Go Big or Go Home

Every once in a while, a technology, solution, or application thereof comes along and changes an industry. Over the past few months, the team at Helix Steel has been working hand in hand with colleagues from across the Tilt-Up Concrete Association in an effort to do just that.

The culmination of these efforts was demonstrated this past week as part of the live demos associated with the Tilt-Up Convention and Expo in Dallas, Texas. The team successfully showcased the creation and erection of a revolutionary tilt wall panel design. By incorporating Helix Micro-Rebar, the team was able reduce the thickness of a tilt wall panel by 20%, to an unprecedented 4 ½ inch thickness, while reducing the rebar required by 70%.

The panel was erected in front of over 100 industry leaders at the demo on Thursday, after a morning round table discussion packed to standing room only. This discussion was led by Luke Pinkerton, the CTO and Founder of Helix Steel, Susan Goodman of CTS Cement, and Tim Manherz of TAS Commercial Concrete and Tilt-Up Concrete Association President.  

While there were skeptics in the room, the overwhelming conclusion reached by the group, as pointed out by Mitch Bloomquist, the executive director of Tilt-Up Concrete Association, is that the industry must continue to innovate and offer not only lower cost but better and stronger solutions to satisfy the ever-evolving demands of the market.  

So what does this mean and how does it effect the Tilt-Up market?

We all know that time is money. This design can save hours of preparation time for each panel, a current bottleneck in the process, while providing additional benefits ranging from crack, impact and blast resistance to RF attenuation and EMP mitigation.

Through the collaboration between Helix Steel and CTS Rapid Set, we are able to take this technology even further. Instead of the standard 6 - 7 days erect time, our Helix/CTS wall panel design can be poured and erected in as little as 3 hours.

This completely changes the Tilt-Up landscape.

With owners and developers searching for ways to improve time to market, this cannot be overlooked. It is time to re-evaluate the norm.

To answer the age old question, “What is at the end of the rainbow?” watch the video again and you will see it's the combination of innovation and engineering delivering value to the concrete community. #whatsinyourconcrete