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Concrete, from a Centuries-Old Construction Material to Modern Particle-Based Composite Concepts

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Abstract

Chapter 7 is focusing on the material of prime engineering relevance, concrete. The major part of the world’s infrastructure is realized in concrete. Moreover, in many high-rise buildings concrete has been employed. The relatively low production costs render possible using high safety factors. As a result, the composition of concrete is governed traditionally by empirical laws. This has been laid down in a large number of practical building codes that confront the structural engineer with selection procedures more than with design requirements on the basis of particulate and hydraulic characteristics of the material. In such procedures, the aggregate’s sieve curve is required to fall within defined, relatively wide boundaries. The selection of the water to cement ratio (w/c) is also part of such procedures. This factor significantly influences the material’s strength and durability capabilities as well as (partly) provides for proper consistence, involving among other things the capacity to readily fill up the mould during compaction by vibration and enrobe the steel reinforcement completely without a loss of homogeneity. As a consequence, the building code includes requirements for the fresh state in terms of specified slump and flow classes.

Economic and technical demands of relatively recent date have led to material developments that required better insight into the engineering mechanisms of material behavior. This has stimulated extensive experimental and computer simulation research efforts. Concrete is a so-called particulate material on different levels of its microstructure. On meso-level, densely packed aggregate particles build up a skeleton of the material. This skeleton provides concrete with its load-bearing capacity in compression, since aggregate grains are generally relatively strong and stiff. On micro-level, the aggregate structure is stabilized by the hydraulic cementitious particulate binder that hardens after mixing with water. Tensile stresses are conventionally taken by steel reinforcement, not discussed herein.

The strength and durability of the matured concrete depends upon packing density on both levels of the microstructure and on the complicated details of the (cement) chemistry involved. Concrete performance is at least partly relying on packing phenomena although not explicitly incorporated into the selection procedures of the building code. However, such phenomena play a significant role in research aiming at the development of new categories of concrete with specifically upgraded performance. As an integral part of present day concrete technology, particle packing therefore forms the hard-core of this chapter. Packing on the two levels of the microstructure together with the chemistry involved in the maturation of the binder leads to a process of pore de-percolation. Durability of the material is depending of course on the resulting complex spatial structure of highly tortuous and partly continuous pores so this issue is also discussed in this chapter. Again, traditionally, durability research is based on experimental approaches, whereby short term tests are employed, requiring extrapolation of the results.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    BS EN-13139 takes 8 mm as maximum, ASTM takes sieve number 4 (4.76 mm) as maximum.

  2. 2.

    Workability is called consistence in the modern European standard for concrete, EN206-1: 2001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Stevinweg 1, 2628 CN, Delft, The Netherlands

    Piet Stroeven

  2. College of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Pingleyuan 100, Chaoyang District, 100124, Beijing, P.R. CHINA

    Huan He

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Delft University of Technology, Pijnacker, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Henk G. Merkus

  2. DSM Food Specialities, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Gabriel M.H. Meesters

Annex 7A

Annex 7A

7.1.1 Selection Procedure to Fulfil Construction Requirements

In normal practice, the design issue is reduced to finding proper economic solutions in the given situation (using e.g. local aggregates) through the use of building codes (see bibliography). It is therefore more a selection procedure than a scientific design operation. First, the procedure involves selection of the relevant exposure class (Table 7.6).

Table 7.6 Main exposure classes
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The next selection step regards the intended life time for the construction (Table 7.7).

Table 7.7 Intended working life time
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The next selection step concerns the required strength of the cover layer on the main reinforcement. With smaller thicknesses (still exceeding the prescribed minimum for the relevant part of the construction), a higher concrete grade would be required to guarantee proper life time of the construction in the relevant environmental conditions (Table 7.8). A higher concrete grade has negative impact on economy of the full structure; a thicker cover layer does not always require increasing thickness of the structural element.

Table 7.8 Compressive strength classes for conventional concrete
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The fresh concrete also sets building code requirements, which specify a range of slump and flow classes for consistence (Table 7.9). Higher slump or flow values as alternatives make filling of the mould easier, but cause a reduction in concrete quality, if done by water addition. Then, not just strength is reduced but also durability is negatively affected. So, once grade is selected, this cannot be the way. Instead of water, chemical admixtures are employed. These, however, increase material costs.

Table 7.9 Target values for consistency of fresh concrete
Full size table

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Stroeven, P., He, H. (2014). Concrete, from a Centuries-Old Construction Material to Modern Particle-Based Composite Concepts. In: Merkus, H., Meesters, G. (eds) Particulate Products. Particle Technology Series, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00714-4_7

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