Design, Material Properties and Structural Performance of Sustainable Concrete

Green concretes, also termed eco-concretes, with reduced cement content may provide an alternative for improving concrete sustainability independently of used supplementary cementitious materials. However, to evaluate the sustainability of these new types of concretes not only the ecological impact due to the composition may be regarded but in particular also their technical performance, i.e. their mechanical, physical and chemical properties, have to be taken into consideration. Consequently, this paper introduces first the index Building Material Sustainability Potential, which is applied in combination with the service life prediction for cement-reduced concretes using probabilistic methods. Moreover, the composition of green concretes is indicated, and related test results on the performance of green concretes are presented. The potential of green concrete for applications in practice is shown by the structural performance of graded concrete members being loaded in flexural tests.