Mix design of concrete with high content of mineral additions: Optimisation to improve early age strength

The concrete industry is an important source of CO2 gas emissions. The cement used in the design of concrete is the result of a chemical process linked to the decarbonation of limestone conducted at high temperature and results in a significant release of carbon dioxide. Under the project EcoBéton (Green concrete) funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), concrete mixtures have been designed with a low cement quantity, by replacing cement by mineral additions i.e., blast-furnace slag, fly ash or limestone fillers. Replacement of cement by other materials at high percentages generally lowers the early age strength of the resulting concrete. To cope with this problem, an optimisation method for mix design of concrete using Bolomey’s law has been used. Following the encouraging results obtained from mortar, a series of tests on concretes with various substitution percentages were carried out to validate the optimisation method.