American Concrete Institute (ACI) 117 -"Specifications for Tolerances for Concrete Construction and Materials [PDF]

The American Concrete Institute (ACI) have a standard code of standard tolerances for construction materials which is ACI 117-10, "Specifications for Tolerances for Concrete Construction and Materials".

The publication as per ACI, " is a means to establish permissible variation in dimension and location, giving both the designer and the contractor limits within which the work needs to be performed". 

As the name implies, the tolerances specified in ACI 117 are standards or usual tolerances that apply to various types and uses of concrete construction. It is provided based on the usual needs, common construction techniques and practices.

Features of ACI-117 in Construction

• The tolerances specified in ACI-117 is applicable for typical concrete construction procedure for both exposed and architectural concrete.
• The code is not applicable to specialized structures like nuclear reactors and containment vessels, bins, prestressed circular structures, and single-family residential construction. It also does not apply to precast concrete or to shotcrete.
• The code comprises 15 sections in total. The different sections in ACI-117 and their content are mentioned in the table -1 below.
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• SECTION 1	General requirements
  SECTION 2	Materials
  SECTION 3	Foundations
  SECTION 4	Cast-in-place concrete for buildings
  SECTION 5	Cast-in-place concrete at the interface with precast concrete (except tilt-up concrete
  SECTION 6	Masonry
  SECTION 7	Cast-in-place, vertically slipformed building elements
  SECTION 8	Mass concrete
  SECTION 9	Canal lining
  SECTION 10	Monolithic water-conveying tunnels, siphons, conduits, and spillways
  SECTION 11	Cast-in-place bridges
  SECTION 12	Exterior pavements and sidewalks
  SECTION 13	Chimneys and cooling towers
  SECTION 14	Cast-in-place non-reinforced pipe
  SECTION 15	Tilt-up concrete

  
  
• Before the commencement of the work, a series of preconstruction tolerance coordination meetings shall be scheduled and held.  This meetings must include contractors, sub-contractors, material suppliers and other key parties.
• The meetings conducted will help the parties to discuss and identify tolerance questions, conflicts in working with materials or work assembled in the field by the contractor.

Download ACI-117 Code Here>>