Emphasizing Sustainability in a Course on Reinforced Concrete Design

Concrete is the most widely used building material in the world because of the simplicity of its manufacture, the abundance of raw materials, and the economical method of construction it provides. Invariably, all civil engineering programs in the United States offer courses in the manufacture of the material and the design and construction of reinforced concrete structures. However, students are rarely introduced to sustainability principles and practices that produce “green” reinforced concrete structures, in that raw materials are used efficiently, byproducts are utilized, carbon footprint is reduced, and the resulting structure is energy efficient and durable. Knowledge of sustainability principles will make future structural engineers mindful of the impact of their design on the environment and the society at large. This paper presents an approach for revising a traditional course on reinforced concrete design to include an emphasis on sustainability in all topics. This course is being referred to hereafter as Sustainable Reinforced Concrete Design (SRCD) course. The major drawback of concrete is its environmental impact occurring along four phases: production of materials, construction, lifecycle, and demolition. The common critical element between these phases is the polluting emissions resulting from embodied energy or chemical reactions. The SRCD course will integrate sustainability into the planning, designing, and construction stages of reinforced concrete. It will emphasize strategies and practices for using concrete in smart and innovative ways to achieve sustainable, “green” buildings. Sustainability principles will be addressed from two perspectives: materials and structural design. From the standpoint of materials, production and use of ultra-high performance concrete will be presented, explaining the associated benefits of consuming fewer raw materials while providing higher durability and longer service life. Emerging technologies for manufacturing and using “green” cements and their impact on future concrete construction will be addressed. Concrete mixture design with less Portland cement content through the incorporation of byproducts, such as fly ash, slag, and rubber tire wastes, will be covered, to illustrate the compounded benefit of using byproducts for eliminating waste and enhancing the properties of concrete. Sustainability in structural design will be addressed from various angles, such as using highperformance concrete (with compressive strength in excess of 10,000 psi), which is not explicitly addressed in the ACI 318 Building Code. Design examples will be shown to illustrate the sustainability benefits of using high-performance concrete. The benefits of training future engineers to incorporate sustainability in design are numerous. The proposed SRCD course is an effort to integrate sustainability in a traditional course on concrete design. It is expected that the revised course will provide the fundamentals upon which students will continue building in order to develop alternative concrete building strategies for sustainable concrete construction. The objectives of the SRCD course will be met through a number of classroom activities, including lectures, review of technical literature, term papers, and case studies that illustrate the benefits of sustainable concrete design. P ge 24477.2