OUR PEOPLE

John GajdaSenior Principal Engineer, Materials Consulting

Mr. Gajda has expertise in the areas of mass concrete, thermal properties of concrete and thermal and moisture problems of buildings. He has been with CTLGroup for 20 years and has helped contractors, owners, engineers and others with mass concrete issues in more than 200 projects throughout the world where thousands of mass concrete elements have been constructed. He works with clients to reduce the cost of construction, optimize concrete mixes for massive placements, understand and work within project specifications or change specifications, manage temperatures and temperature differences, and develop project-specific thermal and crack management plans based on thermal modeling of mass concrete. Modeling is based on proprietary quasi-finite-element software that he developed, enhanced and refined over the past decade. He has authored many articles and publications on mass concrete, writes specifications for mass concrete and has also been invited to give presentations on mass concrete to various audiences. 

With regard to thermal and moisture problems in buildings, Mr. Gajda has evaluated numerous commercial and residential buildings for problems including comfort issues, water leakage and moisture damage. He has also performed significant research in construction-related aspects of insulated concrete form (ICF) walls. He has significant experience evaluating the reduced heating and cooling requirements of concrete homes and buildings with thermal mass. Related to this work, he authored commercially-available software for sizing, heating and cooling equipment for buildings with concrete and wood frame walls.

Mr. Gajda has also worked with cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag. He has developed specialty cements for rapid strength gain and increased durability. He has also investigated the use of high-carbon fly ash in the manufacture of cement, both in the laboratory and through commercial demonstrations.