Ultrahigh performance concrete-properties, applications and perspectives

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, remarkable advances have taken place in the research and application of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC), which exhibits outstanding mechanical properties and excellent durability. It has shown great potential for the next generation infrastructure construction from the sustainability point of view. This paper will give an overview on UHPC, with particular focus on the properties, applications and perspectives. After several decades of development, several types of commercial UHPC materials are available in the market, and the properties of UHPC have been characterized by numerous experimental and field tests. Generally speaking, the performance (e.g. mechanical properties and durability) of UHPC is much better than normal concrete (NC) and high performance concrete (HPC). Therefore, the uses of UHPC are growing all over the world, in both fields of new construction and retrofitting. Nevertheless, it is still a special material and technology, which is not worldwide accepted. So some application prospects of UHPC are briefly introduced in the paper, and the efforts, which have to be made to turn UHPC into a widespread ‘regular’ technology, are discussed. This paper aims to help designers, engineers, architects and infrastructure owners to know the capacities of UHPC and thus to increase the applications of this material.