Using COMMAND Center™ to monitor concrete maturity and strength can help you build faster, better, and for less money

The COMMAND Center™ maturity method saves time, money, and effort by providing reliable strength estimates quickly—and you won’t have to break a large number of test beams or cylinders in a lab. Your strength estimates come live from the job site rather than from a laboratory with curing conditions that may be different from conditions in the field.

COMMAND Center™ uses the maturity method to help concrete projects increase the potential for cost savings and profits by increasing safety, improving construction methods, and expediting construction schedules.

Construction contractors and managers, ready-mix suppliers, testing and engineering labs, researchers, and owner agencies use COMMAND Center™ to more accurately predict early-age concrete behavior.

Common Questions

  • To implement the maturity method on any project, you’ll need the following basic equipment:
    • A sensor that measures time and temperature and can withstand the conditions that exist in fresh and hardened concrete.
    • A device that can connect to the sensor to collect and store the sensor’s temperature and time data.
    • Software to calculate a maturity index value based on temperature, calculate a strength-maturity index relationship over time, and generate data reports.

    COMMAND Center™ is a proprietary temperature and maturity monitoring system that delivers all of these functions with easy-to-use, versatile, and reliable equipment. Since COMMAND Center™ offers a wide range of products and packages, you can choose a COMMAND Center™ system that is suited to your project’s specific needs. COMMAND Center™’s state-of-the art temperature sensors are self-powered and collect internal concrete temperature at customizable time intervals (1 to 255 minutes)  for two years or more.

    COMMAND Center™ uses a unique temperature sensor with ample storage space, eliminating the need for an external data logger and dramatically reducing the threat of data loss on your project. To view and analyze data from the sensors, you can use any compatible COMMAND Center™ reader.

For each concrete mix, the general steps for implementing maturity are:

  1. Conduct laboratory testing following ASTM C 1074, then use the test data to develop a maturity curve relating the concrete’s maturity to strength.
  2. Set up temperature and maturity monitoring equipment in the field.
  3. Collect temperature and maturity data from the monitoring equipment.
  4. Estimate your concrete’s strength using your calculated maturity curve.
  5. Continue gathering data and estimating concrete strength in the field until the data indicates your concrete has reached its required strength.
  6. Break test specimens in a lab to verify strengths.

Benefits of Using COMMAND Center™ to Monitor Concrete Maturity and Strength

Using COMMAND Center™ to expedite construction schedules can result in bonuses for the contractor and sooner-than-anticipated profits for the owner. Construction teams use COMMAND Center™ maturity monitoring to:

  • Strip forms sooner
  • Remove shoring sooner
  • Post-tension tendons sooner
  • Apply construction loads sooner
  • Open structures for use sooner

Many specifications will require a construction team to wait until concrete reaches a certain minimum strength or age before moving on to the next phase of construction or opening the project to the public. These specifications intend to minimize the potential for early-age damage to concrete that can result from loading the concrete before it has reached sufficient strength.

In order to meet strength requirements, concrete test specimens are cast in the field, stored in ideal conditions, and tested for compressive strength in a laboratory. However, since larger pours of concrete in the field will often gain strength faster than small test specimens, laboratory tests are not always indicative of in-place concrete strength. This can be attributed to the internal heat generated by larger structures and potentially warmer ambient air temperatures during concrete placement and curing at the job site.

COMMAND Center™ maturity monitoring can estimate in-place concrete strength from its internal temperature history—and is used to prove that concrete elements in the field have achieved required strength sooner than expected. That means that key construction activities—stripping and removing forms and shores, post-tensioning tendons, applying construction loads—can begin much sooner than expected or specified.

The construction industry can benefit from maturity by using it to expedite project schedules and increase the chance of early project completion—which can result in lower project budgets, sizeable bonuses for the general contractor, and early profits for owners.

The ultimate performance of any concrete element is dependent on its design and construction. COMMAND Center™ maturity monitoring can be used to improve construction methods, which can decrease the risk of early-age damage to concrete and costly repair or reconstruction.

More specifically, COMMAND Center™ maturity monitoring can improve execution of the following:

Construction teams use maturity to provide confidence that in-place concrete is achieving adequate design strengths in the field. This reduces the risk of failure due to structural inadequacy for any concrete structure that must carry a load—allowing construction teams to avoid failures that can result in various degrees of damage, injuries, and costly legal action that can involve all project stakeholders. COMMAND Center™ can help increase project safety by identifying the moment concrete is strong enough to carry design loads.

How Our Customers Use COMMAND Center™ to Monitor Concrete Maturity and Strength

Team Uses COMMAND Center™ to Expedite Pavement Repair Projects

O. Trevino Construction used COMMAND Center™ on full-depth pavement repair projects…

Testing Firm Saves Months on High-Rise Construction Schedule

Testing firm Ninyo & Moore used COMMAND Center™ to to quickly  determine when concrete achieved necessary strength…

COMMAND Center™ Shaves $3M off Commercial Project Budget

The Beck Group used COMMAND Center™ when working on the McKinney Tower in Dallas…