Keynote Speakers

 Dr Stephen Akers (Switzerland)

Dr Stephen Akers is a Swiss based consultant in Materials Engineering, specializing in cement based materials and concrete technology. He is an expert in long term durability of concrete structures and is frequently involved in predicting the service life of building products, including assessment and testing material properties; accelerated ageing tests; creep behaviour; fatigue behaviour; prediction of service-life; and assessment of cracking and ageing in the field. He has also been actively involved in the development of non cement based materials, including activated fly ash.

Keynote Presentation - Necessity is the Mother of Invention

It is well known that research and development is not only governed by market related strategies, but also amongst others by change in the environment and safety issues as well. This presentation is aimed at providing a few examples on how technology has been used to assist in providing solutions for the needs brought about by a change in strategy. The change in strategy could be related to health issues such as that in the asbestos cement industry, environmental restrictions, or other related factors, placing demand on new development.

The four examples chosen for this presentation are:

- Value added to products in the search for asbestos fibre replacement in the fibre cement industry
- Advanced performance in concrete structures for construction in earthquake prone areas
- Innovative cements developed as a result of the Kyoto Protocol
- High performance concrete developed for nuclear waste disposal

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 Dr Hans Rudolf Ganz (Switzerland)

Dr Hans Rudolf Ganz was educated at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, receiving a Diploma in Civil Engineering in 1978 and a Doctorate in Civil Engineering in 1985. He is the Chief Technical Officer of the VSL Group responsible for VSL Technical Centres "Europe" in Subingen (Switzerland) and "Asia" in Singapore. He is responsible for the technical aspects of engineering, research and development, VSL System development and support, VSL equipment, component manufacturing, DUCTAL (ultra-high performance concrete), patents, quality, safety and environment. He is a member of Board of Directors of VSL Group and Executive Vice President of VSL International Ltd. He is President of fib (2007-2008) and was Deputy President of fib (2004-2006). He was Chairman of fib Commission 9 "Reinforcing and Prestressing Materials and Systems" from 1996 to 2007 and has served on numerous committeess of fib, the ACI, the Post-Tensioning Institute and the European Committee for Standardisation.

Keynote Presentation - Prestressed Structural Concrete: New Developments and Applications

After a short introduction, a review of the main materials for structural concrete, i.e. concrete, reinforcing steel and prestressing steel, will be presented. Some developments in concrete technology in particular with ultra-high strength concrete will be highlighted. This will be followed by some comments and trends for reinforcing and prestressing steels. The next main section will be on post-tensioning systems. After a discussion of system approvals and qualifications for specialist companies installing the post-tensioning, the recent trends and performance specifications for corrosion protection of post-tensioning tendons will be presented, including solutions for improved protection and monitoring of the tendons during the design life with electrical isolation method (EIT) and with a newly developed sensor for void and corrosion protection of tendons. In the next section, the use of damping devices in structures to control seismic and wind induced vibrations of bridges and buildings will be reviewed. In the opinion of the author, such damping devices will increasingly be used in the future to save in total cost of structures, to improve user comfort, and to reduce material consumption, i.e. carbon footprint. Examples for bridges and buildings will be shown. In the last part of the presentation, some interesting prestressed structures will be presented including some bridges, possibly buildings, special structures, e.g. containment structures or reservoirs and examples of strengthening with prestressing.

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 Professor Koji Sakai (Japan)

Dr Koji Sakai is Professor of Engineering at Kagawa University in Japan. He was Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Kagawa University from 1999 to 2002 and a Senator of the University from 1999 to 2004. He is the author of numerous technical papers and his current research interests concentrate on minimising the adverse impact of the concrete industry on the environment. Since 2002, Professor Sakai has been Chairman of fib Commission 3 (Environmental Aspects of Design and Construction) and, since 2003, he has been Chairman of subcommittee of International Activities, Concrete Committee, JSCE. He has been Chairman of WG1 and WG5 in JCI/ISO Committee since 2003 and, since 2008, he has been Chairman of ISO/TC71/SC8 (Environmental Management for Concrete and Concrete Structures).

Keynote Presentation - Concrete and Climate Change - Strategy for the Concrete Sector

According to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, in order to control the global average temperature increase to a pre-industrial value of 2.0~2.4oC, we need to realize an 85-50% reduction of the 2000 CO2 emission in 2050. It is estimated that the CO2 emission from concrete construction industry is approximately 10% of the total.In the keynote paper, firstly the general facts on the consumption of resources and energy and the subsequent CO2 emission in the concrete sector are described and secondly the recent trend in the development of low environmental impact technologies in cement and concrete industries is discussed. In addition, the direction of environmental standards development by ISO/TC71/SC8 (Environmental management for concrete and concrete structures) will be introduced and some actions toward the necessary revolution in the concrete sector will be proposed.

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 Professor Frank Vecchio (Canada)

Professor Frank J. Vecchio is Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto and has been a faculty member in the Department of Civil Engineering at UT since 1985. His research interests relate to nonlinear analysis of reinforced concrete, constitutive modelling, assessment of structural integrity analysis of repaired and rehabilitated structures, and forensic assessment of distressed or failed structures. Professor Vecchio is currently deputy chair of fib Commission 4 - Modelling of Structural Behaviour and Design, and is a member of ACI-ASCE Committee 445 - Finite Element Analysis of Reinforced Concrete, and ACI Committee 441 - Columns. He received the ACI Structural Research Award in 1997, and the ACI Structural Engineering Award in 1998, and is a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute.

Keynote Presentation - Climate Change in Computer Modelling of Concrete Structure

A slow but inexorable shift to computer-based procedures for design and analysis of concrete structures is well underway. This climate change has been driven both by external factors such as popular culture, modern office practices, and exponential advancements in computer technology, and by internal factors such as the move from prescriptive design code specifications to more holistic performance-based design requirements. As a result, there has been a proliferation of analysis and design software, and a propensity to use them unquestioningly. Are these software tools always reliable and accurate? What are the potential pitfalls in their use? What is the long-term forecast for their full embracement in mainstream practice, and is the profession well-positioned to deal with it?  These questions will be addressed by examining the results of various prediction competitions, experimental investigations, and case studies.

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 Professor Joost Walraven (Holland)

Dr Joost Walraven in Professor of Concrete Structures at TU Delft. Professor Walraven has carried out research in many areas, such as shear, punching, crack width control, creep and shrinkage of concrete, rotation capacity of concrete structures and the behaviour of precast concrete structures. More recently he has focused on the development of new types of concrete and their application, like high strength concrete, self compacting concrete, high performance fibre concrete and low binder concrete. Professor Walraven is author and co-author of 350 publications in scientific and professional journals and at conferences. Professor Walraven was president of fib from 2000-2002. Moreover he was chairman of the Project Team responsible for writing the new Eurocode 2 "Concrete Structures", which was delivered 2004. He is chairman of the fib Special Activity Group "New Model Code for Concrete Structures" and chairman of the fib Task Group "Ultra High Performance Fibre Concrete". In 1998 he received the fib Award for his contributions to the development of prestressed concrete.

Keynote Presentation - Concrete: From Conventional Material to High-Tech Product

Concrete is a material that has existed for ages. Since the early nineties of the last century, the “sleeping” material concrete became suddenly the subject of a remarkable evolution. By virtue of the application of silica fume in combination with modern superplasticizers, the cylinder strength could be raised to values of over 120 MPa. The attention then moved to self compacting concrete. Especially in the precast industry this new material meant a major step forward. Meanwhile the term “high strength concrete” turned out to be even prone to inflation. Strength over 200 MP became possible as a result of smart mixture design, on the basis of optimizing the particle packing, avoiding large diameter particles and the addition of fine steel fibres. A new generation of ultra high strength concrete’s was born: these materials combine high strength with large ductility and high durability. It turned out that the criterion “strength” should not always be the principal aim of new designs. Durability, slenderness and architectural quality became additional targets for designers. The qualification “high strength” was changed into “high performance’. A new design philosophy started to develop.  Design was not only related to structures, but applied as well to materials. Defined performance concrete has become a new issue. By designing for durability instead of strength, large financial profits can be achieved. The new generation of materials turned out to be very challenging. High strength / high performance concrete has become an interesting material for  large scale retrofitting of bridges, especially when fibers are combined with traditional reinforcing steel. In this respect a lot of experience was gained, including some unexpected surprises. It was realized as well that it makes no sense to always strive for new strength records. The invention of Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) introduced a new way of thinking. Reducing strength in combination with increasing ductility ends up in a new material with a large potential of application, varying from expansion joints to total bridge decks and even floating foundations for “living on the water”. It was realized, that the principle of maximum particle packing is not only applicable to high strength concrete, but to low and medium strength concrete as well. Smart particle packing can be the basis for ecologic concrete’s with moderate strength. “Bulk concretes” can be achieved with much less cement than used up to now, by making smart use of fillers. This means a contribution to the reduction of CO2 emission, enabling in the same time a material cost reduction. So, a low strength concrete can be a high performance material. Another important change in perception is caused by the recognition that concrete should not always necessarily be ugly. The potential of concrete to become a favorite rather than a necessary material for architects is large. Not only concrete with attractive colors and textures can be achieved: concrete with colored glass as aggregate and even transparent concretes are possible. These new possibilities of concrete applications require a modernization of codes of practice. Codes should not be experienced anymore as barriers for innovation, but should serve as a tool for the confident introduction of new creative ideas.