aggregate. Concrete is the matrix, not the filler (aggregate, fiber, etc.). Not all concrete has aggregate.

Neil

[cognitdiss]

All concrete has aggregate. That's what makes it concrete, not cement or grout, etc.

ps. I work at a concrete lab. Trust me.