Independent tests have been conducted and EcoSmart Concrete is being demonstrated in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

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EcoSmart offered a series of seminars on Sustainable Building and Concrete at the Building Futures Gulf conference in Abu Dhabi on April 21 & 22.

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The EcoSmart Concrete team in Dubai and Vancouver have made good progress over the past several months on the EcoSmart Emirates project. Response has been very positive within the UAE construction sector with regard to incorporating high levels of supplementary cementing materials, particularly fly ash, as partial cement replacement in concrete.

EcoSmart Concrete proved to be very popular with Big 5 attendees with hundreds visiting the EcoSmart booth daily throughout the 5-day event. Most were intrigued by the concept of reducing the negative environmental impact of concrete, while improving performance and maintaining cost.

The free seminar was hosted jointly by EcoSmart and the American University in Dubai and held in two cities in the United Arab Emirates – October 22, 2007 in Abu Dhabi and October 24, 2007 in Dubai.

UniBeton was commissioned by the EcoSmart foundation to conduct a series of tests on high volume fly ash (HVFA) concretes – also known as EcoSmart Concrete – for use in the Emirates.   The final report is a compilation of two phases of testing performed by UniBeton on low, medium and high strength concretes and the results are very favourable.

Testing showed that fly ash concretes can be designed to produce results equivalent or superior to high performance Portland cement and blended blast furnace slag cements in the UAE at a similar cost. 

With correct mixes commercial high strength concretes were produced and 28 day strengths exceeding 97 MPa were reached with small additions of micro silica.  Testing further found that fly ash concretes significantly decreased the heat generated by concrete during hydration which is a large concern due to the risk of cracking. 

As a result of these tests a presentation was made by UniBeton at BATIMAT 2008 which extended the analysis of these results to investigate the environmental impacts of using HVFA concretes throughout the UAE.  It was shown that if all concrete in the UAE was blended with 10% fly ash – a level at which there is no significant impact to performance, design or cost – over 3 million tonnes of CO2 would be saved.  Further analysis revealed that EcoSmart concrete using 55% fly ash would result in almost 14 million tonnes of GHG savings and a further 1.5 million tonnes in water savings. 

Unibeton, the largest concrete supplier in the United Arab Emirates, has partnered with EcoSmart in an effort to increase performance, cost savings and sustainability of concrete use in the UAE.

For further information, see the UniBeton presentation in our Knowledge Base.  Also available is the full report, which was part of EcoSmart’s UAE Test Series.

Also see About EcoSmart Emirates to learn more about the UAE project.