TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER PROGRAMS FOR CONCRETE QC/QA CERTIFICATION OF CONTRACTORS AND SCDOT PERSONNEL

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of South Carolina (USC) undertook to develop a comprehensive certification program for portland cement concrete contractors and South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) technical personnel. This program is aimed at providing certification for SCDOT technicians and inspectors and contractors' personnel pursuant to the adopted SCDOT specification "Structural Concrete Quality Assurance." American Concrete Institute (ACI) certification programs were adopted as the basis for SCDOT certification. Additional supplemental material, relevant to SCDOT practice was appended to the existing ACI certification program. This supplemental material is referred to as Module D. A detailed description of Module D and an overview of ACI certification are provided in this report. A pilot offering of the SCDOT certification program was offered June 19-21, 2001. Considerable feedback was solicited from the pilot program offering and appropriate changes are being made to the content and presentation. Currently, two offerings of Module D are scheduled and USC is prepared to host ACI certification as required. It is believed that the experience of the pilot offering will be representative of future offerings in terms of operation, content and participant performance. It is further believed that the program described in this report satisfies the requirements set out in the SCDOT specification "Structural Concrete Quality Assurance."