ACPA Marks 100 Years with Open Doors to Engineering Professionals
 

The American Concrete Pipe Association was founded in 1907 in Ames, Iowa, as the Interstate Cement Tile Manufacturers Association (ICTMA). It was a small group of concrete farm drain tile manufacturers who gathered to exchange ideas and standardize their precast products. In 1914, the ICTMA was renamed the American Concrete Pipe Association (ACPA). By establishing an association of concrete pipe producers, the early founders laid the keystone for a vibrant industry. Without the presence of a strong association of concrete pipe producers and the companies that develop the equipment and supplies needed to produce pipe and boxes, the quality of America’s buried infrastructure could be quite different than it is today.

This year is the ACPA’s centennial. For one hundred years, the Association and its members have participated on ASTM committees and worked with state highway officials and university researchers to establish the principles used for standards that deal with the soil-pipe relationship and pipe hydraulics for all pipe materials on the market today. While the Association changed with the times and market conditions, it never lost its reliance on applied science to advance the quality of concrete pipe through improvements in the production process, mixes, pipe design, and installation procedures. Concrete pipe producers modified pipe designs to accommodate rubber compound gaskets. This act alone required costly industry-wide changes to production equipment. In recent decades, the industry advanced its knowledge of steel reinforcement requirements and advanced its automation technology now embedded in the latest robotic pipe plants. In the 1980s, the industry began promoting square pipe (precast concrete box sections) to complement the wide range of pipe diameters and strengths. Now, consumers have the choice of standardized precast concrete pipe and boxes for traditional sewer and culvert applications, as well as uses never considered by its founders. Concrete pipe and boxes have maintained their place in society for providing healthy and safe communities, while being increasingly recognized as a high performance infrastructure for the built environment.

Precast concrete pipe and boxes are engineered products. To mark the ACPA’s 100-year long relationship with America’s engineers and recognition that concrete pipe and boxes are widely used for public works that protect the health and safety of Americans, the ACPA has opened its membership to professional engineers. Professional membership is limited to any individual, firm, partnership or corporation which is actively engaged in specifying, designing or providing consulting or other professional services to the ACPA, its members, or the precast concrete pipe and box culvert industry, as defined by ASTM Committee C-13. Details of the new “Professional Membership” category are posted on the ACPA’s website at www.concrete-pipe.org. Any professional interested in applying for membership may do so on line.

Precast concrete pipe and boxes get stronger over time. So too, has the American Concrete Pipe Association. Throughout its history, it has learned to depend upon sound engineering for survival and to change with the times and expectations of consumers. Opening membership to professional engineers to mark its centennial underscores the real need for concrete pipe and boxes to protect public health and safety. It also recognizes the role that engineers have played in building an industry that has lasted for 100 years.