Title: Field Demonstration of UHPFRC Durability

Author(s): Francois Toutlemonde, Veronique Bouteiller, Gerard Platret, Myriam Carcasses, and Maxime Lion

Publication: Concrete International

Volume: 32

Issue: 11

Appears on pages(s): 39-45

Keywords: durability, ultra high-performance concrete, fiber-reinforced concrete, precast, prestressed

DOI:

Date: 11/1/2010

Abstract:
The Cattenom nuclear power plant in eastern France was built during the 1980s. It has crossflow cooling towers, in which hot water is cooled as it falls through a crossing air flow. As with cooling towers at other sites, the aggressive exposure damaged the devices supporting the splash fill early in the life of the structure. This led Electricité de France to repair the fill and its supporting structure. The restoration, initiated in the mid-1990s, consisted of dividing the splash fill into two levels. This required designing and installing an additional mezzanine superstructure that had to be integrated within the existing structure. To increase durability and to minimize the additional weight, this additional superstructure was constructed as a grill of precast, prestressed ultra high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) beams and girders. During a plant shutdown in 2008, about 10 years after the restart of the retrofitted cooling tower, the UHPFRC structures were inspected and core samples were taken to help quantitatively characterize their in-place aging.