The efficacy of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) overlays holds great promise for mitigating chloride-induced corrosion in reinforced concrete bridges. This research examines the corrosion resistance of a bridge structure through the application of simulation techniques to better understand the effectiveness of ordinary concrete and UHPC overlays. To represent the three-dimensional microstructure of ordinary concrete and UHPC, the Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing Laboratory (VCCTL) program is utilized. Additionally, an agent-based model is developed to investigate chloride penetration mechanisms within the concrete overlays. Furthermore, the structural response of the overlayed bridge under a corrosive condition is studied.

Through a Change Proposal by Facca Incorporated, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) approved the replacement of the as-tendered steel H-piles by newly designed prestressed/precast Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC) piles for supporting the west abutment of the Lily River Detour Bridge. The 300 mm (~12”) deep UHPC piles were designed and installed at the west abutment based on the previous successful development and testing of a tapered H-shaped pile at Iowa State University. The east abutment, as tendered, was designed to be supported by six steel H-shaped battered piles driven to bedrock. For the west abutment, six UHPC piles were produced and installed using the same batter. Since the site contained occasional boulders and the design intent to drive the piles to bedrock, the UHPC piles were fitted with steel shoes for the first time. All piles were successfully installed to reach the targeted load bearing capacities. After the replacement bridge was constructed, the detour bridge was removed and the UHPC piles were extracted to examine the conditions of the piles. This presentation will provide details of the innovative design of the piles, fabrication and driving of the piles, and lessons learned from analyzing the driving data and removal of the piles. Fellowship and Scholarship recipients. With the help of generous donors from the concrete community, the ACI Foundation awards high-potential undergraduate and graduate students in engineering, construction management, and other appropriate curricula.

The movement of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) toward wide scale acceptance within the concrete industry has generated interest in developing improved test methods to provide quality assurance for this material. Most test methods currently used to measure the tensile behavior of ultra-high-performance concrete require specialized testing equipment that is not typically owned by precast or ready-mix production facilities. These test methods provide reliable data for quality assurance of newly developed concrete mixes, but they are impractical as quality-control tests, which would need to be performed for every UHPC placement. This paper presents the development of a simple and inexpensive test to measure tensile strength and ductility for UHPC and serve as a quality-control test. This method was developed from the double-punch test, commonly referred to as the “Barcelona test,” but has been revised to incorporate substantial changes to the loading and data collection requirements to eliminate the need for expensive, specialized equipment. It was determined that the modified test method could produce reliable results using a load-controlled testing procedure with manually recorded data points taken every 0.635 mm (0.025 inches) of vertical displacement for ductile concrete specimens. It was also determined that specimen surface grinding, loading rate, and punch alignment did not significantly influence the test results. However, the fabrication of the specimens, specifically the rate and method at which the molds were filled, had a significant effect on the results. Accordingly, any recommended standardized test method based off of this procedure should have requirements on specimen fabrication.

Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) has seen growing use in the construction industry because of its high compressive, tensile, and flexural strength. The tensile and flexural strength are in part due to the steel fibers added to the UHPC mix. Yet, fibers can segregate due to poor material rheological properties and construction practices, resulting in less than expected material strength. Due to the importance of these fibers, there is a need to verify the volume and orientation of the steel fibers in the UHPC. In this work, we report on the design and testing of electromagnetic sensor systems that are able to test the integrity of the steel fibers in the UHPC structure. We test our sensor system using UHPC samples containing 1% to 3% fiber content by volume and created a calibration based on the results. Our results show a linear relationship between the inductance change versus the fiber percentage with an R-squared value of 99.7 %, which shows that our approach successfully demonstrated the potential of using our approach for characterizing steel fibers in UHPCs.

The presence of chloride ions is one of the most widespread causes of corrosion initiation in reinforcing steel in concrete. Trace chlorides present in cementitious materials or admixtures typically result in very low fresh chloride contents in normal-strength concrete that do not present a danger of corrosion. UHPC mixture designs, however, use much higher dosages of cementitious materials and admixtures that can result in non-negligible total fresh chloride contents. These high chloride values are likely to occur more frequently in the future as more UHPC mixtures are made with locally available materials and alternative cementitious materials and may result in concrete mixtures failing to meet specifications for fresh chloride content limits that are based on mixture proportions used in normal-strength concrete mixtures. UHPC and normal concrete samples were made without fibers and with increasing levels of internally admixed chlorides for four different levels of strength to determine chloride thresholds for internally added chlorides. The chloride threshold for fresh concrete was measured using a slightly modified version of the accelerated test EN 480-14. The water-soluble and acid-soluble chloride ion content of UHPC mixtures tested were measured according to ASTM C1218 and Florida Method FM 5-516 to determine the bound chlorides and fresh chloride limits for corrosion. The results demonstrate that the UHPC had ~ 25% higher chloride threshold than the control mixture when measured as an absolute content per unit volume of concrete. When the UHPC chloride content is normalized by mass of cementitious material, it was found that the amount needed to initiate corrosion may be lower than fresh chloride limits given in ACI-318 and ACI 222. Therefore, the ACI-318 water-soluble chloride limits as a % by mass of cementitious materials were found to be non-conservative for the two of the UHPC mixtures tested and should be re-examined for UHPC.