A CSHub team led by Dr. Soroush Mahjoubi has published two briefs on concrete overdesign and strength testing variability. The team finds that optimizing concrete overdesign—the intentional and required process of designing concrete to meet a higher strength than specified—can lead to savings of 80kg CO2e/m3, a 25% reduction in the GHG emissions of concrete mixtures. They further reveal that concrete strength testing variability causes producers to design higher-strength concrete than necessary. Reducing testing variability results in a 40kg CO2e/m3 reduction in the operational emissions of concrete mixtures.
Concrete and infrastructure science, engineering, and economics.