Placing and curing self-compacting concrete in hot climates

Abstract

Self-compacting concrete (SCC) should present compatible quality and cost with conventional concrete (CC). Although SCC is advantageous its processability in hot climate regions is not well understood and is the main topic of this investigation. We used similar compositions of SCC and CC to study the fresh cement workability: Marsh Cone and Vicat test for different temperatures, and a Scanning Electronic Microscopy and other tests for durability study. According to the obtained results the workability is more sensitive to temperature variation which may be critical to transport and casting. The microstructure and results of durability tests were not much different from SCC and CC; it can be therefore concluded that the durability of SCC remains compatible with the CC. A real application of SCC for a large construction works was analyzed during this research. The results showed that it was feasible to apply SCC even in hot climate regions.