The new conception of self-compacting concrete composition design: theoretical background, evaluation, presentation of procedure and examples of usage

Abstract

The article presents a new conception of self-compacting concrete (SCC) composition design. At the beginning a comprehensive review of more than 20 existing design methods is given and several conclusions are made. Next, the author’s conception of SCC composition design is defined and the design procedure ready to use is listed. Finally, two examples of successful SCC design are given. The main principle of the proposed conception is to use a two-step type design method with the first step consisting of two independent parts, namely paste and aggregate composition optimization. The second step is used only for paste content assessment. The novelties in the proposed conception are: superplasticiser dosage estimation using simple test conducted on paste, aggregate composition optimisation using one simple criterion (loose bulk density maximization), and final fresh concrete composition obtainable in a single attempt (by step-by-step paste to aggregate adding).