What is
UHPC
Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC), also known as UHPFRC, is a new type of building material that has attracted worldwide attention. Its purpose is mainly to improve the mechanical, durability and workability defects of traditional concrete.
Its compressive strength can reach 120MPa or more, which is 5 to 10 times that of traditional concrete, and its tensile strength can reach 8 MPa or more. Notably, its ultimate tensile strain can reach more than 6%, more than a hundred times that of ordinary concrete. It also has excellent crack resistance, overturning the definition of the brittleness of traditional concrete materials.
Mechanics
Durability
UHPC contains high-density hydration products and has a high packing density. This feature makes UHPC's durability indicators (porosity, permeability, and chloride ion diffusion rate) better than traditional concrete, and UHPC can effectively resist chemical erosion in harsh environments. According to experiments with AASHTO T358-15 as the standard, UHPC can completely ignore the possibility of chemical erosion after 28 days. Given this, its excellent durability can effectively extend the service life of the structure and reduce future maintenance.
Due to such excellent characteristics, when UHPC is used for seismic-resistant structural components, the toughness and shear capacity of the components can be significantly improved, and the use of steel confinement and shear reinforcements can be reduced. Together with its self-compacting ability, structural design and construction procedures can be simplified. The academic theory of UHPC has been published in many international scientific journals, and the results are quite fruitful. There are many practical applications in the world. Among them, more than 300 bridges in North America have used UHPC. Many implementations combine the accelerated bridge construction method (ABC) to shorten the construction period by about 60%. Internationally, UHPC is regarded as the new star of the next generation.