Fresh concrete and its significance for sustainability

The push for sustainability initiatives in the construction field has been spearheaded by the green building movement. However, cement-based products and concrete are used in a variety of places, and not just buildings. While much effort on the sustainability of cement and concrete industry has been focused on cement production and the hardened state concrete - the fresh state performance and its role in sustainability has often been overlooked. Similar to hardened state concrete properties, understanding the microstructure of the fresh state concrete can provide the direction for tailoring the fresh state properties to improve the quality control, and thus the sustainability of concrete. This paper seeks to provide context for users of cement-based products to understand how the fresh state properties of concrete can be leveraged so that the quality control of concrete can be improved. Concepts such as flocculation, rheology, structural buildup, and formwork pressure will be discussed. The concepts discussed in this paper can be applied to various applications, from building to pavements to bridges to dams.