Development of self-compacting high and ultra high performance concretes with and without steel fibres

This paper describes the steps taken to develop self-compacting high and ultra high-performance concretes with and without steel fibres. For the self-compacting concrete mixes without steel fibres the fulfilment of flow and cohesiveness criteria are sufficient for the mix design. However, for the design of self-compacting concrete mixes with steel fibres it is found, as expected, that they must additionally meet the passing ability criterion. The plastic viscosity of the mixes with and without steel fibres has been estimated from the known plastic viscosity of the cement paste using simple micromechanical relations.