The Widespread Use of Precast Concrete

Today's formed cover comes in a virtually unlimited range of shapes, institutions, colors and textures. Improvements in lifting equipment now enables precast concrete panels that are 70 feet in length (Coville 1990). Engineers and architects continue to rely on new technologies and image to expand the types and variations possible for precast concrete. Precast components and structures used to go through to be changed in detail by hand for any piece manufactured. Recently, however, the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) has unveiled a 3-D CAD software program known as StructureWorks, (Klemens 2003). StructureWorks "streamlines the design process by eliminating the need to touch either detail of every piece by hand for every change," (Klemens 2003, 1). This has greatly altered and expanded the designing and modeling of precast concrete components and structures.

Other new developments continue to expand the capabilities of precast concrete. There is a certain degree of plasticity

to precast concrete that allows it to be use to a number of different structures and architectural styles. Precast concrete cladding, for example, can provide a variety of design and useful benefits to architects and builders.

As Coville (1990) explains, "Its ability to be shaped or covered with various veneers gives architects wide latitude in implementing their design ideas, in many cases at less cost than by using other materials," (1). New textures, shapes, and colors further carry the capabilities of precast concrete. As new technologies develop so do the capabilities for builders and architects of precast concrete.

One of the biggest advantages of using precast concrete is that it allows for more faster and less expensive anatomical structure to occur. Today's precast concrete panels and designs are breaking variety and speed records in coincidence to past precast concrete structures. In Chinatown in Boston, Massachusetts, a new approach relying on newer forms of precast concrete eat up resolved a school overcrowding issue. Traditionally overcrowded schools resort to the construction
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