Self Compacting Concrete - Essay Example

It was first developed in Japan in 1988 as a result of research on durability of concrete structures. Since then, research on SCC has progressed to a large extent, leading to its increased applicability in the construction industry. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, goes the adage. Such is the story of Self-Compacting Concrete, whose invention materialized out of an urgent need. Increasing the durability of concrete structures was Japan’s major concern in the 1980s (Okamura & Ouchi, 2003).

Compaction of concrete has to be performed by skilled workers to ensure durability of the concrete structures, but Japan faced a severe shortage of skilled workers in its construction industry. Therefore, the development of self-compacting concrete that could fill every space of the formwork by virtue of its own weight without the need of mechanical vibration seemed a very promising alternative. This would also eliminate noise sensitivity, white finger syndrome and other environmental and biological inconveniences that resulted from the vibrations on site (De Schutter, 2007).

The concept of SCC was first proposed in 1986 by Okamura, and Ozawa & Maekawa carried out fundamental studies on SCC at the University of Tokyo (Okamura & Ouchi). The first prototype of SCC was created in 1988 using material that already existed on the market and this prototype showed satisfactory performance in drying and hardening shrinkage, density after hardening, and heat of hydration (Okamura & Ouchi, 2003). This concrete was termed ‘high-performance concrete’, which was later changed to ‘self-compacting high performance concrete’ due to the existence of durable concretes that used the same term for reference.

The newly developed SCC was self-compactable (at the fresh stage), avoided initial defects (at the early age), and protected from external factors (after the hardening) (Okamura & Ouchi). After the creation of the first prototype, major contractors developed