sustainable concrete

for Climate Resilient Infrastructures

ENGR. RICHARD J. AQUINO, MSCE, MSCM

Assistant Professor IV
University Structural Designer
UNDP/PASUC Senior Quality Assurance Engineer

Central Mindanao University, University Town, Musuan, Bukidnon, Philippines 8710

Contents

1. Motivation

2. Concrete vs Cement

3. Challenges

4. Concrete Sustainability and Durability

5. Cement Hydration Studies

6. Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCM)

2
7. Conclusion
motivation
Philippine Government Agenda

4
Infrastructure Plan

5
Infrastructure Proposed Budget

6
Golden Age of Infrastructure

7
New road, foundation moved and concrete cracked

8
New road and demolished

9
Overloading

10
Normal life span of concrete structures

Table 1: Life spans

Structure Years Remarks

Building 50
Concrete road 25 DPWH
Concrete road 34 ERES Consultants, Inc. (US)
Asphalt road 17 ERES Consultants, Inc. (US)

11
9-km Oosterscheldekering (storm surge barrier)

The largest Delta Works of The Netherlands designed to last

for more than 200 years (Wikipedia.com)
12
The promise of a 1000-years structure

a two slab raft foundation of all-stone Hindu Temple in

America (2000)
13
concrete vs cement
Concrete and ingredients

Concrete
is a stone-liked material made of aggregates with cement paste
(cement and water) as binder, including admixtures.

15
Concrete compressive strength, fc0 ≈ 810 MPa (max.)

16
Portland cement raw materials

Cement production

• energy-intensive process, burning a mixture of calcareous

and argillaceous materials at around 1450◦ C
• grinding to very fine powders
• generates ∼5-7% of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) worldwide.
17
Cement chemistry notation

Oxide form Cement Notation

CaO C
SiO2 S
Al2 O3 A
Fe2 O3 F
H2 O H
3CaO·SiO2 C3 S
2CaO·SiO2 C2 S
3CaO·Al2 O3 C3 A
4CaO·Al2 O3 ·Fe2 O2 C4 AF
CaO·H2 O CH

18
Typical composition of cement minerals

19
Portland cement oxide composition

20
Effects of oxide on the properties of cement

21
challenges
Carbon footprint

23
World population growth, 1750–2100

24
World population (UN)

World population projected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050! 25

Cement production and urbanization rate

Figure 1: Global cement production and percentage of global

population in urban areas since 1950.

26
Global cement production

27
2015 Global cement consumption

Conventional concrete mix (by mass)

12% cement
8% mixing water
80% aggregates

2015 world consumption

4 BMt of cement
2.8 BMt of mixing water
28 BMt of sand and gravel

BMt = Billion Metric Tons

28
2050 scenario ≈ 6 – 14 BMt cement production

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Clearly, our scarce natural resources are depleting rapidly which
seems to suggest that concrete material is unsustainable.
30
concrete sustainability and dura-
bility
Sustainability
it infers action which meets the needs of the present with-
out compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs. (restated by Olukay Ode Alao from
WCED1 , 1992)

Figure 2: The three spheres of sustainability

1 32
World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)
What makes concrete a sustainable material?

“Concrete is a friend of the environment in all stages of its life

span, from raw material production to demolition, making it a
natural choice for sustainable home construction.” - Anne
Balogh of ConcreteNetwork.com

• resource efficiency
• durability
• thermal mass
• reflectivity
• ability to retain stormwater
• minimal waste

33
Energy for production of common building materials

34
How to reduce environmental impact of concrete?

• Cement industry rely on the effective production of

cement and the use of alternative fuels.
• Researchers focus on the search of alternative
materials, used of agricultural and industrial waste
products, and recycling of materials.
• Metha (2002) is convinced that a long-term “holistic”
approach is needed that includes reducing the rate of
concrete consumption.
The search of sustainable(durable) concrete
We aim to produce sustainable(durable) concrete towards
the used of agricultural and industrial waste products and
reducing the rate of concrete consumption.
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Concrete Durability

ACI Code Purpose (ACI 318-14, Sec. 1.3.1)

...establish minimum requirements for strength, stability, ser-
viceability, durability, and integrity of concrete structures.

Definition
“Durability is the ability of a material to resist weathering ac-
tion, chemical attack, abrasion, and other conditions of service.”
- ACI

See also, Durability in ACI 318-14 R4.8.

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ACI Concrete Durability Requirements

ACI 318-14 Sec R19.3

Durability of concrete is impacted by the resistance of the con-
w
crete to fluid penetration, primarily affected by cm and the com-
position of cementitious materials used in concrete. The Code
w 2
places emphasis on cm for achieving low permeability3 to meet
durability requirements.

2 w
It is difficult to verify accurately the cm of concrete, the (minimum)
0 w
value of fc is selected which is consistent with the maximum cm required
for durability.
3
Permeability is a property that governs the rate of flow of a fluid into a
porous solid.
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Requirements for concrete mixtures

ACI 318-14, Sec 19.3.2.1

...concrete mixtures shall conform to the most restrictive re-
quirements in Table 19.3.2.1.

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Requirements for concrete mixtures

39
cement hydration studies
Concrete multiscale structure (Van Damme, 2008)

41
Cement hydration models

42
Cement hydration

Silicate reactions

C3 S + (3 − x + y )H −→ Cx SHy + (3 − x)CH (1)

C2 S + (2 − x + y )H −→ Cx SHy + (2 − x)CH (2)

Note: the value of x depends on the amount of Ca and Si

while the value of y varies on the C-S-H water content.
C-S-H composition in saturated paste4

C1.7 SH4

4
Allen, Thomas et al. 2007 43
Cement hydration

Tricalcium Silicate reaction

C3 S + 5.3H −→ C1.7 SH4 + 1.3CH (3)

44
Calorimetry
·105

accumulated rate of heat output 2

3

Accumulated rate of heat output (mW/g)

1.8

2.5 1.6
Rate of heat output (mW/g)

1.4
2
1.2

1.5 1

0.8
1 0.6

0.4
0.5
0.2
rate of heat output
0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Time (hrs)

Figure 3: The rate of portland cement paste hydration as a

function of time by isothermal calorimetery measurements. Using
CEM I 42.5N with w/c ratio of 0.5.
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ESEM of Microlab

46
EDS-Spectrum of C-S-H

47
C3 S microstructure

48
Cement paste sample

49
Cement paste microstructure

50
Cement hydration products

Products (by volume of paste)

• C-S-H gel is the most abundant reaction product

occupying about 50%
• CH occupies about 15%
• Hydration products from the C3 A and C4 AF occupy
about 15-25%
• Capillary porosity occupy from a few percent to 20%

Challenges

• too much CH
• too much voids (capillary porosity)
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Phase Distribution using IA

60
paste 7d
50 paste 14d
paste 28d
40
% (Average)

30

20

10

0
porosity C–S–H CH Unhydrated
Phase

Figure 4: Phase distribution of hardened cement paste using

w
c = 0.4 per hydration stage of 7, 14 and 28 days, i.e. porosity,
C–S–H, CH and unhydrated cement derived from IA. 52
MIP Test

24.46 7 days 25 7 days

25
14 days 14 days

dV/dlogD Pore Volume (mL/g)

20.75 28 days 28 days
20 20
17.17
Porosity (%)

15 15

10 10

5 5

0 0
10−2 10−1 100 101 102 10−2 10−1 100 101 102
Pore size (µm) Pore size (µm)

Figure 5: The porosity and critical pore size of hardened cement

paste (CEM I 42.5N) with wc = 0.4 hydrated at 7, 14 and 28 days
measured using Mercury intrusion porosimetry.

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Microstructural analysis

20 18.83 7 days 7 days

18 14 days 25 14 days

dV/dlogD Pore Volume (mL/g)

28 days 28 days
16
13.85 20
14
Porosity (%)

12
10.49 15
10
8
10
6
4 5
2
0 0
10−1 100 101 102 10−1 100 101 102
Pore size (µm) Pore size (µm)

Figure 6: The porosity and critical pore size of hardened cement

paste (CEM I 42.5N) with wc = 0.4 hydrated at 7, 14 and 28 days
analyzed using image analysis performed in OPTIMAS software
package.
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Porosity comparison

60
HYMOSTRUC model
MIP

Capillary porosity (%)

Image analysis
40

20

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Hydration (days)

Figure 7: The porosity of hardened cement paste (CEM I 42.5N)

with wc = 0.4 hydrated at 7, 14 and 28 days as determined by MIP
and IA including values derived from HYMOSTRUC-3D model
55
(vanBreugel, 1997).
Pore Connectivity and Permeability

0.14 1.4 · 10−7

Pore Interconnectivity
0.12 Permeability 1.2 · 10−7
Pore interconnectivity (γ)

Permeability (m/s)
0.1 1 · 10−7

0.08 8 · 10−8

0.06 6 · 10−8

0.04 4 · 10−8

0.02 2 · 10−8

0 0
7 days 14 days 28 days
Hydration age

Figure 8: Pore connectivity and permeability of the cement

matrix wc = 0.4 hydrated for 7, 14 and 28 days derived from IA.
56
supplementary cementitious ma-
terials (scm)
Researches on SCMs show

w
• For a given cm , the use of fly ash, slag cement, silica
fume, or a combination of these materials will typically
increase the resistance of concrete to fluid penetration
and thus improve concrete durability (ACI 318-14).
• The use of fly ash (ASTM C618, Class F), natural
pozzolans (ASTM C618, Class N), silica fume (ASTM
C1240), or slag cement (ASTM C989M) also has been
shown to improve the sulfate resistance of concrete (Li
and Roy 1986; ACI 233R; ACI 234R) (ACI 318-14).
• “Blast-furnace slag cements are found to provide desirable
dense microstructures and chemical immunity to attack
by sulfates and alkalies”. - Idorn (1984) CCA, Vol. 6(1)
58
Micro-silica

59
Rice Husk Ash (RHA)

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Cement and RHA chemical composition

61
RHA as Cement Replacement

Ref: Abonitalla et al. (2015)

62
Fly Ash as Self Compacting Concrete Additives

Result
w
cm
= 0.4 and 20% cement replacement with fly ash
Ref: Yazar et al. (2015)

63
conclusion
Conclusion

• The non-availability of cement alternative material will

forced us to use cement.
• The development of a durable concrete emanates from
the knowledge of cement microstructure.
• The used of agricultural and industrial waste
products is a viable option to develop
sustainable(durable) concrete and to lessen the use of
cement in the mix.
• Durable concrete also means sustainable concrete.
The use of sustainable(durable) concrete in construction
will help achieve Climate Resilient Infrastructures

65
Acknowledgements

• Computationally Driven design of Innovative

CEment-based materials (CODICE) Project
• Prof. Dr. Ir. Klaas van Breugel
• Prof. Dr. Ir. Eduard A.B. Koenders
• Arjan Thijssen

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Thank you for listening!

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