High Strength and High Performance Concrete

Classifications, Properties and Application

By : Jose Luis Barroso De Aguiar From Minho University Guimaraes Portugal . He is an associated professor in construction materials specially concrete ,and he is a specialist in repair of concrete . Professor aguiar and one of his colleagues professor Aires Camoes guide us in Bekar Beton company for making high performance concrete.

Good after noon. it is a pleasure for me to be here in Iran .First I want to give my thanks to persons who invited me to Iran , colleagues from Bekar Beton company. I will start with my presentation. The title you can see high strength and high performance concrete. I select to talk this afternoon the classification, properties and applications .These are important because to know about concrete what we are talking it is necessary to know about first classification. Some people talk about for example types of cement and in Europe type I is not the same in USA. So I think that is important to talk about classification of concrete, about strength and durability. after classification we will talk about properties of concrete ,high strength and high performance I will explain the difference .and last of my presentation will be applications. What we can do with these concretes high strength and high performance concrete . what kind of different constructions we can do? First about classification of high strength and high performance concrete I will follow here the classification established in Europe standard 206.1:2000 . so about the classification of concrete the Europe standard start by compressive strength class . so we can find concrete from C8/10 till C100/115 . The first number is for minimum characteristics strength in cylinder the second is in cubes. This is the Europe standard established this because some countries there is usual to use cylinders some others cubes in Europe. Compressive strength classes for normal weight and heavy weight concrete: Compressive strength class Minimum characteristic strength in Minimum characteristic strength in cylinder (N/mm2) cube (N/mm2) C8/10 8 10 C12/15 12 15 C16/20 16 20 C20/25 20 25 C25/30 25 30 C30/37 30 37 C35/45 35 45 C40/50 40 50 C45/55 45 55 C50/60 50 60 C55/67 55 67 C60/75 60 75 C70/85 70 85 C80/95 80 95 C90/105 90 105 C100/115 100 115

As you can see here as standard it is possible in Europe in all 27 countries of European union to produce till C100 so no problem to use this concrete or apply this concrete .the standard in Europe are prepared for them.we have another classification about strength it is light weight concrete . in this case the strength is from C8/9 till C80/88 So as you can see it is possible to produce and put in place in all countries of Europe light weight concrete with the strength of 80 MPa in cylinder and 88 in cubes .This concrete is a good possibility because it is light weight so the load in the structure is lower and also it can have good termal properties . Compressive strength classes for light weight concrete : Compressive strength class Minimum characteristic cylinder (N/mm2) LC8/10 8 LC12/13 12 LC16/18 16 LC20/22 20 LC25/28 25 LC30/33 30 LC35/38 35 LC40/44 40 LC45/50 45 LC50/55 50 LC55/60 55 LC60/66 60 LC70/77 70 LC80/88 80 strength in Minimum characteristic strength in cube (N/mm2) 9 13 18 22 28 33 38 44 50 55 60 66 77 88

Another aspect because I talked in about high strength concrete and high performance concrete I will explain now what I mean with this. The high strength concrete we have only concern about the strength when we talk about high performance concrete we are concerned of high level of all characteristics of concrete, strength , durability , all service life for durability of concrete. We need to see the exposure conditions of structure . in that case the European standard give us some information about some exposure conditions. First class in this table you can see the class designation. The exposure condition and some information to where the exposure class can occur. First table is for concrete without corrosion or attack. In this case the European standard tell us the class is X0the description of exposure condition is no reinforced concrete and without embedded metal so we are talking about all the exposure conditions except freeze thaw , abrasion and chemical attack and also for reinforced concrete in very dry conditions. As example the last column you can see that is concrete in the interior of buildings with low air humidity .This class is for concrete without attack or low attack. No risk of corrosion or attack : Class designation Description of the environment Informative examples X0 For concrete without reinforcement or embedded Concrete inside buildings with low metal: all exposures ,except where there is air humidity freeze/thaw , abrasion or chemical attack For concrete with reinforcement or embedded metal : very dry After in this standard we have class designation for corrosion introduced by carbonation .We have 4 classes from XC1 till XC4 The carbonation is the penetration of Co2 inside the concrete and the carbonation increased in humidity. So these classes starts with XC1 is dry or permanently humid .because in this first class XC1 it is

difficult to have carbonation .in dry we have not enough humidity so it is difficult for Co 2 to penetrate . After we can see the worse class for carbonation is XC4 where the exposure description is cyclically humid and dry . These are bad for concrete because between the cycles when humidity go inside and come out it is possible that Co 2 can penetrate in concrete and you can have carbonation and this mechanism for carbonation we can find anywhere . It is necessary to have only air and some humidity. Corrosion induced by carbonation : Class designation Description of the environment XC1 Dry or permanently wet Informative examples Concrete inside buildings with low air humidity .concrete permanently submerged in water XC2 Wet , rarely dry Concrete surface subject to long term water contact , many foundations XC3 Moderate humidity Concrete inside buildings with moderate or high humidity , external concrete sheltered from rain XC4 Cyclic wet and dry Concrete surface subject to water contact not within exposure class XC2 European standard have more exposure classes because this standard should be apply in all Europe and off course it can be applied outside Europe . and it should cover all the conditions of Europe . We have this third group exposure class corrosion by chlorides . The first type of this corrosion is corrosion by chlorides not coming from sea water For example this case we have concrete reinforced in contact with water not sea water with chlorides. This is a problem that appears when use deicing salts. These deicing salts usually have chlorides and chlorides can penetrate to concrete and the chlorides is very bad for corrosion. So for this aspect of designation we have class XD1 till XD3. The difference is also humidity. Because the humidity is important with low humidity is XD1 and cyclic humid and dry is XD3 Corrosion induced by chlorides other than from sea water : Class designation Description of the environment XD1 Moderate humidity XD2 Wet , rarely dry Informative examples Concrete surface exposed to airborne chlorides Swimming pools , concrete exposed to industrial water containing chlorides. XD3 Cyclic wet and dry Parts of bridges exposed to spray containing chlorides , pavements , car park slabs For type of chlorides coming from sea water .For this type the concrete structure should be near the sea so it is not the case in some parts of countries. in Iran small part .and the European standard put classification between XS1 till XS3 the worse condition is when there is tide and splash area. Because for the XS2 permanently under water the chlorides are inside the concrete but the corrosion is not possible . to have corrosion it is necessary to have chlorides and also oxygen and also the concrete should have low PH . Corrosion induced by chlorides from sea water : Class designation Description of the environment Informative examples XS1 Exposed to airborne salt but not Structures near to or in the coast in direct contact with sea water XS2 Permanently submerged Parts of marine structures XS3 Tidal , splash and spray zone Parts of marine structures Another class is exposure class for ice/thaw and chemical attack is the last class . in that case we can find 4 classes and the difference in the classes is also the question of water there is also difference between the presence of deicing products or not . So we have the first one XF1 moderately saturated with water and without deicing products. The moderately saturated in water and with deicing salts is more aggressive than the first one . the third one high saturated with water without deicing agents and so on.

Freeze/thaw attack with or without deicing agents : Class designation Description of the environment Informative examples XF1 Moderate water saturation without Vertical concrete surfaces exposed to deicing agents rain and freezing XF2 Moderate water saturation with deicing Vertical concrete surfaces of road agents structures exposed to freezing and airborne deicing agents XF3 High water saturation without deicing Horizontal concrete surfaces exposed to agents rain and freezing XF4 High water saturation with deicing agents Road and bridge decks exposed to deicing agents , concrete surfaces exposed to direct spray containing deicing agents and freezing About chemical attack we have also 3 classes the XA1 till XA3 change from aggressive . the components could be in the water or in the soil . What is important when someone design a concrete is to know what compressive strength we want and what are the exposure conditions . for example if I want C40 and if the concrete is to put in place with low temperature , ice/thaw problems it is really important to know that. After it is important to control how many years we need for our structure. Categories of service life : Category years example 1 10 Temporary structures 2 10 to 25 Replaceable parts of structures for ex supports 3 15 to 30 Structures for agriculture and similar uses 4 50 Buildings and other common structures hospitals , schools 5 100 Monumental buildings , bridges and other civil engineering structures First I want to show you this table that is about categories of service life . This table is also from European standard . In this European standard we find 5 categories it depends on the years of service life of structure and this standard also give some examples. In principle we should design structures to a service life provisioned in the standard . Now I show some tables that give some exigencies for the concrete to have service life of 50 years. And the types of cement as I told you before is different in Europe than in your country . In Europe according to our standard the type of cement are connect with the composition of cement for example Portland clinker is with fly ash slag silica fume. It is not with the properties of cement. As I know in Iran your country the types of cements have some connections to properties and resistance to sulphate . Strength classes limit for concrete under action of CO2 for service life of 50 years : Type of cement CEM I , CEM II/A CEM II/B , CEM III/A , CEM IV , CEM V/A Exposure class XC1 XC2 XC3 XC4 XC1 XC2 XC3 XC4 Minimum 25 35 35 40 25 35 35 40 cover(mm) Max W/C 0.65 0.65 0.6 0.6 0.65 0.65 0.55 0.55 Min cement 240 240 280 280 260 260 300 300 content(kg/m3) Min strength class C25/30 C25/30 C30/37 C30/37 C25/30 C25/30 C30/37 C30/37 LC25/28 LC25/28 Lc30/33 Lc30/33 LC25/28 LC25/28 Lc30/33 Lc30/33

About this table you can see according to the class we give minimal cover maximum water cement ratio , minimum cement content and minimum strength class 4 aspects. Because of no time I will concentrate on minimum strength class. As you can see here for this kind of exposure conditions the strength class should be between 25 and 30 it is not possible for this conditios of carbonation less than 25 Mpa . If we use less than 25 Mpa with the conditions of carbonation , conditions humidity and the CO2 we can have problems of corrosion . and if we have for example the cycles of humidity and not humidity you should have minimum 30 Mpa . We can see know about the problems of chlorides we have the similar tables : Strength classes limit for concrete under action of chlorides for service life of 50 years : Type of cement CEM IV/A , CEM IV/B , CEM III/A , CEM CEM I , CEM II/A III/B , CEM V , CEM II/B , CEM II/A,D Exposure class XS1/XD1 XS2/XD2 XS3/XD3 XS1/XD1 XS2/XD2 XS3/XD3 Minimum 45 50 55 45 50 55 cover(mm) Max W/C 0.55 0.55 0 .45 0 .45 0.45 0 .4 Min cement 320 320 340 360 360 380 content(kg/m3) Min strength class C30/37 C30/37 C35/45 C40/50 C40/50 C50/60 LC30/33 LC30/33 Lc35/38 LC40/44 LC40/44 Lc50/55 The strength class should be between 30 and 35 for these kinds of cements. These cements are cements with better behavior in contact with chlorides . If we can not use these cements we use cement Portland or cement Portland with additives we should achieve at least C40 and in some cases C50 This is recommendation to avoid degradation of concrete in the first 50 years of life of structure. Strength classes limit for concrete under action of ice/thaw for service life of 50 years : Type of cement CEM I , CEM II/A CEM II/B , CEM III/A , CEM IV , CEM V/A Exposure class XF1 XF2 XF1 XF2 Minimum air -----4.0 -----4.0 content(%) Max W/C 0.6 0.55 0.55 0.5 Min cement 280 280 300 300 content(kg/m3) Min strength class C30/37 C30/37 C30/37 C30/37 LC30/33 LC30/33 LC30/33 LC30/33 Similar for ice/thaw we have strength class C30 . For chemical attack it depends also in the cement and also the exposure class XA3 is the worse aggressive so this case 35 and worse cement in this case 40 Mpa . Strength classes limit for concrete under action of chemical attack for service life of 50 years : Type of cement CEM IV/A , CEM IV/B , CEM III/A , CEM CEM I , CEM II/A III/B , CEM V , CEM II/B , CEM II/A,D Exposure class XA1 XA2 XA3 XA1 XA2 XA3 Max W/C 0.55 0.55 0.45 0.45 0.45 0.45 Min cement 320 340 360 340 360 380 content(kg/m3) Min strength class C30/37 C35/45 C35/45 C35/45 C40/50 C40/50 LC30/33 LC35/38 Lc35/38 LC35/38 LC40/44 Lc40/44 Till now I showed you that we should use in terms of strength class to increase the durability of concrete. There is one exposure class is the X0 in this case the minimum strength class should be C12/15 . I should explain that this exposure class only exist in the interior of buildings without humidity all the other classes we need to use more

than C25 or more . Before in the table of service life I talked about some possibilities to have structures with 100 years of service life the exigencies should be changed as follow : to change from 50 years to 100 years in reinforced and pre-stressed concrete exposed to the action af CO2 or chlorides the nominal cover will increased 10 mm , the other exigencies should be maintained . in concrete exposed to the action of ice/thaw or chemical attach the maximum water cement ratio should decrease0.05 minimum cement content increase 20 kg and the compressive strength class should increase 2 classes. I can give your attention to this last aspect compressive strength class should increase 2 classes because as we are talking about high strength concrete it is important to see that with these 2 classes more we increase the life 50 years it is the prevision. I will show you some aspects of the microstructure of high performance concrete . what change in high performance concrete is small things I can say . we have still a binder matrix and the aggregates . in all concretes the quality of paste and aggregates also interface influence the performance of concrete . In order to have a good concrete we need to have good quality of paste ,good quality of aggregates and also good quality of interface . in the conventional concrete I call here it depends what we can call conventional and high strength concrete and ultra high strength concrete the definition I use here is the conventional concrete lower than 80 Mpa , high strength concrete between 80 and 100 Mpa and ultra high strength concrete more than 100 Mpa . about the microstructure of these different concretes we can say that in conventional concrete cracks develop in paste and interface this is because the aggregates usually have strength more than 80 Mpa and the cracks develop to the paste and interface . After 80 Mpa the cracks penetrate to the aggregates for more than 100 Mpa the aggregates are the weaker part of concrete . We can see this in these pictures for high strength concrete the properties of aggregates are more important than for conventional concrete.

About the paste phase it is cement and water the strength of this part of concrete depends on : different kinds of cement , cement content , age , hydration degree of cement , type of water , water cement ratio , porosity of paste and porosimetery of paste. So it is complex to study cement paste for example if you have to decrease porosity or the porosimetery of concrete we should decrease the water cement ratio , fill the pores with the materials , increase hydration degree of cement and use high method of compaction . This is important this part decrease the porosity I should describe that the porosity is the quantity of pores and porosimetery is the size of pores and off course less is the porosity better is the concrete in all properties. Also when we decrease the porosity the

durability will increase . What is important to go from conventional concrete to high performance concrete the important is to decrease the porosity of concrete and also decrease the water cement ratio. I have now here how we can decrease the water cement ratio . The decrease of water cement ratio could be made with incorporation with water reducer admixtures the super-plasticizer , fill the pores with fine materials we can do it by using mineral additives for example silica fume. These 2 aspects increase the hydration degrees of cement. As I told you before the properties of aggregates are more important in high strength concrete then in conventional concrete . about the properties of aggregate we should take care of the compressive strength , modules of elasticity also the size especially maximum size , fineness modules surface shape and texture , mineralogy nature and water absorption . for example this last aspect absorption of water it is important to know that because it can influence the amount of water that we put in the mixture . I want to talk you just a little about microstructure of high performance concrete This question of interface aggregate paste is the fundamental difference between our conventional concrete and one high performance concrete in the last one the interface aggregate paste needs to be substantially ameliorated .

Here we have the aggregates and the transition zone that is the interface and we have the cement paste . in the transition zone we have usually a lot of ettringite . usually interface is the weaker part of microstructure. There are another factors that act in the aggregate paste one of the most important is the water binder ratio . So till now we saw may be 3 important aspects that we need to change to high performance concrete . one aspect is to decrease the porosity and another aspect is the quality of interface aggregate paste and the last aspect is the decrease of water binder ratio . In the picture you can see concrete with high water cement ratio and low water cement ratio in the last case we have less porosity so I can say that high performance concrete needs better interface . In corporation of plasticizers and super-plasticizers results in the low water binder ratio. Also the corporation of very fine pozzolanic materials other than Portland cement decrease the ameliorate concrete . about these additives I present what we have in the European standard 206 This standard use the type I as quasi inert additives and type II pozzolanic additives or with latent hydrolic properties for type I we have fillers and for type

II we have silica fume , fly ash and slag. So these are the additions type II that are important to put in to the concrete for less porosity .the examples are here : fly ash , silica fume , blast furnace slag , metakaolin , rice ash and natural pozzolans. The additions have another aspect is that the additives can have reaction with calcium hydroxide and produce C-H-S . If the hardened concrete has lot of calcium hydroxide it is not good it is a concrete with low durability so if we put silica fume , fly ash , slag and other additions we have more durability also increase the strength of concrete . The best additives is the one with more silica

For example silica fume has more silica compare with slag and fly ash . About the super-plasticizers I have some aspects here but because we had a presentation before with sika manager we pass this because the things are the same. I can only say without super-plasticizers we cannot have high strength and high performance concrete because it is important for these kinds of concretes to have low water cement ration and this is only possible with super-plasticizers . Applications of high strength and high performance concrete I show you here some applications :

In Portugal Arrabida bridge was made with high strength concrete(1957/63 ) , for that time. It was also a concrete difficult to produce. The compressive strength required was 40 MPa ( C30/37 ). The average strengths obtained attained 58 MPa. Nowadays this type of concrete is not difficult to obtain and it is usual into bridges.

La Grand Arche in Paris (Johann Otto von Spreckelsen, 1985/89 ) high workability (Slump = 220 mm); high pumping distances (height of 130 m, with a distance of 370 m from pump till formwork; high initial strength (7 days: 54 MPa; 28 days: 66 MPa); C = 425 kg/m3; SF = 30 kg/m3.

Taipei Financial Centre Taiwan (2003 ) (508 m; 101 floors) Mist structure steel/concrete high workability; high strength (70 MPa); silica fume; blast furnace slag

Bridge le de R, France, 1986-88 1 st great construction in prefabricated HPC High workability (Slump = 150 mm); high initial strength (10 h: fm = 15 MPa; 28 days: fm = 68 MPa); C = 400 kg/m3; SF = 55.3 kg/m3.

Bridge of Normandie, France, 1993 (total length= 2141 m; central span = 856 m) High workability (Flow = 450/560 mm); high strength (28 days: required fk = 60 MPa, obtained fm = 79 MPa); C (with 8% of SF) = 425 kg/m3; W/B = 0.36

Bridge of Castro Marim, Portugal - 1991 central span = 320 m High strength (fck = 60 MPa)

Bridge of So Joo, Porto, Portugal, 1991 Concretes with compressive strength of 50 MPa to 55 MPa

Bridge Vasco da Gama, Lisbon, 1995/98 1st application in Portugal of HPC with high durability exigencies High durability (service life of 120 years); high workability (Slump = 200/230 mm); high strength (28 days: fk = 55/72 MPa); C = 360 kg/m3; FA = 20% ; W/B = 0.34/0.31