Experimental Comparison between the Plain Reinforced Concrete Beam and High Performance Reinforced Concrete Beam

The development of engineering materials as High Performance concrete (HPC) has got significant role in the filed of the construction of Buildings, Industrial Structures, Hydraulic Structures, Gravity dam, spillway, tunneling, power house, surge shaft, culvert, Bridges and Highways etc.. This paper presents a comprehensive coverage of High Performance concrete developments in civil engineering field. It highlights the High Performance concrete features and requirements over Normal concrete with the help of beam. Furthermore, recent trends with regard to High Performance Concrete development in this area are explored. This paper also includes effect of Mineral and Chemical Admixtures used to improve performance of concrete. An investigation on the flexural behavior of reinforced high performance concrete (HPC) has been conducted. Crushed sandstone known as reactive aggregate was used for both fine and coarse aggregates. In addition, mineral admixtures such as silica fume and fly ash combined with super plasticizer was used. The beams were made with concrete having compressive strength in the range of 56 - 60 N/mm2 and tensile reinforcement in the range of 1.34 to 3.14 %. The experimental ultimate moment was found to be about 14 - 34 % and 3 - 15 % higher than the predicted ultimate moment based on BS 8110 and ACI 318 respectively. Due to lower stiffness of reactive sandstone aggregates, the actual deflections of the beams were found to be slightly above allowable values under service loads. The observed crack widths under service loads were within acceptable limits. It was found that HPC made with crushed sandstone coarse and fine aggregate had better structural integrity. Hence, there is a high potential to produce high strength HPC using sandstone aggregates with silica fume and fly ash. Further development of self compaction concrete (SCC) and ultra high strength concrete (UHPC) is also the part of the research paper.