Use of High Performance Concrete in Typical Building and Bridge Construction

The concrete industry intends to include HPC for structural applications in Southern Europe and, therefore, Greece is a region characterized by stricter and problem-oriented sizing and reinforcement limitations due to its strong seismicity. For this purpose, the effect of using of high performance concrete (HPC) on the dimensioning of conventional reinforced concrete (RC) and prestressed concrete (PC) structures is investigated by designing two ten-story office buildings and typical PC pedestrian, railway, and road bridges, while conforming to all the relevant provisions of the Eurocodes. The designs involve practical construction forms obeying geometric limitations, while satisfying all serviceability and ultimate limit states for conventional and accidental earthquake loads. Conventional strength-class concrete, namely C30 for buildings and C35 for PC bridges, and HPC concrete classes C60 to C120 are considered. Based on the parametric designs, it is concluded that using HPC leads to a reduction in concrete volume of between 30% and 50% compared to conventional concrete use. This reduction, however, depends strongly on the design-controlling criteria, building occupancy, and bridge type and span, which may lead to smaller material savings, particularly where serviceability criteria govern. The analysis is extended in order to also investigate the increase in the design service life of these structural forms under marine chloride exposure conditions, using C90 and conventional concretes. It is shown that, in addition to the material reductions above, the use of HPC also results in a significant increase in the design service life of the structures considered.