Concrete Technology

The group's main interests are in the area of concrete materials technology, with a focus on self-compacting concrete, the rheology of fresh concrete and its measurement, and on several aspects of high strength concrete, including, in particular, workability, rheology, early age behaviour and strength development.

Self-compacting concrete (SCC)

SCC can achieve full compaction without the assistance of vibration; originally developed in Japan in the early 1990’s, it is receiving great worldwide interest, and the group is actively involved with the UK's research and development in this subject.

Two PhD programmes have been completed. The first (Chai, 1998) established the feasibility of SCC production with readily available UK materials, and developed a mix design procedure which optimised the cementitious content for maximum size of coarse aggregate type and size.

The second (Jin, 2002) examined the role of testing the mortar phase of SCC in mix development and design. The relation between the properties of the mortar and the resulting concrete were established, and it was shown that testing the mortar is an efficient and effective method of assessing: mixing procedures, e.g. the addition time of superplasticizers; the effect of powder composition, including binary and ternary blends of Portland cement with pulverised fuel ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, microsilica and limestone powder; binder/superplasticizer interaction; and the effect of viscosity agents.

Contributions have also been made to the RILEM Technical Committee on Self-Compacting Concrete (1996-2000) and to the Concrete Society Working Party on Self-Compacting Concrete.

Recent work has included participation in the EU Growth Project ‘Testing-SCC’, which was managed by the University of Paisley. The aim was to develop standardized tests for self-compacting concrete, a lack of which has hindered the wider adoption of this type of concrete. The project ran from November 2001 to October 2004 and involved 12 partners (5 academic, 7 industrial) from 8 countries. UCL’s role in the first part was, working with Dansk Beton Teknik from Denmark, to select materials and produce mix designs for reference concretes with a range the three key properties of filling ability, passing ability, and resistance to segregation for use by other partners in evaluating test methods. Common materials were used by all partners, and a quality plan was produced to ensure uniformity of practice. In the last stage of the project, UCL acted as the coordinator for the five UK participating laboratories in the ‘round-robin’ programme with the preferred test methods; in all this involved 25 laboratories from 14 countries.

Testing-SCC project reports and papers.

SCC-Brite EuRam project reports.

Rheology and its measurement

Contacts with Sheffield University's Dr Geoff Tattersall , the pioneer of rigorous rheological testing on concrete, resulted in work with the two-point workability apparatus and subsequent collaboration with Professor Phil Banfill at Heriot-Watt lead to the production of a 'new' version of the test. This has been used in the studies on SCC and high-strength concrete. It was also included in a comparative study of concrete rheometers which took place at the LCPC laboratories in Nantes, France in October 2000, and the follow-up study at the MBT laboratories in Cleveland Ohio in May 2003. Both of these were sponsored by the American Concrete Institute.

High strength concrete

Work in this area has been pursued for some years. Mixes generally include partial cement replacement materials (e.g. microsilica, pulverized fuel ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag) and admixtures (most commonly plasticizers and superplasticizers) and are mixed at low water/binder ratios. Studies have investigated:

the rheology of the fresh concrete, which is substantially different from that of normal strength concrete of similar slump;
the response of the fresh concrete to vibration (in a joint programme with Heriot-Watt University);
the properties of ternary mixes containing combinations of two cement replacement materials, with an emphasis on heat of hydration effects and early age strength development

Ultrasonic pulse velocity testing

The group was responsible for much of the early work in the 1960's and 70's on the application of ultrasonic pulse velocity testing to concrete, and developed the PUNDIT test system, which has been marketed successfully throughout the world. Interest in ultrasonics, particularly for early age testing, has continued.

In addition, various aspects of structural concrete behaviour are being investigated by our structures research group .

Recently completed PhD's

Jin J "Properties of mortar for self-compacting concrete" (2002)

Ahmed E-M "Rheological properties and loss of workability of high strength concrete" (2002)

Sheikh V "The effect of in-situ temperatures on the strength development of high strength concrete" (2001)

Chai H-W "Design and testing of self-compacting concrete" (1998)

Selected recent publications

Domone P L ‘Fresh concrete’ Chapter 1 of Advanced Concrete Technology: Concrete Properties, ed Newman J and Choo B S, Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, 2003 pp 1/3 - 1/28

Aarre T and Domone P L 'Reference concretes for evaluation of test methods for SCC' Proceedings of 3rd RILEM International Symposium on Self Compacting Concrete , Iceland, August 2003

Jin J and Domone P L 'Relationships between the fresh properties of scc and its mortar component' Proceedings of the First North American Conference on the Design and Use of Self-Consolidating Concrete, Centre for Advanced Cement Based Materials, North Western University, Chicago, November 2002, pp 33-38

Banfill P F G and Domone P L 'The rheology of fresh concrete: results of an international comparison of instruments' in Proceedings of the 6 th European Conference on Rheology, (Eds Munstedt H, Kaschta J and Merten A), Erlangen, Germany, September 2002, pp 495-6

Banfill P F G, Beaupré D, Chapdelaine F, de Larrard F, Domone P L, Nachbaur L, Sedran T, Wallevik J E, Wallevik O ‘Comparison of concrete rheometers: International tests at LCPC (Nantes, France) in October 2000’ (Editors Ferraris C F and Brower L E), NISTIR 6819, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Washington, USA, October 2001

Domone, P.L. and Jin, J. ‘Properties of mortar for self-compacting concrete’ Proceedings of RILEM International Symposium on Self-Compacting Concrete, Stockholm, September 1999, RILEM. Paris 109-120

Domone, P.L., Chai, H. and Jin, J. ‘Optimum mix proportioning of self-compacting concrete’ Proceedings of International Conference on Innovation in Concrete Structures, Design and Construction, Dundee, September 1999. ed Dhir, R.K. and Jones, M.R. London, Thomas Telford. p277-286

Domone, P. L.; Xu, Y. and Banfill, P. F. G. ‘Developments of the Two-Point Workability Test for High-Performance Concrete’ Magazine of Concrete Research, V 51, No 3, 1999 pp 171-179.

Banfill, P. F. G.; Xu, Y. and Domone, P. L. ‘Relationship Between the Rheology of Unvibrated Fresh Concrete and Its Flow Under Vibration in a Vertical Pipe Apparatus’. Magazine of Concrete Research V 51, No 3 1999, pp 181-190.

The academic staff of the group are:

Senior Lecturer in Materials
Yun Bai

Senior Lecturer in Concrete Technology
Peter Domone BSc(Eng), PhD, CEng, MICE, MICT