International Concrete Abstracts Portal

The first international symposium on “Advances in Concrete Technology” was sponsored jointly by Canada Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET), the American Concrete Institute (ACI), and several other international organizations in Athens, Greece, in May 1992. Dr. Mohan Malholtra served as the chairman of the symposium. In June 1995, CANMET, in association with ACI and various professional organizations from the United States and Canada, sponsored the Second CANMET/ACI Symposium on Advances in Concrete Technology in Las Vegas, NV, USA. This event focused on high-performance normalweight and lightweight concretes, with the proceedings formally published as ACI SP-154. The Third CANMET/ACI Symposium on Advances in Concrete Technology was held in Auckland, New Zealand, in August 1997, sponsored by CANMET, ACI, and partner organizations from Canada and New Zealand. The symposium brought together industry, university, and government representatives to explore new areas of research, resulting in the publication of 33 refereed papers from 15 countries as ACI SP-171. In June 1998, the Fourth CANMET/ACI Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology took place in Tokushima, Japan, sponsored by CANMET, ACI, the Japan Concrete Institute (JCI), and several organizations from Japan and Canada. From more than 80 submissions across 20 countries, 61 refereed papers were published as ACI SP-179, while more than 30 additional technical contributions were presented. The Fifth CANMET/ACI Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology was held in Singapore in July and August 2001, under the sponsorship of CANMET, ACI, and multiple Singaporean organizations. This milestone event saw over 100 papers from 25 countries, leading to the publication of 46 refereed papers as ACI SP-200, and more than 25 additional papers were presented. In June 2003, the Sixth CANMET/ACI Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology was held in Bucharest, Romania, with sponsorship by CANMET, ACI, and several Romanian organizations. During this event, more than 40 technical papers were distributed to participants as received, though no formal ACI Special Publication was issued for this symposium. The Seventh CANMET/ACI Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology was held in May 2004 in Las Vegas, USA, sponsored by CANMET, ACI, and several U.S. organizations. The technical program resulted in 17 refereed papers from more than 10 countries published as ACI SP-222. In May 2006, CANMET, ACI, and organizations from Canada and the United States sponsored the Eighth CANMET/ACI Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology in Montreal, QC, Canada. The proceedings, consisting of 17 refereed papers, were published as ACI SP-235, supplemented by more than 30 additional technical papers distributed at the venue. The Ninth CANMET/ACI Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology was conducted in Warsaw, Poland, in May 2007, under the sponsorship of CANMET, ACI, and partners from Canada, Europe, and the United States. The final proceedings included 10 refereed papers published as ACI SP-243 along with more than 20 supplementary papers. Sponsored by ACI in association with several organizations from Canada, Europe, and the United States, the Tenth ACI Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology took place in Seville, Spain, in October 2009. This event produced 20 refereed papers published as ACI SP-261, while more than 20 additional papers were released in a supplementary volume. In May 2010, the Committee for the Organization of International Conferences (COIC) (formerly CANMET/ACI Conferences) and the Chinese Ceramics Society (CCS) sponsored the Eleventh International Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology and Sustainability Issues in Jinan, China. This gathering featured the presentation of more than 40 papers, with the formal proceedings published by the CCS, Beijing, China. The Twelfth International Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology and Sustainability Issues was held in Prague, Czech Republic, in October 2012, sponsored by COIC and ACI with a new focus on sustainability issues. The resulting volume, ACI SP-288, featured more than 30 refereed papers, while an additional 40 papers were included in a supplementary volume. In July 2015, COIC and ACI sponsored the Thirteenth International Conference on Advances in Concrete Technology and Sustainability Issues in Ottawa, ON, Canada. This technical exchange yielded 28 refereed papers published as ACI SP-303, alongside with more than 40 other papers presented in a supplementary papers volume. The Fourteenth International Conference on Recent Advances in Concrete Technology and Sustainability Issues was sponsored by the CCS, the China Academy of Building Research (CABR), and COIC in Beijing, China, in October 2018. The technical output included 19 refereed papers published as ACI SP-330, with more than 52 additional papers featured in the supplementary volume. After a postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fifteenth International Conference on Recent Advances in Concrete Technology and Sustainability Issues was sponsored by the ACI Italy Chapter and the University of Bergamo in Milan, Italy, in July 2022. This event focused on decarbonization and alternative binders, resulting in 44 refereed papers published as ACI SP-355, and approximately 20 papers were published in the supplementary volume. The Sixteenth International Conference on Recent Advances in Concrete Technology and Sustainability Issues is being held in Munich, Germany, from 8 – 10 July, 2026. This prestigious gathering is hosted by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) with the support of ACI. The conference continues its long-standing mission of advancing concrete science, with a sharp focus on the industry’s most pressing challenge: the transition of the cement industry towards decarbonization and the implementation of new technologies for long-term sustainability. 19 refereed papers for this conference are published herein as an ACI Special Publication, focusing on topics including: use of supplementary cementitious materials such as alkali-activated slag, calcined clay, red mud and other industrial wastes; pozzolanic reactivity of SCMs; long-term investigation on cement and cement additives; reduction on CO2 emission, etc. Additionally, more than 50 other papers will be presented at this event, most of them available in a Supplemental Papers Volume. The organizing committee expresses its profound gratitude to the authors, reviewers, and partner organizations whose dedication continues to drive the evolution of concrete technology toward a more sustainable future. Special thanks are also given to the American Concrete Institute for the publication of the proceedings. The Editor Prof. Dr. Johann Plank

Internally cured concrete was used to repair bridge decks of the Wilson Dam in Muscle Shoals, AL, USA, and to provide a 100-year service life. The article discusses characteristics of internally cured concrete and the benefits of using it, as well as lightweight aggregates needed to produce such concrete and their properties.

Lightweight and high-performance materials have become necessary for infrastructure with advanced construction and performance requirements. One of the major challenges with structures made of these materials is their performance under natural and man-made hazards, such as wind, fire, and blast. Therefore, in this study, the performance of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) and UHPC coated with foamed concrete (UHPC-Foamed) and polyurea (UHPC-Polyurea) is investigated under blast load. A finite element model is developed to assess the behavior of UHPC and coated UHPC panels under far-field and near-field blast scenarios. The constitutive behaviors of UHPC and foamed concrete are considered using the concrete damage plasticity model with respective parameters. The polyurea is modeled as a hyperelastic material with the Mooney-Rivlin model. Moreover, the effectiveness of the additional coatings, i.e., foamed concrete and polyurea, on the blast resistance of each panel is presented. The finding of the study shows that both foamed concrete and polyurea enhance the blast resistance of the UHPC concrete panels. Moreover, a comparison between the blast resistance of UHPC-Foamed and UHPC-Polyurea is conducted under far-field and near-field blast scenarios. Also, the effectiveness of foamed concrete and polyurea coatings with different thicknesses to UHPC panels is assessed under both blast scenarios.

Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars can serve as an appropriate substitute for steel rebar due to their lightweight, high strength, and good corrosion resistance. Nevertheless, the long-term success of FRP bars as promising reinforcement in concrete depends on understanding the bond between FRP bars and concrete. ACI 440.1R-15 recommends utilizing CSA S806-12 Annex S ‘‘Test Method for Determining the Bond-Dependent Coefficient of FRP Rods” for estimating the design value of the bond-dependent coefficient (kb). However, this testing method requires a four-point loaded 3.0-meter-long beam with continuous assessment of developed crack width. Due to the complexity of the test, studies were scarce in assessing the factors affecting the kb. Therefore, this study aimed to relate the experimental kb obtained from large-scale testing to a relatively simpler bond strength value, τu , obtained from smaller-scale FRP pull-out test. The relation was established utilizing data collection for both tests from experimental studies. Three machine learning techniques (Ensembled Trees Artificial Neural Network and Gaussian Process Machines) were then applied to mimic and understand the complex bond-behaviour at varying FRP and concrete properties. The results have shown promising relation (R2>0.8) between kb and τu for different surface textures and fibre types.

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite rebar is a non-metallic concrete reinforcement alternative that has been successfully deployed in hundreds of structural applications globally. The increasing demand for FRP rebar as a metal alternative is driven by its unique value proposition, including lightweight, high strength, magnetic transparency, and most significantly, corrosion resistance. FRP rebar is fabricated through pultrusion, a high throughput composite fabrication process in which, resin-impregnated fiber undergoes rapid cure when pulled through a heated furnace. Considering the open nature of the open pultrusion process, expansion of production capacity for FRP rebar manufacturing demands the use of advanced resins that are free from Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), enable high throughput production, and deliver an outstanding translation of fiber properties following cure. In this work, we will present an epoxy system that is inherently VOC Free and is tailored to enable high throughput manufacturing of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) rebar at scale. Furthermore, the rapid formation of highly crosslinked structures achieved with this resin system during pultrusion is found to enable outstanding fiber property translation resulting in high modulus (>70 GPa) and corrosion resistance (>80 % tensile strength retention without load) that exceeds existing standards such as ASTM D7957.