STRENGTH ANALYSIS OF ULTRA HIGH PERFORMANCE CONCRETE

Now a days, several construction materials are in use to construct several structures ,well engineered to perform to their ultimate levels in terms of straength ,reliability and long life.In traditional civil engineering practices,materials for construction like cement,concrete,aggregates and steel are used for all purposes including general purpose like constructions of apartment buildings, and special purpose like bridges,spill ways and bunds[1].Sometimes there are some situations which tend the structures to face extreme conditions like abrupt temperature and climatic changes,natural calamities and alteration of superstructural designs etc., which may lead to failure situations of the structure built using traditional construction materials.So, in order to overcome these situations,we need to implement materials with special properties ; the past decade significant advances have been made in the field of high performance concretes (HPC). The next generation of concrete, ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC), exhibits exceptional strength and durability characteristics that make it well suited for use in highway bridge structures. This material can exhibit compressive strengths, significant tensile toughness, and minimal long-term creep or shrinkage. It can also resist freeze and thaw and scaling conditions with virtually no damage and is nearly impermeable to chloride ions. This report presents the results from a large suite of material characterization tests that were completed in order to quantify the load behaviors of a commercially available UHPC. The characteristics of this UHPC under four different curing regimes[2] were captured. This study focused on strength-based behaviors (e.g., compressive and tensile strength), long-term stability behaviors (e.g., creep and shrinkage), and durability behaviors (e.g., chloride ion penetration and freeze and thaw).