ABSTRACT
Economic forces make concrete the most suitable material for the majority of the world’s infrastructure. Concrete forms an indispensable element of motorways, airfields, harbours, canals, wastewater treatment facilities, and water supply schemes. High-rise buildings, once the preserve of steel, are now being executed in both concrete and steel/concrete composite construction. Concrete railway sleepers are displacing timber in many parts of the world. Thus concrete continues to play its crucial, if understated, role in the planet’s development. Practices in the concrete industry therefore have significant global effects.
