Custom Cement Solutions for Infrastructure Projects of All Sizes

Turcot Interchange

Name of Project: Turcot Interchange

Location: Montréal, QC

Sector: Civil

Customer: Kiewit, Demix Construction

Product Used: Structural and pavement concrete

Material Supplied: GU, HSF and ternary cement

Description: The obsolete structures built in the 1960s required a lot of maintenance and had to be replaced.

The new construction of the main infrastructure of the Turcot Interchange started in 2015 and will be completed in 2021. More than 1,000 construction workers were at work on this site during peak periods. 328,000 m² of asphalt and 137,000 m³ of concrete pavement were used.

This landmark project includes more than 45 structures, 1 iconic bridge, 125 km of road and 21 km of railway. Also, facilities for sustainable modes of transportation have been designed, including 10 km of reserved lanes and 8 km of multipurpose bike paths. To make the Turcot project carbon neutral, a large-scale greening effort is underway. Eventually, 9,000 trees and 61,000 shrubs, perennials, grasses and vines will be planted.

Demix Construction, Demix Béton, Demic Agrégats and Ash Grove Cement have all contributed to the success of this major project.

Amazon distribution centre

Name of Project: Amazon distribution centre

Location: Clay, New York

Sector: Industrial

Customer: Riccelli Enterprises

Product Used: Concrete for foundations, slabs, curbs and sidewalks

Material Supplied: GU cement

Description: A gigantic Amazon distribution centre in Syracuse is under construction. Parts of the foundations and slabs of this five-storey, 3.8 million square foot building have already been poured. When completed, it will be one of the largest warehouses in the world in terms of floor area.

Construction began in early March 2020 on the former site of the Liverpool Public Golf and Country Club. The developer, Trammell Crow Co., must meet a tight deadline as the $350 million distribution centre is expected to open in the fall of 2021, just in time for the Christmas shopping season.

Although the facility will employ 1,000 people, it will be one of Amazon’s most automated distribution centres.

The contract to supply +/-75,000 m³ of concrete was awarded to one of our major partners in the New York area, Riccelli. This contractor decided to use a mobile plant to mix its concrete mixes.

A-25 BRIDGE AND HIGHWAY

Location: Laval, Quebec

Sector: Civil Engineering

Partner: Kiewit/Parsons, Démix Béton as concrete supplier

Customer: Ministère du Transport du Québec

Material Supplied: Total of 52,000 m³; GU, GUb-SF and FLEX cements

First Quebec Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project in transport. The project has made it possible to extend the A-25 from Montréal to the North Shore and offers an attractive alternative for trucking. The project consisted in extending a 4-lane highway on a 7.2 km stretch and building a 6-lane cable-stayed bridge with a pedestrian walkway. Kiewit/Parsons was the first construction company to receive ISO certification 14 001 in Quebec to meet the project’s specific requirements aimed at protecting and improving the environment. Many of this project’s elements have made it stand out: the use of excavation soils to construct earth dunes around the area and the use of a retention basin to manage stormwater.

LA ROMAINE HYDROELECTRIC DAM

Location: Havre St-Pierre, Quebec

Sector: Civil Engineering and Energy

Partner: Excavation Marchand

Customer: Hydro-Québec

Material Supplied: Type LH

The Romaine project is a hydroelectric complex built by Hydro-Québec. It will house four power plants with a total output of 1,550 MW. The Romaine River used for this construction is one of the largest and wildest rivers in Quebec. It originates in the mountains near the border of Labrador and empties in the St. Lawrence River, 500 km away.

The construction work was inaugurated on May 13, 2009, with the construction of the project’s access road. Romaine-2 was then built and Romaine-1 and -3 were completed. Romaine-4 will follow and should be completed in 2020. The project began with the Romaine-2 dam because it is the most imposing with its 109-m height and its installed capacity of 640 MW.  Concrete was used mainly to build the plant, the water intakes, the spillway, the penstocks, the dam and the various dikes.

Ash Grove ensured the supply, delivery and unloading of tens of thousands of tonnes of Portland low hydration heat cement responding to Hydro-Québec’s strict specifications. The cement was transported from Ash Grove North’s Joliette Cement Plant up to Romaine-2, north of Havre Saint-Pierre.

Hydro-Québec and the Government of Quebec expect the economic spinoffs of the overall project to reach more than 3.5 billion CAD. The site has some 2,000 workers during its peak period.

LONG HARBOUR PROCESSING PLANT

Location: Long Harbour, Newfoundland-and-Labrador

Sector: Industrial

Contractor: Texas-based Fluor Corp. and Kiewit KBAC, Newcrete for concrete

Customer: Vale

Material Supplied: Total of 195 000 m3, cement type GU and GUb-F/SF (TERC3)

The Vale facility was constructed to process nickel and cobalt. Mineral come from Voisey Bay Labrador on a monthly basis to be processed using a hydrometallurgy technology and reshipped. It is the first plant in the world to process concentrate from nickel sulphide ore directly into finished nickel. To supply multiple areas of this project simultaneously:  processing facility, office buildings and warehouses, plus other numerous structures in this 1 000 plus acre site.

Ash Grove North supplied our concrete client (Newcrete) from 2 locations – Argentia and Long Pond when necessary. Also Newcrete placed 2 ready mix plants on site, plus extra-large silos, for storage. Ash Grove North supplied an extra storage pig to accommodate the required TERC3 volume on site. Ash Grove North also kept TERC3 on the east and west coast of NL to have easy access and keep up with peak demand.

All concrete delivered on time and all exceeded specification requirements. The Ash Grove North management team and especially logistics team did an outstanding job of managing inventory for all incoming ships to NL as well as managing the trucking fleet requirements to keep this project on time and on schedule.

JERICHO RISE WIND FARM

Location:  Franklin County, New York

Sector:  Energy

Contractor:  EDP Renewables, Graymont as concrete supplier

Customer:  EDP Renewables

Material Supplied:  Total of 15,000 m³; ternary concrete

It is a wind farm with a total of 37 wind turbines. It will produce enough renewable energy to supply the equivalent of 24,000 New York State homes. This project is in line with the governor’s energy vision reform strategy for the state, which plans on reducing energy import while replacing it with cleaner, more resilient and affordable energy and revitalizing rural areas.

Built and operated by EDP Renewables North America, it is the sixth wind farm in upstate New York to be connected to the state-wide transmission system. The reform strategy’s energy standard requires that by 2030, 50% of New York’s energy consumption come from renewable sources.

BILLY BISHOP PEDESTRIAN TUNNEL

Location: Toronto Island, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport

Sector: Transportation

Customer: Ports Toronto

Product Used: Slag Cement

Material Supplied: GU, Slag Cement

The pedestrian tunnel constructed to connect the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport to the mainland was constructed within a 24 to 36 month timeframe allotted and delivered on budget. The tunnel can accommodate approximately 1,100 people per hour and in addition to facilitating pedestrian movement, it carries the City of Toronto’s water and sewage mains.

Ash Grove North provided Slag Cement for the project from the Mississauga Cement Plant to Tec Mix, a division of Technicore Underground Inc., which supported the project with a portable ready‑mix plant onsite. Slag Cement is a by-product of the steel manufacturing industry, recognized as a post-industrial recycled material, used as a replacement for Portland cement in concrete mixes.

The tunnel is a spectacular piece of infrastructure that not only won the 2015 RMACO Structural Design Innovation Award but several other awards for its innovation, including the International Tunneling & Underground Space Association’s 2014 Specialist Tunneling Project of the Year Award and the Tunneling Association of Canada’s 2014 Canadian Project of the Year Award

BÉTON MULTI SURFACES AND IT’S SUBSIDIARY PIERRE DE MÉMOIRE

Name of Project: Béton Multi Surfaces and it’s subsidiary Pierre de Mémoire

Location: Chicoutimi, QC, Canada

Sector: Precast

Customer: Béton Multi Surfaces

Product Used: Cement Flex binary (88% white cement and 12% metakaolin)

Material Supplied: Cement Flex binary (88% white cement and 12% metakaolin)

Funeral monuments are usually carved out of granite. However, Béton Multi Surfaces, a company specializing in the manufacturing of concrete-based everyday objects such as kitchen counters and furniture, decided to invest in the funeral sector by creating the Pierre de Mémoire brand. In 2016, following a Centre de recherche industrielle du Québec (CRIQ) recommendation, they began working on the creation of durable, polished, light-coloured – preferably white – concrete grave markers designed to stand out from black granite headstones.

The proposal submitted by Ash Grove North involved supplying the company with binary cement made of 88% white cement and 12% metakaolin. The concrete they developed with the help of the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) is fiber-reinforced up to a strength of 75 MPa. Each monument is then polished, engraved by sandblasting for the inscription, and sealed with products specifically developed for outdoor use. Pierre de Mémoire thus offers sleek new products available in a variety of shades.

In order to expand its product line and be competitive in this conservative industry, Béton Multi Surfaces is about to market its first urn collection. The development of this new concrete product required a year of perfecting and an investment of nearly $100,000.  The globe-shaped urns symbolize the life cycle. The designers of this novel memorial symbol are even planning to add a space for planting a tree above their urns.

RCC: A LASTING SOLUTION

Name of Project: Uniboard Plant

Location: Sayabec, Quebec

Sector: Civil/industial engineering

Customer: Groupe Bellemare

Product Used: Roller-compacted concrete (RCC)

Material Supplied: HSF binary blended cement with silica fume (GUb-8SF)

The Uniboard factory at Sayabec manufactures wood panels and generates more than $100 million in economic spin-offs for the region with its 400 unionized employees. Working in a very competitive industry, Uniboard needed an innovative and durable solution to pave its main traffic areas. Their choice: RCC (roller-compacted concrete), which is known for being very resistant to abrasion and to repeated heavy loads, as well as for having excellent flexural and compression properties.

Groupe Bellemare placed the RCC this summer. Using a Rapidmix Pugmill plant, it took less than six hours to install and the fully automated operation made it possible to produce dry concrete at a rate of up to 350 tonnes/hour. Placing was done by a high-precision finishing paver and smooth rollers.

In RCC, a slump-resistant dry concrete (a mixture of water, cement, aggregate, admixtures and supplementary cementing materials if required) is used, which renders it highly compact, very dense and durable. Thanks to these remarkable properties and its attractive price-performance ratio, RCC is now used for many applications. Groupe Bellemare has completed many such projects, such as gantry crane lanes at a port, airport tarmacs, quays, and storage areas, roadways, and cargo handling areas in various industries.

Broadening its scope of specialization, Groupe Bellemare can also adapt its equipment to perform other advanced techniques like contaminated soil stabilization/solidification, bentonite groundwater barriers, and the cement stabilization of road bases.

EXPOSED POLISHED CONCRETE

Name of Project: Auberge de la Montagne Coupée

Location: St-Jean-de-Matha, Quebec

Sector: Commercial, residential

Customer: Les Entreprises Généreux

Product Used: Polishing of 25Mpa, sae, 14mm concrete

Material Supplied: GU Cement

New owners acquired an inn perched on the summit of Coupée Mountain overlooking a breathtaking landscape. They wanted to build a reception hall with a shiny and very resistant floor to host events.

They chose a floor of diamond-polished exposed concrete. This polishing technique brings out the natural beauty and strength of concrete while respecting the environment. The low maintenance cost and longer lifespan make this method the most cost-effective option.

The lifecycle cost is roughly 60% lower compared to traditional floorcovering solutions.

Les Entreprises Généreux, founded in 1955, specializes in excavation, sidewalks, borders, paving, aggregates, concrete and the environment. This innovative, well-established group with over 200 employees in Lanaudière was chosen as the concrete supplier for this project. Thanks to the quality of its concrete mixes and its expertise, this project was a great success.

HUSKY ENERGY CONCRETE GRAVITY STRUCTURE

Name of Project: Concrete Gravity Structure

Location: Jeanne d’Arc Basin

Customer: Husky Energy

Ash Grove North is providing GU cement required for the construction of a massive concrete gravity base (CGS) oil platform for Husky Energy. The CGS oil platform is destined for an offshore drilling site located 350 kilometers from the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, in the Jeane d’Arc Basin. Our Joliette cement plant produced the GU cement for it’s client Capital Ready Mix –Lafarge Partnership for an estimated 88,000 cubic meters of concrete in total. In addition, we worked with trusted partners to provide the required silica fume.

With construction well underway, the concrete structure will have an impressive overall height of 145 metres once completed, which is the equivalent of a 35-storey building. It has a base diameter of 122 metres, which is about the length of a soccer field. It is currently being constructed in the Argentia Graving Dock, a purpose-built dry dock, located on the Argentia Peninsula approximately 130 kilometres from St. John’s.

Once fully built, it will weigh over 210,000 tonnes. Despite its size, it will be towed-out and installed at Husky Energy’s offsite drilling site. The site is called the West White Rose Oil Field and its satellite extensions are in approximately 120 metres of water. The CGS will be a key part of these installations, as it will support a topside module to enable drilling and oil extraction.