Articles

Precast Elements in UHPC: Improving on Their Carbon Footprint

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Abstract

Hi-Con has produced precast UHPC since 2001 for the Northern European market (mainly balconies, staircases and façade elements). In this market there has been a growing need for information concerning the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) of our products, and we made our first EPD in 2017. As could be expected the carbon footprint of our products was relatively large as the cement content of UHPC is quite high—but through optimized design the impact on the building was reduced, so that UHPC compares favorably with concrete and steel. The EPD has been necessary as many buildings are evaluated using the German DGNB system, that scores a building based on a number of environmental and social aspects. Starting January 2023 any new buildings in Denmark will need to have an impact lower than 12 kg CO2/m2/year—and in 2027 this number will be 9. Other countries have similar requirements and often builders specify stricter requirements—which means that we have started to change our UHPC formulation to improve sustainability. This could, however, have an impact on some of the properties of UHPC, such as durability. The presentation will show some early results and highlight some of our concerns.

Keywords: precast, sustainability, durability, standards

How to Cite:

Aarup, B., (2023) “Precast Elements in UHPC: Improving on Their Carbon Footprint”, International Interactive Symposium on Ultra-High Performance Concrete 3(1): 56. doi: https://doi.org/10.21838/uhpc.16676

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