Special UHPC materials are virtually the bridge material of the future

Bridges are among the oldest, most important and most prominent construction tasks of humanity. For a long time, bridge construction was mainly characterised by functional criteria, but nowadays more and more attention is paid to visual appearance. Highly developed building technologies can be used to create exciting, previously unimaginable constructions.


Several characteristics of UHPC make it a desirable construction materials. With increased compressive (more than 200 MPa) and tensile 
strengths, the material lends itself well to 
structural applications by allowing higher loads 
to be supported. By utilising the higher strengths, 
traditional structural components can also be 
reduced in size and weigth.
Another benefit of UHPC is the high density and
none porosity of the material making it essentially 
impermeable to water and chlorides, thus making 
the material highly durable. Both characteristics 
also make UHPC attractive in areas of high impact 
and where water or chloride ions can corrode steel 
reinforcement. 

Advantages

• High compressive strength
• Fast development of compressive strength
• High wear and impact resistant
• Absolute frost and thaw resistant
• Impermeable to fluids but still vapour permeable
• Anti corrosive features
• Good bonding to sub-bases, aggregates and reinforcement
• High temperature resistant
• Fast curing
• Sort repair stops
• Jointless lining

Elements of a bridge that can be executed with UHPC

• Bridge foundation 
• Bridge bearings
• Bridge supports
• Bridge deck and bridge deck pavement
• Prestressed concrete foundation 

www.hhbc-consulting.de
info@hhbc-consulting.de 

UHPC Hot gas slide system in a cement plant

A customer from the cement industry had permanent problems with a hot gas gate valve. The gate valve was made of a stainless steel construction with a refractory heat protection lining. The average gas temperature is in the pipesystem is 800°/1472°F - 1000°C/1832°F.

The problems in detail were

• Significant wear due to high dust loading in the gas flow
• Heat exchange problems arose as a result of temperature changes and the result was breakdowns in the refractory lining and problems with the movement of the slide.

We engineer a slider made complete of UHPC HT (High Temperature) with the following characteristics

• High thermal shock resistance
• Thermal stability up to 1100°C/2012°F
• Very high wear resistance
• High impact resistance
• There was no metallic reinforcement used, so there was no metallic thermal expansion
• Due to the very high strength values ​​of the UHPC used, the board thickness could be reduced by more than 60% compared to the old refractory construction.
• This resulted in a weight reduction of almost 50%, which also reduce power consumption.
• a drastic reduction of the idle time and better movability of the gate valve resulted in a 16% better production.

Here are a short video to show the impact resistance of the gate plate

www.hhbc-consulting.de
info@hhbc-consulting.de

UHPC Supervisor projects worldwide

Today we completed our 100th Supervisor project

Since the first customer request more than 20 years ago, we have meanwhile completed projects with UHPC materials in more than 35 countries around the world. We looked after offshore, corrosion, wear protection, concrete rehabilitation, architecture, hydraulic engineering, road construction, etc.
On behalf of our customers, we have carried out assembly projects, trained fitters on site, carried out complete assemblies independently, assessed damage, worked out repair solutions, etc.
Our current project was the rehabilitation of 10 km of lanes at Europe's largest flower auctioneer.

Here some impressions of our worldwide jobs

www.hhbc-consulting.de
info@hhbc-consulting.de

The future of offshore wind energy with UHPC

Monopile wind turbine designs are still the most widely used standard foundation design in many coastal areas.
Jackets, Gravity base, Tripods and Tri-piles systems are also used depending on requirements and needs.
UHPC is used in all foundation techniques.

Monopiles

UHPC grouting material is used for the connection between monopile and transition pieces.
Monopiles have been deployed with even larger turbines in even deeper waters, currently up to 41 meters. 9 diameter monopiles are now in production. We estimate that more than 2000 monopiles worldwide have been installed with UHPC grouting and transitions pieces.

Benefits

• Extremely high strength
• Very good fatigue properties
• Minimal shrinkage
• Extreme bond between UHPC grouting material and steel
• Fast setting development
• Very high inner cohesion
• No mixing with sea water
• Absolutly seawater resistant
• Very low hydration heat
• No corrosion

Jackets
Jackets are generally considered to be better than monopiles for seabeds where the substrate is poor or deeper water. So here UHPC can be used in the "transition piece" and in the lower foundation.

Gravity foundations
Are well suited for rocky sea beds. The complete foundation system can be manufactured on land and then pulled into position with a ship and then sunk. Depending on the design, the entire foundation piece can be made from UHPC

The future - with floating foundation design

This includes

• Spar
• Semi-submersible
• Barge
• Tension-leg platform

Spars
First systems are already being tested. In the near future, a wind farm with spar systems is to be built off Scotland.
These systems can reach total lengths of over 90 meters, with about 75 m of them underwater. The entire underwater area can be made of UHPC.

Semi-submersible
Similar to the Spars, the whole underwater construction can be made of UHPC.

Barge
Barge systems are actually classic pontoon systems. There are now UHPC concrete available which in addition to their high strength also swim without the large cavities inside the barge must be generated.

 

www.hhbc-consulting.de
info@hhbc-consulting.de

UHPC Grouting of Pile Jacket Annulus at RS 16 Platform, for ONGC, Bombay High, India

Larsen and Toubro Ltd  was engaged in installing two new platforms in the Bombay High field, but due to issues with the specified pressure grouting technique, the jacket pile connection could not be completed on the last remaining leg on the RS 16 platform.
A Danish company was contacted in April 2009 and immediately mobilised all their grouting equipment and personnel together with around 80 tons of special UHPC grouting materials to Mumbai.
UHPC grouting material was specified due to its high compressive strength and modulus of elasticity in the region of four times higher than conventional grouts. In addition, the highly viscous and cohesive nature of UHPC prevents the risk of cement particles washout or being mixed with
water, making UHPC grouting material ideal for use in underwater conditions.

Working from Sapura 3000, a DP Heavy Lift and Pipe laying Vessel, grout hoses were connectedby divers to the pile grout inlet underwater at a depth of 46 meters. Grouting works were carried out 24 hours to expedite completion and all grouting works were
completed within 16 hours. The topside was installed 36 hours after completion of the grouting.


The use of UHPC materials have been proven to provide fast and efficient solutions to structural installations and repairs in the offshore environment.

Repair and new construction of concrete structures at coastal areas with UHPC

The splash zone is without doubt one of the more 

aggressive environment for wood, concrete and/or 

steel. Here you have the movement of the water 
inducing wear on the structures, high level of 

oxygen inducing a perfect corrosive environment. 

In salt water chlorides are present all over but 

combined with good access of oxygen this zone is 
where the problem is.
 In icy regions ice sliding by 

a structure will tear and wear the structure. 

UHPC Ultra High Performance Concrete is here 

an ideal construction material or protection layer.

Sea level rise
It is likely to lead to greater flooding, 
salinisation and erosion in coastal areas, 
affecting millions of people worldwide and 
costing billions of dollars of damage.
Today, a lot of big cities are right on the 
coast or at estuaries. Changes in sea level 
or in severe storms or torrential floods 
directly hit these cities. Most cities have
not yet realized this danger and have not 
yet taken any protective measures. Such 
safeguards include raising defenses, 
implementing flood storage and construction 
of new river barrier systems.

Many important industries are located 
particularly in Asia directly on the coast. 
Without future active coastal protection, 
this industry will be a major problem for the 
respective country.

Prefabricated concrete elements made of 
special UHPC concrete are ideal for effective, 
long-lasting coastal protection.
The elements can be made slim and light due 
to the enormous strength. They are easy to 
transport and assemble. They are extremely 
corrosion resistant and virtually repair-free. 
The expected lifetime far exceeds that of 
standard concrete elements.

Areas of application are

• Marine structures
• Coastal protection
• Quay construction
• Weir, dock and wharf construction
• Jetty construction

In many coastal industries seawater is used for 
process cooling. In steel or concrete pipes, the 
water is pumped directly from the sea into the 
corresponding production.

To ensure the necessary process cooling 
permanently, it is extremely important that the 
water supply is always constant. A reduction 
by the flow rate, for example, a reduction in the 
conveying cross section of the pipeline can 
result in the worst case to a stop in the production 
or cause damage to the system due to overheating.

In most cases, standard concrete qualities is used 
in the manufacture of concrete pipes.

These tubes have a rough and porous surface. 
Shells of all kinds can be very firmly and 
permanently anchor on the basis of porosity in the 
concrete structure. Especially pipes in cooling 
water or cooling water channels must regularly 
notify the mussel case be removed.

In the removal the firmly anchored mussel beds a 
part of the concrete surface is also always removed, 
which can cause the concrete reinforcement may 
corrode. The result is a time consuming and costly 
repairs to the existing concrete structure.

UHPC concrete has a compared to standard concrete 
extremely low porosity and a very high wear resistance. 
These characteristics make it is not possible to 
permanently anchor the shells in concrete. Removal of 
the mussel beds is quick and does not damage the 
concrete surface.

Standard concretes can effectively protected with a 
10 - 20 mm UHPC layer for a very long time.


www.hhbc-consulting.de
info@hhbc-consulting.de

UHPC - 3D Printing

At the moment we are trying to develop the printing of concrete more professionally worldwide, so that all imaginable constructions can be printed out of concrete. Here, in my opinion, the interaction of printing system and printer material is the deciding factor, similar to an inkjet printer. If you have the wrong ink quality, there can be significant difficulties.

With standard concretes or improved standard concrete, good to good results can be achieved with concrete walls. But what if a combination of insulation and concrete is required, as well as high strength for the printing of high-rise buildings or filigree structures? Here the standard concrete comes quickly to its material limits abuts.
In addition, the printheads are moving faster and faster in all dimensions - so an extremely fast strength development in conjunction with high adhesion is necessary.

In our opinion, all these requirements can only be achieved with extreme UHPC material qualities. We are currently working on these materials. At the moment we also process a wide variety of material combinations to make them printable. In doing so, our over 20 years of experience in the development of UHPC casting and injection materials, production and application experience in a variety of industries around the world are key to our success.

Not to mention a very good pumpability with low load on the pump or the printer system.

We are not looking for the standard - we are looking for the extraordinary. Do you want to accompany us?

Desig

In the field of design, we believe that we will be printing extremely fine filigree structures using special UHPC grades. Today wall thicknesses in the design range of less than 10 mm can be achieved with UHPC design qualities. First attempts are currently running at us to drastically reduce the wall thicknesses.
In our design workshop, we "play" with the most diverse combinations of materials, sometimes with amazing results.

 

WPE DK International

Phone: 0049 176 601 73146
E-mail: info@wpe-dk.dk
Homepage: www.wpe-dk.com

UHPC Workshop in Germany

Our manufactory is not very big. Here we
playfully develop new design ideas, new
material combinations and, if necessary,
develop new UHPC Ultra High Performance
concrete mixing recipes.

Our manufactury is to transform the
advantages and peculiarities of our own
UHPC material creations into design
designs. We also develop special material creations for designers, similar to those in the textile industry.
Our UHPC material qualities are used from the smallest jewelery to complete house interiors.

We have the possibility for interested parties outside of Europe to connect directly to our UHPC development laboratory via TEAM, SKYPE etc.. After making an appointment, we will then be available for you.

We only produce UHPC design material of the highest quality for designers.

Some of our qualities can be processed
with standard mixing machines.

We are working on a new cast process
in order to be able to achieve even finer
wall thicknesses and structures, or to be
able to use previously used processing
techniques in the field of clay processing
and plastering for our material. We are
currently working on a material quality
that can be processed like clay on the
turntable.

We plan to move our manufacture
workshop this year in an old farm
with big barns.
Here, we want to invite students and
designer from all over the world to
work together with us to develop new
design ideas and put them to practical
use, which requires more space.


You want to try out our UHPC design
material?

We ship 5 kg plastic containers free of
charge within Europe.
Outside of Europe, unfortunately, we
have to take a very small freight surcharge.

WPE DK International

Phone: 0049 176 601 73146
E-mail: info@wpe-dk.dk
Homepage: www.wpe-dk.com

UHPC - Standard concrete comparison

Standard concrete
A mixture of cement binder + sand + gravel + water

UHPC concrete
A mixture of UHPC binder + sand + water

One of the most important quality parameters
when comparing standard concrete and UHPC

Standard Cement Binder                         UHPC Binder         

is water/cement ratio and compressive strength.

The water/cement ratio is the ratio of the weight of water to the weight of cement used in a concrete mix.
A lower ratio leads to higher strength and durability, water/cement ratios of 0.4 to 0.5
are more typically used for standard concrete qualities. For higher-strength concrete, ratios of 0.20 - 0.18 are used.

Despite the extremely low w/c value, UHPC materials of high production quality 

can be processed in much the same way as 

concrete.

Among other things, the low w/c value
means that the pore volume is extremely low
or even absent, which leads to very high
compressive strength (up to 240 MPa) and
very high corrosion resistance. UHPC is also
self compacting.

Another effect of the low pore volume in UHPC
is the extremely high content of wetted surface,
e.g. on steel reinforcements against concrete.
This leads to very strong connection of steel
and UHPC. If you wanted to pull a standard
reinforcing steel out of a UHPC block you
needed enormous tensile forces compared to
a standard concrete reinforcement.

Due to the extremely low pore volume and the

high pressure and tensile strength combined
with the exclusive use of sand as aggregate, the coverage of the reinforcement can be reduced. Likewise, the distance between the reinforcing bars could be reduced.

In this context, UHPC can be used to make
concrete structures that are closer to steel structures than the ones in their dimensions
and bearing capacities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WPE DK International

Phone: 0049 176 601 73146
E-mail: info@wpe-dk.dk
Homepage: www.wpe-dk.com

 

UHPC - Wear protection system for coal fired power plants

Large quantities of materials like hard coal,
lignite and ash are handled in a coal fired
power plant. To ensure a constant production,
most of the conveying (hydraulic or pneumatic),
storing and production equipment must lined
with wear protection products.

Based on the long experience in wear
protection system engineering for the most
of the OEMs of grinding and mill systems
like impact mills, vertical roller mills,
hammer mills etc., together with our
partner WPE DK we can offer standard and
custom made UHPC wear protection lining
systems.

We supply custom made solutions and
engineered systems like pipe components
with electrical wear control or pipe
components with a combination lining of
wear and heat reduction linings.

For circulation fluidised bed steam power
plant we engineer and install dedusting and
ash transport systems with a high quality
wear protection linings or combination
linings of wear and insulating material.

We deliver and install special custom
made wear linings for different burner systems.

We engineer and produce 
lining systems for mill suppliers like: 

Loesche            LM Verical Mill
Gebr. Pfeiffer   MPS Vertical Mill
ALSTOM         SM Mill, Raymond Roller Mill
HITACHI         Vertical Roller Mill
FLSmidth         ATOX Vertical Roller Mill

UHPC Installation areas

Cyclones                                                                        Cellular wheel sluice
NID-Systems for flue gas cleaning                                Chutes  
GSA-Systems for flue gas cleaning                               Pumps
Pneumatic transports systems                                       Ventilator housing and blades
Hydraulic transport systems                                          Coal mill
Trough chain conveyors                                                Burner systems
Submerges chain conveyors                                         Ash silo
Apron conveyors                                                           Coal bunker

 

WPE DK International

Phone: 0049 176 601 73146
E-mail: info@wpe-dk.dk
Homepage: www.wpe-dk.com

UHPC - Wear protection in cement plants

Large quantities of materials like clinker, cement,
lime and granulated slag are handled in a cement
plant. To ensure a constant production, most of
the conveying, storing and production equipment
must lined with wear protection products.

UHPC (Ultra High Performance Concrete)
wear protection systems are engineered for wet
and dry system cement plants, grinding
clinker or grinding slag plants.

Til today the most of the interantional OEMs like
Polysius, FLSmidth, Loesche, FCB, Gebr. Pfeiffer,
KHD, IKN, etc. use UHPC wear protection systems
in their machines.

There is a 25 years long experience in engineering of
UHPC wear protection systems for dynamic and static
seperator systems, clinker cooler and grinding systems,
like hammer mills, vertical roller mill, high pressure
mill and crusher.

Mill systems in which UHPC wear protection 
systems were used

FLS ATOX coal mill

FLS OK mill
Gebr. Pfeifer MPS mill
Claudius Peters EM mill
Polysius QUADROPOL mill
Polysius DOROL mill
Loesche LM mill
Christian Pfeiffer QDK separator
KHD SKS Sepmaster separator
KHD V-Separator
Polysius SEPOL separator

Standard application areas for UHPC 

wear protection systems

Cyclones  Seperator
Pneumatic transports systems

Hydraulic transport systems
Mechanical transport systems
Chutes
Chain conceyor systems
Slide gate valves
Ventilator housing
Coal, cement and clinker mills
Flash dryer system
Coal bunker
Silos
Dedusting systems

WPE DK International

Phone: 0049 176 601 73146
E-mail: info@wpe-dk.dk
Homepage: www.wpe-dk.com