ACI opens public discussion for ACI 318-14

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. – The American Concrete Institute announces the opening of public discussion for its completely reorganized ACI 318-14, “Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete and Commentary.” In accordance with ACI’s standardization procedure, the draft is now available for public review for a 45-day period.

“Members of ACI Committee 318 have been actively working on this completely reorganized Code for over ten years, and have collectively dedicated over 96,000 work hours to improve its usability and increase confidence among all Code users,” said Randall W. Poston, Ph.D., P.E., S.E., Chair, ACI Committee 318. “At this stage, the committee encourages Code users and those interested in ACI 318 to visit the web portal at www.concrete.org/ACI318, download and review the complete draft of ACI 318-14, and provide the Institute with insight and comments for further improvements by June 17, 2014.”

ACI 318-14 has been completely reorganized for greater ease of use and to address design requirements for specific member types, such as beams, columns, walls, and diaphragms. This means that all design provisions for a specific member type are contained within a single chapter. The committee also enhanced the readability of the document by developing the various member chapters to have parallel organization, with unified syntax, style, and format among the chapters, thus providing users with an explicit roadmap of relevant provisions.  Also, the committee changed provisions that previously referred to generic elements, such as “flexural members,” to explicitly apply to specific member types. This new organization will provide increased confidence that a design satisfies all code requirements.

Many lengthy provisions were parsed into multiple shorter provisions addressing single requirements, and several provisions were defined using tables. The increased use of graphs and tables instead of text provides clearer presentation of the information. Code language was edited for consistent use of terms and symbols.

Significant highlights of the new ACI 318 include:

• Improved language and style consistency
• More expansive use of tables and charts
• Improved logic and flow of information
• Member-based organization to quickly locate relevant code information
• Construction requirements centralized in one chapter

The 2014 edition of ACI 318-14 “Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete” is expected to be available in Fall 2014, and be referenced in the 2015 edition of the International Building Code.

ACI will also be hosting a #ACI318 Twitter Chat with Randall W. Poston, Chair, ACI Committee 318 and engineering staff. Join us on May 14, 2014 at 1:00 pm EST and tweet @concreteACI with #ACI318 to participate.

Interested parties are invited to review and provide comments using the official submittal form no later than June 17, 2014. The draft can be reviewed at www.concrete.org/ACI318. Note that the document is read-only, and requires Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat.