ABSTRACT
Growing demand for infrastructure and its maintenance is resulting in a spike in concrete demand. Concrete is composed of several constituents, including granular rocks (aggregates), water, and cement. Conventional cement contains ground clinker, a kilned and quenched material with notable energy-derived and process-derived greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Many mitigation strategies have been proposed to reduce these GHG emissions; among which is improved efficiency in the use of cement in concrete and/or efficiency in the use of concrete in infrastructure systems. In this work, the environmental impacts of several efficiency-related mitigation strategies are presented including increased use of mineral admixtures to reduce cement demand, the effects of concrete strength for axial and flexural load bearing applications, and the tradeoffs in using steel reinforcement in beams and columns. Results show that depending on several factors, different mitigation methods to improve efficiency of cement or concrete result in greater reductions of GHG emissions.
