Creating industrially competitive variants of this would bring about several advantages including lower self weight when used to replace steel as well as being corrosion resistant.
The problems associated with scaling up to large volume production needed rigorous investigation. Laing O’Rourke designed and developed products and test regimes which were carried out both at their facilities and, on a smaller scale, at the structural engineering laboratory in the University’s School of Engineering. The team led by Professor Karihaloo, who developed CARDIFRC, undertook the testing at Cardiff University. Their knowledge and expertise in this area contributed to the development of concrete mix design and products and Professor Karihaloo provided expert analysis of testing undertaken at both sites.
UHPC has several advantages over traditional concrete mixes. It is typically four times stronger than conventional concrete, is extremely durable and can contain relatively low amounts of cement, making it more environmentally friendly. This is a material which has not been used to a great extent in the UK and it is anticipated that the development of new products using this mix will open up new business markets.
From this partnership Laing O’Rourke has developed a number of UHPC construction solutions and a range of mixes. Pre-cast products currently being tested include beams, columns, floor units and staircases. It is anticipated that they will be used on sites from 2009.
On the academic side, the development of a large volume industrial application of a new construction material has generated significant interest amongst students. During the past two years, twelve Masters students have used this material as the basis of their projects or dissertations and two PhD students are currently working on further improvements to its performance.
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Laing O'Rourke
Cardiff School of Engineering
Institute of Theoretical, Applied and Computational Mechanics