Properties of a High Performance Concrete manufactured with a conventional production process

Among cement-based composites, materials that show a growing interest are the High Performance Concrete (HPC) and Ultra-hi-gh Performance Concrete (UHPC), which are categorized by an effective screening of granular elements, and an elevated quantity of fiber reinforcement [1]. HPC is produced through the particle packing methodology to enhance its matrix density and reduce its porosity [2]. Because of this producing me-thod, this material has a lower water content than conventional concrete, and better me-chanical performance and durability [3]-[5]. It is thus suitable to build several structural elements [6], [7] thanks to its enhanced pro-perties. On the other hand, the manufacture of HPC is not straightforward: expensive raw materials, impact on the environment, labo-rious fabrication and curing tasks [8], [9] are among the most important obstacles to its large-scale use. It is therefore relevant and recommended to simplify its production process. This work present new HPC mixtu-res that are produced in a straightforward manner, without requiring elevated tempe-rature curing conditions, mixers with high power or temperature controlled chambers, as commonly used for current HPC sold in the market. The mixtures described here showed a split tensile strength of 5 MPa, a compressive strength of over 70 MPa, and a virtual packing density of 0.86.