High Performance Concrete

Introduction

  • Concrete is the most widely used construction material in India with annual consumption exceeding 100 million cubic meters.
  • A building material made from a mixture of broken stone or gravel, sand, cement, and water, which can be poured into moulds and forms a stone-like mass on hardening.
  • High performance concrete is a concrete in which certain characteristics are developed for a particular application and environment, so that it will give excellent performance in the structure in which it will be placed.
  • A high-strength concrete is always a high performance concrete, but a high-performance concrete is not always a high-strength concrete.

Important Components / Ingredients

  • Cement
  • Fine aggregate
  • Coarse aggregate
  • Water
  • Mineral admixtures
  • Chemical admixtures

Methods for achieving High Performance

Two approaches to achieve durability through different techniques are as follows:

  • Reducing the capillary pore system such that no fluid movement can occur is the first approach. This is very difficult to realize and all concrete will have some interconnected pores.
  • Creating chemically active binding sites which prevent transport of aggressive ions such as chlorides is the second more effective method.

Characteristics of High Performance Concrete

  • High early strength.
  • High modulus of elasticity.
  • High durability and long life in severe environments.
  • Low permeability and diffusion.
  • High resistance to chemical attack.
  • Low heat of hydration.
  • High early strength and continued strength development.
  • Low water binder ratio.
  • Low bleeding and plastic shrinkage.

Requirements of High Performance Concrete

  • Low permeability
  • High durability
  • High modulus of elasticity
  • Low shrinkage
  • Low creep
  • High strength
  • High and lasting workability

Advantages of High Performance Concrete

  • Speed of construction.
  • Economical material in terms of time and money.
  • Higher seismic resistance.
  • Improved durability.
  • Abrasion resistance.
  • High Tensile Strength.
  • Reduced.
  • Maintenance Cost.

Disadvantages of High Performance Concrete

  • An extended quality control.
  • Cost
  • Special constituents.
  • Manufactured and placed carefully.

Applications of High Tensile Strength

  • High Performance Concrete is being increasingly used for highway pavements due to the potential economic benefits.
  • Fast track concrete paving (FTCP) technology can be used for complete pavement reconstruction.
  • High Performance Concrete is being extensively used now for the fabrication of precast pylons, piers, and girders of many long span bridges in the world.
  • Concrete structures are preferable for railway bridges to eliminate noise and vibration problems and minimize the maintenance cost.
  • The reasons for using the high strength concrete in the area of high-rise buildings are to reduce the dead load, the deflection, the vibration and the noise, and the maintenance cost.
  • Fibre reinforced concrete has been used with and without conventional reinforcement in many field applications. These include bridge deck overlays, floor slab, pavements and pavement overlays, refractories, hydraulic structures, thin shells, rock slope stabilization, mine tunnel linings and many precast products.

Conclusion

  • It will require less skill and effort to place.
  • It will look better with no appearance defects.
  • It will be more durable.
  • It will require more skill at the batching plant.
  • High value concrete is a specialized series of concrete designed to provide several benefits in the construction of concrete structures that cannot always be achieved routinely using conventional ingredients, normal mixing and curing practices.

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