Durability of concretes, Performance-based approach: State of the art

Abstract

The recent evolution of construction techniques and new manufacturing processes for concrete in a context of sustainable development have led to a new strategy, in order to qualify new concrete formulations. Concrete production and implementation generally follow a prescriptive specification. This guarantees almost a 50 years structural durability related to an environment by respecting design and maintenance rules. However, the innovation related to high-strength concrete and self-consolidating concrete are challenging in terms of the prescriptive specification. Therefore, the performance-based approach to concrete durability is proposed as an efficient alternative of prescriptive specification. This approach focuses on the performance criteria for the concrete. This could represents an opportunity for construction actors, in order to extend structural lifetime up to 100 or 150 years. In this paper, a state of the art is carried out in order to expose the evolution of the performance-based approach in the field of concrete production.