Geert De Schutter – författare

Serious degradation mechanisms can severely reduce the service life of concrete structures: steel reinforcement can corrode, cement matrix can be attacked, and even aggregates can show detrimental processes. Therefore, it is important to understand how damage can occur to concrete structures and to appreciate the timing of the actions leading to damage. Damage to Concrete Structures summarizes the state-of-the-art information on the degradation of concrete structures, and gives a clear and comprehensive overview of what can go wrong.Offering a logical flow, the chapters are ordered according to the chronological timing of the actions leading to concrete damage. The author explains the different actions or mechanisms in a fundamental manner, without too many physical or chemical details, to provide greater clarity and readability. The book describes the different causes of damage to concrete, including inappropriate design, errors during execution, mechanisms occurring during hardening of concrete, and actions or degradation mechanisms during service life (hardened concrete).The degradation mechanisms are illustrated with numerous real-world examples and many drawings and photographs taken of actual structures. Written as a textbook for students as well as a reference for professionals, this easy-to-comprehend book gives readers a deeper understanding of the damage that can occur to concrete during the construction process and service.

This book reports on cutting-edge research within the new field of active rheology control of cementitious materials, presenting new ideas developed within the ERC Advanced Grant Project, SmartCast (hosted at Ghent University), which extend the possibilities of admixtures and additions beyond current options.The research presented here develops a new method of actively controlling the rheology of fresh concrete during casting operations by incorporating specially designed responsive components. This results in real-time changes to the rheological behaviour of the cementitious material, allowing the user to intervene actively after the cementitious material has left the mixing phase. This newly gained agility contributes to increased processing speed and placement reliability in the case of traditional casting methods and can also facilitate advanced 3D concrete printing. The different routes followed to achieve this Active Rheology Control are explained within.The book suits researchers and innovative practitioners and is the first comprehensive text to present these new findings.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book reports on cutting-edge research within the new field of active rheology control of cementitious materials, presenting new ideas developed within the ERC Advanced Grant Project, SmartCast (hosted at Ghent University), which extend the possibilities of admixtures and additions beyond current options.The research presented here develops a new method of actively controlling the rheology of fresh concrete during casting operations by incorporating specially designed responsive components. This results in real-time changes to the rheological behaviour of the cementitious material, allowing the user to intervene actively after the cementitious material has left the mixing phase. This newly gained agility contributes to increased processing speed and placement reliability in the case of traditional casting methods and can also facilitate advanced 3D concrete printing. The different routes followed to achieve this Active Rheology Control are explained within.The book suits researchers and innovative practitioners and is the first comprehensive text to present these new findings.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Serious degradation mechanisms can severely reduce the service life of concrete structures: steel reinforcement can corrode, cement matrix can be attacked, and even aggregates can show detrimental processes. Therefore, it is important to understand how damage can occur to concrete structures and to appreciate the timing of the actions leading to damage. Offering a logical flow, this introduces the different actions or mechanisms in a fundamental manner, without too many physical or chemical details. It describes the different causes of damage to concrete, including inappropriate design, errors during execution, mechanisms occurring during the hardening of concrete, and actions or degradation mechanisms during service life (hardened concrete). The degradation mechanisms are illustrated with numerous real-world examples and many drawings and photographs taken of actual structures. Written as a textbook for students as well as a reference for professionals, this easy-to-comprehend book gives readers a deeper understanding of the damage that can occur to concrete during the construction process and service.This revised version is updated throughout, with information on performance-based approaches for durability design and moving away from current descriptive approaches. A new chapter describes the risks related to the valorization of secondary or waste materials in concrete. It now includes some focus on sustainability, and not only on durability.

Serious degradation mechanisms can severely reduce the service life of concrete structures: steel reinforcement can corrode, cement matrix can be attacked, and even aggregates can show detrimental processes. Therefore, it is important to understand how damage can occur to concrete structures and to appreciate the timing of the actions leading to damage. Offering a logical flow, this introduces the different actions or mechanisms in a fundamental manner, without too many physical or chemical details. It describes the different causes of damage to concrete, including inappropriate design, errors during execution, mechanisms occurring during the hardening of concrete, and actions or degradation mechanisms during service life (hardened concrete). The degradation mechanisms are illustrated with numerous real-world examples and many drawings and photographs taken of actual structures. Written as a textbook for students as well as a reference for professionals, this easy-to-comprehend book gives readers a deeper understanding of the damage that can occur to concrete during the construction process and service.This revised version is updated throughout, with information on performance-based approaches for durability design and moving away from current descriptive approaches. A new chapter describes the risks related to the valorization of secondary or waste materials in concrete. It now includes some focus on sustainability, and not only on durability.

Serious degradation mechanisms can severely reduce the service life of concrete structures: steel reinforcement can corrode, cement matrix can be attacked, and even aggregates can show detrimental processes. Therefore, it is important to understand how damage can occur to concrete structures and to appreciate the timing of the actions leading to damage. Damage to Concrete Structures summarizes the state-of-the-art information on the degradation of concrete structures, and gives a clear and comprehensive overview of what can go wrong.Offering a logical flow, the chapters are ordered according to the chronological timing of the actions leading to concrete damage. The author explains the different actions or mechanisms in a fundamental manner, without too many physical or chemical details, to provide greater clarity and readability. The book describes the different causes of damage to concrete, including inappropriate design, errors during execution, mechanisms occurring during hardening of concrete, and actions or degradation mechanisms during service life (hardened concrete).The degradation mechanisms are illustrated with numerous real-world examples and many drawings and photographs taken of actual structures. Written as a textbook for students as well as a reference for professionals, this easy-to-comprehend book gives readers a deeper understanding of the damage that can occur to concrete during the construction process and service.

This book gathers peer-reviewed contributions presented at the RILEM Spring Convention, held in Ghent, Belgium on April 13-17, 2026. The theme of the Conference was “Innovative Construction Materials and Processes for Sustainable Buildings and Infrastructure”. The volume covers the current and emerging approaches that lead to an optimized design and maintenance of constructions and systems. It includes the development of materials and structural service life models and life cycle design, in order to maximise longevity and level of service while minimising the environmental impact of constructions and systems. It also includes the analysis and design of larger systems, such as communities, cities or regions, aiming at reducing risk andincreasing resilience. The following subtopics are included: advanced materials and structural concept to enhance the resilience and robustness of the built environment and communities at local and global scales; risk based inspection and maintenance; life cycle analysis and service models; performance based design; improved design strategies by integrating materials and structures.

This book on active control of concrete properties presents the work of the RILEM TC 317-ACP and provides a scientific framework for further developments and industry implementations of these technologies. Active control of properties of cementitious materials refers to the action or intervention for controlling specific properties (e.g. rheology, stiffening) by applying an external trigger signal that induces a response in the cementitious material, with a modification of properties or behaviour as a result. Some historical methodologies that could be considered as active control ‘avant la lettre’ have been summarized in chapter 1. They can be based on different types of intervention: mechanical, chemical, thermal, hygral, pressure, magnetic, electric, microwave. In more recent approaches, the active control mechanism is providing extra opportunities by the addition of responsible polymers or particles to the concrete mix design, that can be triggered by an external signal. Control of properties can in first instance be related to rheology, setting, and shrinkage. The literature regarding active control of those properties has been synthesized and summarized in chapters 3 (rheology), 4 (setting) and 5 (shrinkage). Some processes offer very good opportunities for the application of active control methodologies. For some very relevant processes, available literature information has been summarized in chapters 6 (pumping), 7 (formwork casting), 8 (3D concrete printing) and 9 (slabs and roads).

The State-of-the-Art Report of RILEM Technical Committee 228-MPS on Mechanical properties of Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) summarizes an extensive body of information related to mechanical properties and mechanical behaviour of SCC. Due attention is given to the fact that the composition of SCC varies significantly. A wide range of mechanical properties are considered, including compressive strength, stress-strain relationship, tensile and flexural strengths, modulus of elasticity, shear strength, effect of elevated temperature, such as fire spalling and residual properties after fire, in-situ properties, creep, shrinkage, bond properties and structural behaviour. A chapter on fibre-reinforced SCC is included, as well as a chapter on specialty SCC, such as light-weight SCC, heavy-weight SCC, preplaced aggregate SCC, special fibre reinforced SCC and underwater concrete.