Currently, the steel armor is cast into concrete panels in the precast manufacturing plant as horizontal strips. Thanks to years of ERDC research, engineers are now working with USACE to adopt the use of pre-cast UHPC panels for lock wall rehabilitation projects, replacing those made from traditional concrete and then covered with horizontal steel armor. So, we are very confident in our capabilities, and in the performance of this strong and durable material.” Using our extreme weather facility at Treat Island, Maine, we have tested these concretes in that environment for decades. “We have been part of developing those concretes, testing them. “Our experience with UHPCs goes back to even before we were ERDC, when the facility was known as the Waterways Experiment Station. Stephanie Wood, a research civil engineer at ERDC’s Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory. “We have been using UHPCs for a long time in military applications, such as hardening structures and force protection applications,” said Dr. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) and is at the center of what may be the future of new construction and rehabilitation of U.S. It is also a material very well understood by engineers and scientists at the U.S. Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) is a class of concrete well known for its strength, durability and sustainability. The key to that mission’s success may already exist in a material used consistently in military applications, private industry and in Europe, but one that has not yet been put to work in our nation’s civil works projects. In the case of many of the locks supporting inland navigation, new techniques and technologies are critical to make sure lock facilities – some built in the 1930s – continue operating for another 100 years or more.

Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) works to modernize the nation’s infrastructure, it does so at a time when existing infrastructure components are operating well past their original lifespans.

Us army corps lock queue