QUIKRETE builds home for largest saltwater crocodile
Authentic 80,000-gallon Australian habitat created with shotcrete
By Chad Corley
The Toledo Zoo recently welcomed the largest saltwater crocodile in North America to its animal family that includes hundreds of mammals, amphibians, aquatic creatures, reptiles, insects and spiders, and birds. Transported from Australia, the 17-foot crocodile required a spacious and ecologically-friendly home at the Toledo Zoo, so A.A. Boos & Sons and Great Lakes Concrete Restoration turned to QUIKRETE®, the leading manufacturer of packaged cement mixes for the construction and home improvement markets, to help renovate an existing solarium into the ideal crocodile habitat.
Great Lakes Concrete Restoration applied more than 50 3,000-pound bulk bags of QUIKRETE® Shotcrete MS over a rebar frame in the 80,000-gallon solarium pool before Graphite Design sculpted the material into a landscape that reflected the crocodile’s native Australian environment. The shotcrete surface was finished with a concrete stain to maximize the authenticity of this unique and highly anticipated zoo exhibit, which opened on May 24.
QUIKRETE® Shotcrete MS is a single component Micro Silica enhanced repair and restoration material that achieves a compressive strength of more than 9,000 PSI at 28 days, and features very low rebound and permeability characteristics. The QUIKRETE® Companies offers a full line of shotcrete products that can be applied through a wet or dry process to deliver the combination of high strength, high adhesion, low rebound and low sag. These characteristics make QUIKRETE® Shotcrete MS ideal for use in rehabilitating bridges, tunnels, parking garages, ramps, piers, dams and other concrete structures. QUIKRETE® shotcrete has been used on many renovation and restoration projects including the Pleasure Pier in Texas, Alcatraz Island and Stanford Linear Accelerator in California, and Spokane River in Washington.
For more information on QUIKRETE® and its products and projects, visit www.quikrete.com.
About the Author
Chad Corley currently serves as Director of Engineering Products for Keystone Hardscapes, David Pitre has over 20 years industry experience in manufactured concrete products. BSCE and MSCE from Louisiana State University. Pitre is Past Chair of the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute (ICPI) and is currently Chair of Board of Trustees for Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute Foundation for Education and Research (ICPIF). He also serves on numerous industry committees and has authored numerous articles related to engineered concrete solutions.
