Reactive powder concrete bridges

Reactive powder concrete (RPC) is a cementitious material consisting of cement, sand, silica fume, silica flour, admixture and water. Ductal (registered trade name) is an RPC that contains large quantities of steel or organic fibres. The properties of Ductal are unique, and allow designers to create innovative bridge structures of value that are both structurally efficient and provide excellent resistance to aggressive agents. Around the world, many examples of innovative RPC bridges exist. They include the world's first RPC pedestrian bridge, Sherbrooke Footbridge in Quebec, Canada; the 120m span Sunyudu Footbridge in Seoul, Korea; Sakata-Mirai Footbridge in Japan, and more recent highway bridges in Virginia and Iowa, USA. In Australia, the world's first road bridge built using Ductal was completed in October 2004 at Shepherds Creek. This project was used as an evaluation of the material by the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), New South Wales. This paper provides a summary of the properties of Ductal, design considerations, and primarily gives examples of reactive powder bridges around the world. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E214936.