Pervious concrete – a sustainable choice in civil engineering and construction

Abstract

Pervious concrete (no-fines concrete) is a concrete containing little or no fine aggregate; it consists of coarse aggregate and cement paste. It seems pervious concrete would be a natural choice for use in structural applications in this age of ‘green building’. It consumes less raw material than normal concrete (no sand), it provides superior insulation values when used in walls, and through the direct drainage of rainwater, it helps recharge groundwater in pavement applications. The first pervious concrete has been used in Europe and the United Kingdom since 1930s for the building of single story and multistory houses, but had found little acceptance in rest of the world. In recent years, however, due to increased awareness of the need for conservation of nonrenewable mineral resources, increased consideration is being given to the use of pervious concrete in most countries. Even though, it is not yet widely used in Sri Lanka, pervious concrete is generally used for light-duty pavement applications, such as residential streets, parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, channel lining, retaining walls and sound walls. This paper discuss the art of pervious concrete; materials and possible mix proportions, properties such as compressive strength, flexural strength, shrinkage, permeability with initial tests done at Innovation & Application Center of Holcim (Lanka) Limited, and the principal advantages, major disadvantages and principal applications in Sri Lankan construction industry.