ABSTRACT
In addition there are approaches which aid the construction process and which may improve the performance, either by increasing the load capacity or by enhancing the durability.
Perhaps one of the major obstacles to the adoption of modified concretes is that conventional concrete is a relatively inexpensive material. It has thus been perfectly acceptable to design what might be described as inefficient
structures out of normal concrete, ones that behave adequately in terms of strength or durability but are unnecessarily conservative in some areas. For example, the provision of the required cement content to ensure adequate durability is likely to result in a concrete strength that is higher than is required from the point of view of safety. High cover to the reinforcement will increase the self-weight of members, which could be significant for long-span structures. Careful choice of a modified concrete having the specific characteristics required, possibly only being used for critical parts of the structure, could be a better solution.
