Milliken & Company, well known for its innovative specialty chemical, floor covering and performance materials, recently showcased one of its newest building and infrastructure repair and rehabilitation products, Concrete Cloth, with an installation at the Roger Milliken Center (RMC) interchange at I-85 Business and 176.
Championed by the Noble Tree Foundation, this project marks the first South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) Concrete Cloth installation, and will provide both functional as well as aesthetic benefits to the interchange.
The Noble Tree Foundation has been actively involved in beautifying the I-85 corridor, and has been beautifying Spartanburg and the surrounding areas for many years. Noble Tree Foundation representative Stewart Winslow worked with SCDOT and recommended the use of Concrete Cloth for the RMC interchange, noting “the beautification of these interchanges through landscaping and hardscaping will benefit Spartanburg for many years. This project will improve and enhance one of the more important gateways to the city.”
SCDOT representative Charlie Wilbanks was also on hand for the Concrete Cloth installation, and was “exceptionally pleased” with the overall installation process. According to Wilbanks, “at SCDOT we see a lot of new products. Concrete Cloth is remarkable in its ease of use, and will have many future applications within the system.”
Concrete Cloth is engineered concrete in roll form, and represents a new way of thinking about concrete and its application. Concrete Cloth is simply unrolled, cut and placed in a formed ditch, slope, abutment, column or other structure. The cloth is then hydrated and cures quickly into a rigid 5,000-psi concrete surface.
The dry form of the product allows for substantially more material to be shipped to and stored on site prior to hydration, reducing the number of truckloads required and minimizing mobilization and traffic disruption compared to traditional concrete repair and construction methods. This benefit can significantly reduce the overall environmental footprint of installing or repairing concrete infrastructure. In addition, the product is simple and efficient to install, accelerating the speed of installation and project completion, while reducing overall project costs. In all, more infrastructure can be repaired with limited infrastructure budgets.
This remarkable new geo-composite is manufactured in the U.S. and is serving as a platform for Milliken’s wider building and infrastructure offerings. Rich Pilston, Concrete Cloth business manager, notes that “Concrete Cloth is a true innovation that helps extend the capabilities of our cities and utilities to repair infrastructure effectively, more efficiently and at lower cost than before. An example is the product’s ability to deliver uniform erosion control in difficult-to-access areas, such as steep slopes or ditches, where Concrete Cloth is easier to install and more efficient than poured concrete or rip rap stone. These benefits will bring value to many SCDOT installations.”
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Joseph Church, PE, is a senior sales engineer with Milliken & Company, and has over 20 years’ experience in civil engineering. He grew up in Spartanburg, and has been working on innovative Concrete Cloth solutions throughout the United States.
