The University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute (GCI), designed by HASSELL in collaboration with Bligh Tanner, Arup
and Medland Metropolis, has become the first building in the world to utilise cement-free concrete for suspended construction.
Piloting various sustainable solutions in its bid to achieve 5 star Green Star Education Design and As-Built ratings, the building
uses a geopolymer precast concrete that replaces cement with fly ash and powdered blast furnace slag in the mix.
Earth Friendly Concrete (EFC) is a Wagners brand name for their commercial form of geopolymer concrete, precast floor
beams in the new GCI building are made from these.
Comprising sand, aggregate and a binder that contains ground granulated blast furnace slag, a waste product from steel
production, and fly ash, a waste product from coal fired power generation, EFC contains no normal Portland cement. This
allows it to have very low CO2 emissions as compared to normal Portland cement-based concrete.
The precast panels with cast in hydronic pipes also play an integral part of the building’s low energy and passive cooling modes.
Up until this point, geopolymer has only been used in trials for ground bearing pavements, masonry blocks and other low level structural applications.
Editorial
Features
News and Events
Point of View : Sustainable Construction: Responsible Use of Materials
Sivakumar Kandasami
Technical Papers
Numerical investigations on compressive behavior of concrete at meso-scale
M.V. Sukesh, Saptarshi Sasmal
Influence of fly ash on mechanical and transport properties of concrete and mortar due to its effect on the interfacial transition zone
Meenakshi Sharma, Bhavya Parashar, Shashank Bishnoi
Experimental studies on developed pzt based
coating under fire exposure
Ankur Achnani, Sharadkumar Purohit,
Urmil V. Dave
Performance of fly ash based geopolymer
concrete under ambient and oven curing
conditions
M. V. Krishna Rao, P. Rathish Kumar,
T. Seshadri Sekhar
An experimental investigation on flexural
behaviour of reinforced Self-Compacting
Concrete beams at elevated temperatures
N. Suresh, Sachin B. P.
Potential of electrical response at low Radio
Frequencies for estimation of the degree of
moisture saturation in cement mortar
Gopinandan Dey, Abhijit Ganguli, Bishwajit Bhattacharjee, Tapan Kumar Gandhi
