Electrically conductive high-carbon concrete (HCC) is being developed and could potentially be used for many new technological advances. Carbon from high-carbon fly ash and spent carbon sorbent—both byproducts of coal combustion in modern power plants—make HCC a conductor. Initial HCC applications have included low-cost grounding for lightning-vulnerable structures, but a much wider range of use is envisioned, including electrical shielding, self-deicing bridges, induction-charging of electric vehicles, and pavements that function as storage batteries. This article explores some of these possibilities.

One of our young engineers has raised a question about the strength of the concrete required in a footing. She’s pointed out that, although our standard contract documents call for 3000 psi concrete in foundation elements, Table 4.2.1 of ACI 318-08 defines Exposure Class F1 as “Concrete exposed to freezing-and-thawing cycles and occasional exposure to moisture.”1 Table 4.3.1 effectively states that normalweight concrete in Exposure Class F1 must be produced with a minimum water-cementitious material ratio (w/cm) of 0.45 and a minimum strength of 4500 psi

Self-consolidating concrete (SCC) currently holds less than a 10% share of the cast-in-place concrete market in Sweden. One of the factors leading to this low level of acceptance is the difficulty of predicting formwork pressures associated with SCC. If the actual formwork pressure can be monitored in real time, concrete contractors will be able to adjust the casting rate to maintain the formwork pressure below a safe threshold. For that purpose, different methods of measuring formwork pressure were compared