Construction and Building Materials 84 (2015) 301–306

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Designing more sustainable and greener self-compacting concrete

Guangcheng Long ⇑, Yu Gao, Youjun Xie
School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, PR China

h i g h l i g h t s

 The environmental impacts of SCCs with different mixing proportions were investigated.
 The relationships between environmental impact and compressive strength of SCC were analyzed.
 Some suggestions for designing more sustainable and greener SCC were proposed.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The present paper focuses on understanding the relationship between the mixing proportion parameters of
Received 14 October 2014 self-compacting concrete (SCC) and its environmental impact and thus developing more greener SCC. Three
Received in revised form 8 February 2015 simple indices combining the embodied environmental impacts with engineering properties (such as
Accepted 28 February 2015
strength) of SCC are proposed. And 16 SCC mixtures with different compositions are designed to quantita-
Available online 25 March 2015
tively evaluate the corresponding environmental impacts of SCC by use of the proposed index. Results
indicate the ecological impact index of SCC closely depends on the mixing proportions. The addition of high
Keywords:
volume mineral admixtures not only can effectively reduce the e-CO2 and e-resource indices but also
Self-compacting concrete
Environmental impact
decrease the e-energy index. Selecting a reasonable aggregate volume can help decrease the environmental
Mixing proportion impact of SCC. Employing recycled limestone sand to replace river sand will increase the e-CO2 index and
e-CO2 e-energy index of SCC, although it can reduce the e-resource index. Regardless of the mixing proportion
e-Energy parameters, the e-CO2, e-energy and e-resource index of SCC both decrease with the increasing compressive
e-Resource strength for SCCs with a compressive strength ranging from 30 to 60 MPa.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction makers and manufacturers are interested in understanding and

Concrete is one of the most widely used building materials with
a global consumption rate approaching 25 gigatons (Gt) per year
[1,2]. CO2 (from industries and the use of fossil fuels) emitted from
concrete production and transportation is estimated to be approxi-
mately 10% of the total man-made CO2 in the atmosphere [3];
consequentially, its environmental burden is significant in terms
of environmental emissions, energy consumption and resource
use. For these reasons, the sustainable development of concrete
has received widespread attention; domestic and foreign scholars
have conducted a series of investigations and explorations on
green concrete [4–8] and, thus, vigorously promoted the develop-
ment of greening technology for concrete. In China, Zhongwei first
proposed the concept of ‘green high performance concrete’ in the
1990s, pointing out that green high performance concrete is the
future of concrete development [9]. A diverse audience of decision
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 731 82656568; fax: +86 731 85571736.
E-mail address: longguangcheng@126.com (G. Long).
lowering the environmental impact of concrete and other buildings
materials, which requires a life-cycle assessment (LCA) approach
[2,10]. Various strategies have been followed, separately or in
combination, to improve the sustainability of concrete and even
to develop green or ecological concrete. These strategies consist
of incorporating recycled materials in concrete, optimizing the
mix design, reducing CO2 emissions by decreasing the Portland
cement content, partially replacing Portland cement with
cementitious by-product materials, increasing the durability of
concrete to extend its service life and to reduce long-term resource
consumption, and selecting low impact construction methods.
As one of the great innovations in concrete technology, self-
compacting concrete (SCC) is in the process of casting without
imposing additional vibrating forces, and only gravity is necessary
to completely fill the mold cavity to form a uniform dense concrete
[11,12]. Compared with traditional vibrated concrete, SCC has
obvious advantages in terms of reducing construction costs and
improving the construction environment, which are significant
forward steps in the direction of sustainably developed concrete.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.02.072
0950-0618/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
302 G. Long et al. / Construction and Building Materials 84 (2015) 301–306

However, compared to the vibrated concrete, unit SCC often
requires higher volume binder levels (cement and cementitious
materials) in the present technology. This will not only increase
the cost of SCC but also significantly elevate its environmental
burden. Therefore, some researchers have recently focused on the
development of an eco-friendly version of SCC [13–16]. Wallevik
et al. proposed the classification for SCC in terms of binder content
[13]. They also defined the Eco-SCC as an economical and environ-
mentally advantageous alternative to traditional vibrated concrete,
in which the total powder content (cement, GGBS, fly ash, silica
fume, limestone filler) is 315 kg/m3 or below. Mansour et al. pre-
sented the distinctive balance between the sustainability pillars
using the innovative EcoCrete and EcoCrete-Xtreme mixes [14].
The EcoCrete and EcoCrete-Xtreme SCC mixes were designed to
have very to extremely low Portland cement and binder contents,
respectively. However, the breakdown of materials used in both
mixes remains undisclosed. Sahmaran et al. [15] investigated
whether spent foundry sand can be successfully used as a sand
replacement material in cost-effective, green SCC. In their research,
the SCC mixtures were developed to be even more inexpensive and
environmentally friendly by incorporating Portland cement with
fly ash. As mentioned above, there are some new achievements
with respect to the environmental impact of SCC. However, the
published documents on the environmental impact assessment
of SCC are still somewhat limited, and more detailed research is
needed to further promote the sustainable development of SCC
and to enrich the content of eco-SCC.
The present paper focuses on understanding the relationship
between the mixing proportion parameters of SCC and the
environmental impact of SCC and, thus, further develops a new
eco-SCC mix design method. For this reason, three simple indices
combining the embodied environmental impacts with engineering
properties (such as strength) of SCC are proposed. Then, 16 SCC
mixtures with different compositions are designed to quantita-
tively evaluate and compare the corresponding environmental
impacts of SCC by use of the proposed index. Finally, some useful
suggestions for reasonably designing eco-SCC are presented.
2. Methodology
2.1. Experimental design
Briefly, the experiments were designed to determine how the mixing propor-
tions of SCC influence its greenness and to compare the environmental impacts of
various SCCs with different compositions of raw materials. The raw materials used
in this experiment include cementitious materials, river sand (S) with a fineness
modulus of 2.86 or recycled limestone sand with a fineness modulus of 3.0
produced by quarry waste-limestone-chip, crushed limestone (G) with a size of
5–20 mm, water (W) and chemical admixtures. Ordinary Portland cement (C) with
a compressive strength grade of 42.5 MPa, Class I fly ash (F), granulated blast fur-
nace slag (GGBS), and ultrafine metakaolin (M) with a size of 2000 mesh were used
as the cementitious materials. Limestone powder (LP), which originates from
grounded quarry waste-limestone-chips, was used as inert filler. The chemical
compositions of the mentioned cementitious materials are shown in Table 1. The
chemical admixtures used included polycarboxylate superplasticizer (SP) with a
water-reducing rate of 26%, hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (viscosity modified
Table 1
Physical and chemical compositions of cementitious materials.
Item Chemical compositions/by wt% Specific area
(m2/kg)
SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 CaO MgO SO3
Cement 21.3 5.8 3.9 59.7 3.4 2.3 335
Fly ash 52.7 25.9 9.7 3.7 1.2 0.2 430
Granulated 34.2 13.8 15.3 26.6 8.1 – 415
slag
Metakaolin 55.2 42.5 1.3 0.5 0.1 – –
Limestone – – – 50.3 2.8 – 390
powder
agent, VMA) and alkylbenzene sulfonate air-entraining agent (AE), aiming to
achieve a pleasing workability for fresh concrete. Tap water was used as the mixing
water.
To reach the above goal and for better analysis of the greenness of concrete pre-
pared by different proportioning parameters, we designed sixteen SCC mixtures
with medium strength grade, including four series. To cover the main SCC types
used in practice, different factors in these concretes are considered, including the
type of mineral admixtures, replacing the ratio of mineral admixtures, using
recycled limestone powder as the inert filler and including recycled limestone sand
from quarry waste-limestone-chip, as well as the chemical admixture of VMA and
AE. The first SCC serial (C1–C10) covers the concretes incorporated with various
mineral admixtures by replacing 25% and 50% of the cement. The second serial
(C10–12) covers the SCC samples with aggregate volume fractions ranging from
0.6 to 0.64. The third serial (C13) has 5% air content by adding AE agent to reduce
the content of cementitious materials in SCC. The fourth serial (C14–C16) covers the
SCC samples prepared by using recycled limestone sand to replace river sand. The
mixing proportions of the different concrete mixtures are shown in Table 2.
The workability, such as slump flow, T500 and visual stability index (VSI) in the
fresh state and compressive strength at 28-day age of all concrete were tested and
are listed in Table 3. The workability of fresh concrete was tested according to ASTM
C1611. The cubic compressive strength of concrete was tested according to the
Chinese National standard GB/T50081-2002. From the results of property of each
SCC shown in Table 3, it can be found that each fresh SCC possesses high flowability
and excellent segregation resistance. And the compressive strength of hardened
SCCs ranges from 30 MPa to 60 MPa.
2.2. Embodied environmental impact evaluation of SCC
It is well known that the environmental impact evaluation of concrete over its
entire life cycle is complex because many factors affect the final evaluating value. In
particular, it is very difficult to give a credible life cycle inventory analysis for the
concrete life cycle assessment approach [2]. In spite of this, some researchers still
have concentrated on the embodied carbon dioxide (EC) of concrete, given the
growing concern over the global warming impact of the built environment. EC is
the carbon dioxide emitted as a result of material processing and transport, con-
struction, and decommissioning and demolition and is analogous to a fixed capital
cost [17]. Recently, commentators have published EC values for concrete, either as
individual values or a small range depending on certain properties (mainly com-
pressive strength grade and the use of Supplementary cementitious materials).
Hammond and Jones [18] described a monotonic relationship between EC (0.061–
0.188) and characteristic cube strength (8–50 MPa) for CEM I and CEM II concretes.
Meanwhile, Hacker et al. [19] used a value of 0.200 with no strength discrimination,
while Harrison et al. [20] used 0.13 for plain concrete and 0.24 for ‘2% reinforced’
with the additional CO2 attributable to the steel. Among those values reported on
a volumetric basis, Flower and Flower [21] used values of 0.225–0.322 kg/m3 for
normal and blended cement concretes, corresponding to an EC of 0.09–0.12.
Purnell et al. reported on the variation of embodied carbon dioxide in concrete with
common mixing proportion parameters. They also analyzed the carbon footprint of
reinforced concrete based on the ‘functional unit’ method [22]. However, none of
these studies provided results on the embodied environmental impact of SCC.
Moreover, detailed quantitative analysis related to the energy consumption and
resource usage of concrete during production, transport and construction is limited.
Based on the above analysis, we investigated the environmental impact of unit
SCC (per m3) from three aspects: CO2 emissions, energy consumption and primary
natural resource expenditure. Thus, three indices, including the embodied CO2
index (e-CO2 index, CI), embodied energy index (e-energy index, EI) and embodied
primary natural resource (e-resource index, RI), were proposed to assess the green-
ness of unit SCC. The three indices were obtained by considering a combination of
the environmental efficiency and the comprehensive engineering properties of SCC
(i.e., cubic compressive strength), as demonstrated in the following Eqs. (1–3):
embodied  CO2 ðkg=m3 Þ
CI ¼ ð1Þ
r ðMPaÞ
embodied  energy ðMJ=m3 Þ
EI ¼ ð2Þ
r ðMPaÞ
embodied  primary  resources ðkg=m3 Þ
RI ¼ ð3Þ
r ðMPaÞ
The embodied CO2 emissions and embodied energy consumption are calculated
by considering all major emissions or consumptions during the extraction of raw
materials, transportation to the site, construction processes and so on but not
post-installation operations, e.g., demolition, because these are generally not
significant [17]. The environmental impact value of SCC coming from the raw mate-
rials, i.e., the value of embodied CO2 of SCC from each raw material, can be obtained
by totaling the multiple emissions of embodied CO2 per unit and the mass of each
raw material in SCC per m3. The embodied environmental impact of each raw mate-
rial of SCC used in this paper, as shown in Table 4, refers to the available author-
itative data in the open literature [7,17,22,23–27]. The energy consumption of
 G. Long et al. / Construction and Building Materials 84 (2015) 301–306 303

Table 2
Mixing proportions of sixteen SCC mixtures.

Serials Compositions (kg/m3)

C FA GGBS M LP S G SP VMA AE
C1 484 0 0 0 0 822 837 4.35 0.096 0
C2 390 130 0 0 0 822 837 4.00 0 0
C3 275 275 0 0 0 822 837 5.80 0 0
C4 370 0 125 0 0 822 837 3.25 0 0
C5 255 0 255 0 0 822 837 3.85 0.102 0
C6 382 77 51 0 0 822 837 3.90 0 0
C7 260 130 130 0 0 822 837 4.55 0 0
C8 260 130 0 130 0 822 837 8.00 0 0
C9 268 107 0 107 54 822 837 7.00 0 0
C10 268 107 107 0 54 822 837 4.20 0 0
C11 283 113 113 0 57 795 810 5.40 0 0
C12 254 101.5 101.5 0 51 848 864 4.80 0 0
C13 255 128 127 0 0 822 837 6.90 0 0.05
C14 283 113 113 0 57 795* 810 5.05 0.102 0
C15 268 107 107 0 54 822* 837 5.50 0.096 0
C16 254 101.5 101.5 0 51 848* 864 4.80 0.091 0
*
The recycled limestone sand was used in the three samples.

3. Results and discussion

Table 3
The workability in fresh state and compressive strength in hardened state of different 3.1. e-CO2 index of SCC with different mixing proportions
SCCs.

Serials Workability Compressive strength Fig. 1 shows the e-CO2 index of SCCs with different composi-
at 28-day/MPa tions. From the results shown in Fig. 1(a), the e-CO2 index of SCC
Slump flow/mm T500/s VSI
C1 595 3.9 1 43.1
prepared only by ordinary Portland cement and VMA is the highest
C2 675 3.8 1 38.6 among these ten SCCs (see serial C1–C10 listed in Table 2). The
C3 685 5.2 0 42.4 type of mineral admixtures and the ratio of mineral admixtures
C4 680 3.5 1 55.4 replaced cement both greatly influence the e-CO2 index of SCC.
C5 630 3.7 0 48.6
The e-CO2 index of SCC decreases with the increasing replacement
C6 635 4.9 1 48.7
C7 595 6.0 0 48.6 ratio of mineral admixtures. Compared with FA, the addition of
C8 685 4.1 0 54.4 GGBS is more effective in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions
C9 560 4.3 0 57.4 of SCC with respect to per unit strength of MPa. Moreover, one
C10 580 3.0 0 56.0
C11 650 3.2 0 49.3
C12 720 4.3 0 38.8
C13 710 3.6 0 42.6 10
C14 680 3.0 0 42.6
0 25% replacement rao 50% replacement rao
C15 640 3.5 0 45.1
C16 600 4.5 0 36.3 8
e-CO2 (kg/MPa.m3)

Table 4 4
Embodied carbon dioxide (e-CO2), embodied energy consumption (e-energy) and
embodied primary resource consumption (e-resource) of the raw materials of
concrete. 2

Items e-CO2 e-Energy e-Resource References

0
Cement 0.83 4.727 1.73 [17,23,24] FA GGBS FA+GGBS FA+M FA+GGBS+LP FA+M+LP
Fly ash 0.009 0.833 0 [8,17] (a) SCCs with different mineral admixtures
GGBS 0.019 1.588 0 [8,17]
10
Metakaolin 0.4 3.48 1.0 [25]
volume fraction of total aggregate
Limestone powder 0.017 0.35 0 [26]
0.6 0.62 0.64
River Sand 0.001 0.022 1.0 [26] 8
Recycled limestone sand 0.006 0.114 0 [26]
e-CO2 (kg/MPa.m3)

Crushed stone 0.007 0.113 1.0 [26]

Superplasticizer 0.72 18.3 0 [27] 6
Air entraining 0.086 2.1 0 [27]
Water 0.0003 0.006 0 [23] 4

3
SCC is 3.46 MJ/m during construction, considering the pumping process, and
0
1 MJ/m3 for the transport, considering the 30 km transport distance in this paper
river sand limestone sand river sand, with AE
[28]. The embodied primary natural resource expenditure of SCC per m3 was
calculated only considering the raw natural minerals. In addition, the environmen- (b) SCCs with different aggregate(volume) and admixtures
tal impact of VEA was not considered in this investigation owing to a little bit
contribution on environmental burden. Fig. 1. e-CO2 index for SCCs with different mixing proportions.
304 G. Long et al. / Construction and Building Materials 84 (2015) 301–306

can find that the combination of FA, GGBS with LP added into SCC and VMA without mineral admixtures, among these ten serials
further decreases the e-CO2 index. The corresponding reduction SCCs (see serial C1–C10 in Table 2). The e-energy index of SCC
percentage is more than 50% compared with the control SCC (serial can be remarkably reduced by incorporating mineral admixtures.
C1). Moreover, the e-energy index decreases with the increasing
The results shown in Fig. 1(b) indicate that the variation of replacement ratio of mineral admixtures in SCC. Specifically, the
volume fraction of total aggregate in SCC also can slightly affect SCC with the addition of FA, GGBS and LP has the lowest e-energy
the e-CO2 index whether for SCC samples with river sand (see seri- index value among the investigated mixtures. However, the
als C10–C12 listed in Table 3) or samples with recycled limestone e-energy index of the SCC with FA and GGBS or FA and M is slightly
sand to replace river sand (see serials C14–C16 listed in Table 3). larger than that of SCC with the typical GGBS amount. This mainly
An optimum aggregate volume would seemingly make SCC reach results from the low activity of FA at an early age and, thus, a low
a minimum value in the e-CO2 index. Obviously, if the aggregate compressive strength at 28-day age.
volume in unit SCC decreases, then the paste volume or cementi- From the results shown in Fig. 2b, it can be observed that there
tious materials will increase to maintain the constant volume of is an optimum aggregate volume in SCC with regard to minimizing
unit SCC. On the contrary, the paste volume in SCC will decrease. the e-energy index per compressive strength in unit SCC. The most
In addition, the other mixing proportion parameters, including notable is the SCC with recycled limestone sand to replace river
the dosage of superplasticizer, will vary to keep the self-compact- sand, which has a larger e-energy index compared with that of
ing properties of fresh SCC when the aggregate volume changes. SCC with river sand. Using recycled limestone sand to replace the
These will result in more or less variation in the e-CO2 index value river sand will increase the energy consumption with regards to
of SCCs with different aggregate volumes. Meanwhile, one can compressive strength per unit SCC. Moreover, increasing air
observe that for the sample with 5% air content by adding AE agent content by adding AE agent and thus reducing the cementitious
(see serial C13) to reduce the content of cementitious materials, materials content in SCC seems ineffective at decreasing the
the corresponding e-CO2 index is not lower than that of serial e-energy index compared with the control SCC.
C10 or C7 SCC with 2% air content, as expected. The reasons may
result from two aspects. One source is the decrease in the compres-
3.3. e-Resource index of SCC with different mixing proportions
sive strength of the sample caused by introducing air bubbles. The
other one is the increase in the dosage of chemical admixtures to
The e-resource index of SCC with different compositions is
maintain reasonable workability in the fresh state.
shown in Fig. 3. From the results given in Fig. 3a, it can be found
that the e-resource index of SCC with various mineral admixtures
3.2. e-Energy index of SCC with various mixing proportions differs from each other. The incorporation of GGBS is more
effective in reducing the e-resource index of SCC compared with
Fig. 2 displays the results of the e-energy index of SCC with vari- adding FA. Moreover, the addition of FA, GGBS (or M) and LP can
ous compositions. As presented in Fig. 2(a), the highest e-energy further reduce the e-resource index of SCC compared with the
index value is the SCC prepared only by ordinary Portland cement incorporation of FA and GGBS or FA and M. The changes in

60 70
0 25%replacement rao 50%replacement rao
0 25% replacement rao 50%replacement rao
60
50
e-resourece (kg/MPa.m3)
e-energy (MJ/MPa.m3)

50
40
40
30
30
20
20

10 10

0 0
FA GGBS FA+GGBS FA+M FA+GGBS+LP FA+M+LP FA GGBS FA+GGBS FA+M FA+GGBS+LP FA+M+LP

(a) SCCs with different mineral admixtures

(a) SCCs with different mineral admixtures
60 70
volume fraction of total aggregate volume fraction of total aggregate
50 0.6 0.62 0.64 60 0.6 0.62 0.64
e-resource (kg/MPa.m3)
e-energy (MJ/MPa.m3)

50
40
40
30
30
20
20

10 10

0 0
river sand limestone sand river sand, with AE river sand limestone sand river sand, with AE
(b) SCCs with different aggregate (volume) and admixtures (b) SCCs with different aggregate (volume) and admixtures

Fig. 2. e-Energy index for SCCs with different mixing proportions. Fig. 3. e-Resources index for SCCs with different mixing proportions.
 G. Long et al. / Construction and Building Materials 84 (2015) 301–306
compressive strength of SCC at 28-day age caused by various min-
eral admixtures may be the primary reason for the above results.
As presented in Fig. 3b, when the total aggregate volume frac-
tion ranges from 0.6 to 0.62, the e-resource index of SCC with river
sand has almost no significant difference. However, the e-resource
index value clearly increases when the aggregate volume fraction
reaches up to 0.64. The e-resource index of SCC with recycled lime-
stone sand is remarkable lower than that of SCC with river sand.
Meanwhile, the e-resource index of SCC by adding AE agent is also
higher than that of other serial samples, as shown in Fig. 3b.
3.4. Relationship between environmental impact index of SCC and
compressive strength
Fig. 4 demonstrates the relationship between compressive
strength and e-CO2 index of SCC with different compositions.
From the results provided in Fig. 4, one can observe that the
e-CO2 index of SCC gradually decreases with the increasing cubic
compressive strength regardless of the compositions of concrete
investigated in this work. Purnell et al. have also reported similar
results for ordinary vibrated concrete [22]. As shown in Fig. 4,
the relationship between the e-CO2 index and compressive
strength of SCC can be fitted well by a power function. This indi-
cates that a SCC with a lower e-CO2 index can be achieved by
designing a reasonable higher compressive strength.
Fig. 5 shows the relationship between the compressive strength
and e-energy index of SCC with different compositions. As illus-
trated, the e-energy index of SCC decreases with the increasing
compressive strength. The relationship between the e-energy
index and compressive strength can be fitted well by a power
10
8 of the mixing proportion parameters, the environmental impact
y = 145.88x-0.842
e-CO2/(kg/MPa.m3)
6
4
2 of concrete with relative high strength will last longer compared
0 also favor reducing the environmental burden of SCC with
30 40 50
Compressive strength /MPa
Fig. 4. Relationship between compressive strength and e-CO2 index of SCC.
70
60
e-energy (MJ/MPa.m3)
50
y = 892.1x-0.79
40
30
20
30 40 50
Compressive strength /MPa
Fig. 5. Relationship between compressive strength and e-energy index of SCC.
305
function, as shown in Fig. 5. This result is similar to that shown
in Fig. 4. This indicates that designing a SCC with reasonable higher
compressive strength will lead to the reduction of its e-energy
index.
Fig. 6 shows the relationship between compressive strength and
e-resource index of SCC with different compositions. As illustrated,
the e-resource index of SCC decreases with the increasing com-
pressive strength whether for SCC with river sand or with recycled
limestone sand to replace river sand. The relationship between the
e-resource index and compressive strength can be fitted well by a
power function, as shown in Fig. 6. However, the e-resource index
of SCC with recycled limestone sand is much lower than that of SCC
with river sand. This indicates that SCC with a lower e-resource
index can be achieved by designing a reasonable higher compres-
sive strength or by using recycled aggregate.
3.5. Designing sustainable SCC
From the above results, it can be found that the embodied
environmental impacts of SCC, including embodied CO2 emissions,
embodied energy consumption and embodied resource expendi-
ture, are greatly influenced by the mixing proportion parameters.
The addition of mineral admixtures not only can reduce the
e-CO2 index and the e-resource index but also decrease the
e-energy index. Selecting a reasonable aggregate volume can also
help decrease the environmental impact of SCC. However, employ-
ing recycled limestone sand to replace river sand will increase the
e-CO2 index and e-energy index of SCC, though it can reduce the
e-resource index. Increasing the air content by adding AE agent
to reduce the cementitious materials of SCC cannot effectively
reduce the environmental impacts, as expected. Meanwhile, from
the aspect of the relationship between the environmental impacts
of SCC and compressive strength, it was discovered that, regardless
indices, including e-CO2 index, e-energy index and e-resource
index, of SCC decrease with the increasing strength in the investi-
gated samples, i.e., for a concrete with relative high strength, its
e-CO2 emissions, e-energy consumption and e-resource expendi-
tures will be lower. On the other hand, owing to the higher
impermeability (resistance) of aggressive media, the service life
with that of concrete with lower strength. In this light, this will
60 relatively high compressive strength.
Based on the above analysis, one can obtain the following
suggestions related to designing a more sustainable and greener
SCC with low e-CO2 emissions, low e-energy consumption and
e-resource expenditure:
70
river sand recyled limestone sand
60
e-resource (kg/MPa.m3)
50
y = 2544.8x-1.037
40
y = 1359x-1.012
30
20
60 30 40 50 60 70
Compressive strength /MPa
Fig. 6. Relationship between compressive strength and e-resource of SCC.
306 G. Long et al. / Construction and Building Materials 84 (2015) 301–306
(1) Use high volume mineral admixtures (such as 50%) by the
multiple-additions of fly ash, granulated slag and limestone
powder;
(2) select a reasonable aggregate volume; and
(3) design SCC with a compressive strength as high as possible,
such as a cubic compressive strength of 60 MPa.
4. Conclusions
Based on the above research, the following conclusions can be
obtained.
(1) By combining the environmental impacts of SCC with the
engineering properties (compressive strength), three
environmental impact indices, including the embodied CO2
emission index, embodied energy consumption index and
embodied resource expenditure index, were proposed to
evaluate the environmental friendliness of SCC. These three
indices closely depend on the mixing proportions of SCC.
(2) The addition of mineral admixtures not only can reduce the
e-CO2 index and the e-resource index but also decrease the
e-energy index. The environmental impact index of SCC
decreases with the increasing amount of mineral admixtures
used to replace cement. Adding three mineral admixtures of
fly ash, granulated slag and limestone powder into SCC is
more effective in reducing the environmental impact index
compared with the addition of single or two mineral
admixtures.
(3) Selecting a reasonable aggregate volume can help decrease
the environmental impact of SCC. Employing recycled lime-
stone sand to replace river sand will increase the e-CO2
index and e-energy index of SCC, although it can reduce
the e-resource index. Increasing the air content by adding
AE agent to reduce the amount of cementitious materials
of SCC cannot effectively reduce the environmental impacts,
as expected.
(4) Regardless of the mixing proportion parameters, the e-CO2,
e-energy and e-resource index of SCC decrease with the
increasing compressive strength for SCCs with a compres-
sive strength ranging from 30 to 60 MPa.
Of course, the sustainable development of concrete is very
complex issue. To realize the greening of SCC, there are still a lots
works to be done both in theory and practice. Especially, the
investigation in industry related to the environmental impact of
SCC is needed to strengthen in future.
Acknowledgments
The authors highly appreciate the financial support provided by
the National technology projects of China (Grant No. 51178467,
Grant No. 2013CB036201 and Grant No. 2014G001-C).
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