Structural Design Guidelines for Pervious Concrete Pavements

Pervious pavements have gained popularity in recent years as the transportation industry focuses on sustainability and environmental impact. This research investigated the structural design of pervious concrete pavements. There is no standard design method; therefore, the goal was to lessen ambiguity surrounding the use of pervious concrete for pavement structures. By characterization of the rigid pavement design equation from the 1993 AASHTO Structural Design Guide for Design of Pavement Structures through laboratory exploration and review of existing literature, a guide was created to assist engineers in the design of pervious concrete pavements

Freeze-thaw durability of recycled concrete from construction and demolition wastes

Road engineering is one of the most accepted applications for concrete including recycled aggregates from construction and demolition wastes as a partial replacement of the natural coarse aggregates. Amongst the durability concerns of such application, the deterioration due to freeze-thaw cycles is one of the most important causes decreasing the life span of concrete in countries with a continental climate. Moreover, the use of de-icing salts, which is a common practice to prevent ice formation on roadways and walkways, increases the superficial degradation of concrete due to frost-salt scaling. Thus, this paper aims to assess the resistance to frost salt with de-icing salts of two recycled concrete mixtures containing a 50% replacement of the conventional gravel by recycled aggregates both of mixed and ceramic nature, i.e. containing ceramic percentages of 34% and 100%, in comparison to a conventional concrete made with siliceous gravel. Therefore, the surface scaling was evaluated based on EN 1339 (2004) on 28 days cured cylinders, exposed to 7, 14, 21 and 28 freeze-thaw cycles in the presence of sodium chloride solution. Given that no airentraining admixture was used in any of the mixtures, the scaling of both conventional and recycled concretes exceeded the 1 kg/m2 limit established by the European standard. Nonetheless, for the casting surface, the recycled concrete with low ceramic content exhibited a similar behaviour to the conventional concrete, whereas the performance of the recycled concrete with high ceramic content was better. However, as expected, trowelled surfaces showed a worse performance and both recycled concretes had a lower freeze-thaw durability than the conventional mixture. In any case, the results suggested that the composition of the recycled aggregates could be used as a factor to limit the differences in performance between recycled and conventional mixtures

Lightweight SFRC benefitting from a pre-soaking and internal curing process

The presented research program is focused on the design of a structural lightweight fiber-reinforced concrete harnessing an internal curing process. Pre-soaked waste red ceramic fine aggregate and pre-soaked artificial clay expanded coarse aggregate were utilized for the creation of the mix. Copper-coated steel fiber was added to the mix by volume in amounts of 0.0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, and 1.5%. Test specimens in forms of cubes, cylinders, and beams were tested to specify the concrete characteristics. Such properties as consistency, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, static and dynamic modulus of elasticity, flexural characteristics, and shear strength were of special interest. The achieved concrete can be classified as LC12/13. A strength class, according to fib Model Code, was also assigned to the concretes in question. The proposed method of preparation of concrete mix using only pre-soaked aggregate (with no extra water) proved to be feasible.Web of Science1224art. no. 415

Vacuum mixing technology to improve the mechanical properties of ultra-high performance concrete

Ultra-high performance concrete is an important evolution in concrete technology, enabled by the combination of a good particle packing density, a suitable mixing procedure and compatible binders and admixtures. In the last decades a lot of research has been performed to explore the boundaries of this new type of concrete. Mixers equipped with a vacuum pump able to lower the mixing pressure from 1,013 to 50 mbar are an interesting way to improve the performance by lowering the air content. Profound research is necessary, because little is known about this technique of air content reduction. The influence of a reduced air content on the mechanical properties of ultra-high performance concrete is tested at The Magnel Laboratory for Concrete Research. This paper reports the results of the compressive strength, the splitting and bending tensile strength and the modulus of elasticity. All the mechanical properties after 28 days curing are improved by reducing the air content in the ultra-high performance concrete. An increase in compressive strength between 7 and 22 % is measured. The bending tensile strength increases maximum with 17 % and the splitting tensile strength gains 3-22 % in performance. Furthermore, the modulus of elasticity improves with 3-8 %. In conclusion, the air content can be controlled and a higher performance can be achieved by vacuum mixing technology. Finally, it is shown that the vacuum technology is not as effective in a 75 l capacity vacuum mixer as it is for a smaller vacuum mixer with a capacity of 5 l

Concrete Pavement Mixture Design and Analysis (MDA): An Innovative Approach To Proportioning Concrete Mixtures, TPF-5(205), 2015

Mixture proportioning is routinely a matter of using a recipe based on a previously produced concrete, rather than adjusting the proportions based on the needs of the mixture and the locally available materials. As budgets grow tighter and increasing attention is being paid to sustainability metrics, greater attention is beginning to be focused on making mixtures that are more efficient in their usage of materials yet do not compromise engineering performance. Therefore, a performance-based mixture proportioning method is needed to provide the desired concrete properties for a given project specification. The proposed method should be user friendly, easy to apply in practice, and flexible in terms of allowing a wide range of material selection. The objective of this study is to further develop an innovative performance-based mixture proportioning method by analyzing the relationships between the selected mix characteristics and their corresponding effects on tested properties. The proposed method will provide step-by-step instructions to guide the selection of required aggregate and paste systems based on the performance requirements. Although the provided guidance in this report is primarily for concrete pavements, the same approach can be applied to other concrete applications as well

Optimization of Mixture Proportions for Concrete Pavements—Influence of Supplementary Cementitious Materials, Paste Content and Aggregate Gradation

The ultimate goals of this study included investigation of the optimal ranges for paste content, amount of cementations materials and aggregate gradation for concrete paving mixtures. In general, the optimum concrete mixtures developed in this study contained low paste content (below 23%), and were characterized by low scaling and sorptivity. In addition, it was also possible to achieve high cement replacement levels for these mixtures. Finally, for optimized fly ash mixtures, the selection of well graded aggregate gradation with high packing density increased the most desired paste content for those mixtures, thus indicating that combined aggregate gradation has strong influence on concrete performance. Lastly, concrete mixtures developed with optimum ranges of variables studied in this research contained low cement content. The overall scope of the research was divided into three distinctive phases, each of which is described briefly below: PHASE I: This phase consisted of statistical optimization of the proportions of concrete binder. The Central Composite Design methodology (CCD) was used to design the experiment for the optimization of binder in three types of concrete mixtures: a) cement + fly ash, b) cement + GGBFS, and c) cement + fly ash + GGBFS. The variables studied in each of these systems included: paste content (from 21 to 25 % by mixture volume) and total content of supplementary cementitious material (SCM) in the mixture. This was expressed as weight percent of total binder, and varied depending on the binder system used. PHASE II: The main goal of this phase was to investigate the effect of different aggregate gradations on the fresh and hardened properties of optimized concrete mixtures developed in PHASE I, as well as to identify the most desired aggregate gradations for paving mixtures. Different aggregate gradations were prepared by blending of 2, 3 or 4 different sizes of aggregates based on concept of Shilstone’s Coarseness Factor Chart. PHASE III: The concept of air-free paste–aggregate void saturation ratio (k”) introduced in PHASE II seemed to fairly accurate link the properties of concrete mixtures with their paste content. Thus, it was decided to further investigate this concept in connection with aggregate packing density (Φ). In addition, it was believed that defining optimum values of “k” will allow for revising the paste content ranges developed in PHASE I for different systems, and thus define more general optimum paste ranges for paving mixtures

Interval type‑2 fuzzy aggregation operator in decision making and its application

Type-2 fuzzy sets (T2FSs) can deal with higher modeling and uncertainties which exist in the real-world application, specifically in the control systems. Particularly the climate changes are always uncertain and thus, the type-2 fuzzy controller is an effective system to handle those situations. Polyhouse is a methodology used to cultivate the plants. It breaks the seasonal hurdle of the formulation and it is also suitable for the conflictive climate conditions. Controlling and directing internal parameters of the polyhouse play an essential role in the growth of the plant. Among those, humidity is an important element when one deals with the growth of the plant in polyhouse. It affects the weather, as well as the global change of the climate and hence, the inner climate of the polyhouse will be disturbed. In this paper, operational laws for triangular interval type-2 fuzzy numbers and derived triangular interval type-2 weighted geometric (TIT2WG) operator with their desired mathematical properties using Dombi triangular norms. Also, humidity control is analyzed using interval type-2 fuzzy controller (IT2FC) with the use of derived aggregation operator which is the aim of the paper. Further stability of the system has been analyzed by applying four different defuzzification methods and the method is recommended which gives a better response

Performance Engineered Mixtures for Concrete Pavements in the US

Many concrete pavement mixtures in the US are proportioned based on recipes that have been used before, or on prescriptive specifications. As budgets grow tighter and increasing attention is being paid to sustainability metrics, greater attention is beginning to be focused on making mixtures that are more efficient in their usage of materials, yet do not compromise engineering performance. While the technology is largely available in the concrete industry, a number of challenges are slowing the development of more performance-based specifications and mixtures in the US market. These include resistance to change from familiar to less known, resistance to any change in the distribution of risk, and a lack of good performance tests. This paper addresses these factors by clearly laying out the barriers to adoption of more performance-based specifications for mixtures, along with identifying the research that is needed to address them. Suggestions are made on the steps that can be taken to move the process forward. The paper also discusses work recently conducted to investigate an alternative approach to mix proportioning that is better able to deliver designed performance requirements for local materials

Life cycle assessment of a column supported isostatic beam in high-volume fly ash concrete (HVFA concrete)

Nowadays, a lot of research is being conducted on high-volume fly ash (HVFA) concrete. However, a precise quantification of the environmental benefit is almost never provided. To do this correctly, we adopted a life cycle (LCA) approach. By considering a simple structure and an environment for the material, differences between traditional and HVFA concrete regarding durability and strength were taken into account. This paper presents the LCA results for a column supported isostatic beam made of reinforced HVFA concrete located in a dry environment exposed to carbonation induced corrosion. With a binder content of 425 kg/m3 and a water-to-binder ratio of 0.375, the estimated carbonation depth after 50 years for a 50 % fly ash mixture does not exceed the nominal concrete cover of 20 mm. As a consequence, no additional concrete manufacturing for structure repair needs to be included in the study. Moreover, structure dimensions can be reduced significantly due to a higher strength compared to the reference concrete used in the same environment. In total, about 32 % of cement can be saved this way. The reduction in environmental impact equals 25.8 %, while this is only 11.4 % if the higher material strength is not considered