International Concrete Abstracts Portal

The chemical and petrochemical industries that process chemical and petrochemical products manufacture, store, and transfer a number of liquids that are hazardous to the environment and particularly to the groundwater. In Germany, uncoated concrete may be used only as a secondary barrier for handling water-hazardous materials. Development and optimization studies were carried out to reduce the permeability and increase the ductility of concrete for this application. Concretes with styrene-butadiene-based polymer dispersions and silica fume were produced to reduce the permeability, and concretes with limestone or expanded clay instead of Rhine gravel to improve ductility. The mechanical behavior of the concretes was characterized by determining the stress-strain curves under tensile and compressive loading and the stress crack-opening curves. Resistance to environmentally hazardous liquids was tested using a special penetration test standardized in Germany. Various organic liquids, each representing a main chemical group and of differing water solubilities and viscosities, were used as test media.

One of the techniques proposed to improve the durability performance of concrete in aggressive environments is to use quality concrete. Much research has shown that cement composition also has a significant effect on concrete durability in sulfate-bearing soils/groundwaters and in chloride-corrosive situations. High C 3A cements have been found to be superior in terms of protection against corrosion of reinforcement, although they have a lower sulfate-resistance performance. In many situations, such as marine and Sabkha environments, chlorides and sulfates occur concomitantly and operate against concrete durability simultaneously. This study has been carried out to evaluate the sulfate resistance and chloride penetration performance of high-strength concrete. Two high-strength concrete mixes in the range of 60 to 75 MPa were designed first by using a superplasticized concrete of 0.36 water-cement ratio (w/c) and second by replacing 10 percent cement by silica fume. The control for comparison is a 25 Mpa concrete made with a 0.58 w/c. Type I portland cement has been used to provide higher chloride-binding capacity and, hence, better corrosion protection. A mixed sodium and magnesium sulfate environment has been used to evaluate sulfate resistance. High-strength concrete made with silica fume blending showed the best sulfate resistance in a sodium sulfate environment and the worst performance in a magnesium sulfate environment. Also, the normal 0.58 w/c ratio of 300 kg/m 3 cement content mix showed 1.5 times better performance than the 0.36 w/c ratio 450 kg/m 3 cement factor mix in magnesium sulfate environment. High-strength concrete showed three to four times better performance against chloride penetration compared to normal strength concrete. Use of 10 percent silica fume further improved resistance against chloride penetration.

The use of high-strength lightweight concrete (HSLWC) in offshore oil and gas platforms is becoming more common. The constant wave action on these structures imposes continual fatigue loading on the concrete. Paper reviews previous research on both compressive and flexural fatigue behavior of HSLWC. The fatigue behavior of HSLWC is comparable or somewhat better than high-strength normal-density concrete (HSNDC) tested under the same conditions. The cyclic strain behavior of HSLWC is significantly different than for HSNDC and there is little change in strain behavior with increasing cycles of load until failure occurs. The fatigue life is reduced when the concrete is tested in submerged conditions. There is no significant difference between the S-N curves for reinforced and nonreinforced concrete. The mechanism that causes HSLWC to have comparable or better performance than HSNDC is attributed to the improved microstructure of the matrix-aggregate interface. This improvement reduces microcracking that typically leads to fatigue damage. The effect of crack blocking by sea salt depositions is discussed.

A 4-year study, conducted by a consortium of three universities, on the use of high-performance concrete in highway applications was recently completed. A major goal of this research project was to determine if high-performance concrete mixes could be successfully produced in the field. In addition, an evaluation was to be made of the long-term performance of this concrete under field service conditions. Field installations were constructed in five states for this purpose. Paper provides potential users of high-performance concrete with general recommendations and guidelines for production and placement.

SP-149 The theme of this second ACI International Conference was high-performance concrete. The conference proceedings title "High-Performance Concrete" contains 45 papers presented at this program. Whether you are currently involved with or are considering the use of high-performance concrete, this special symposium document is a must for you. Use the valuable information found in the above titles as well as the other listed in this special document.