BASF’s Construction Chemicals Business Unit has unveiled two new innovative admixture product ranges - sureTEC (Super Retention Technology) and Glenium 8008 UHS (Ultra High Strength) at the Concrete 07 Conference and Exhibition in Adelaide.
The central theme of the event was design, materials and construction concrete for the future.
“Innovation is the essence of business success. We cannot sustain our leadership in construction chemicals industry without innovative products and solutions that enable our customers to meet the needs of global megatrends towards sustainable construction,” said Dr. Boris Gorella, Group Vice President and head of BASF’s Construction Chemicals Business Unit, Asia Pacific.
sureTEC and Glenium 8008 UHS (Ultra High Strength) are formulated to meet the ever increasing demands for improved efficiency and durability – in terms of overall construction process and finished concrete structure.
As well as representing the culmination of several years of research and development, these two new innovative products BASF has launched also represent a significant step forward in both product technology and sustainable construction.
The global megatrends in sustainable construction is centred on the four key themes of improved durability; increased performance flexibility; better economy (through faster completion); and maximum sustainability, including the efficient use of energy and resources.
Importantly, these megatrends focus on entire-lifespan sustainability, rather than simply the construction process.
As an example, together with factors such as energy consumption during construction, the amount of embedded energy invested in the construction materials and the overall environmental footprint of the structure and sustainable construction.
Industry megatrends also demand structures with longer service lifespans, and lower energy consumption – both in terms of daily operation and, most importantly, reduced ongoing maintenance requirements.
Leo van den Heuvel, Regional Director, BASF’s Construction Chemicals Business Unit, Pacific, commented, “As is the case throughout many international markets, sustainability is a primary consideration in Australia – particularly in terms of the built environment.
This has resulted in a significant increase in demand for products and technologies that help to minimize the overall environmental footprint and maximize the durability of buildings and structures.“
“With that in mind, we believe that innovative solutions such as sureTEC and the Glenium 8008 can, and will, play a significant role in assisting our customers to meet their sustainability targets by improving workability of their construction operations, and energy efficiency and durability of the finished structures,” he added.
sureTEC which stands for Super Retention Technology enables concrete producers to gain control over workability between the batching plant and the placement site for two hours or more.
sureTEC enables concrete producers to consistently provide a specified workability of concrete, even in hot weather, and regardless of unfavourable external factors such as traffic conditions and site access make it difficult to estimate the time window between batching and placement of the concrete.
Available as a standalone admixture, or as a premixed in-product additive with selected BASF admixtures, sureTEC can be used with mixes of all workability levels, from low workability (eg 10cm slump) through to high performance Self Consolidating Concrete.
sureTEC provides good quality control and consistency across concrete batches which, in turn, assures a high consistency of workmanship – a major prerequisite for long life-cycle construction.
Importantly, sureTEC technology does not extend setting time or delay strength development of the concrete. Indeed, the contrary is true, with sureTEC influencing both parameters positively.
Together with the sureTEC Super Retention Technology which enables improved workability and greater efficiency, BASF has also launched its new Glenium 8008 Ultra High Strength (UHS) concrete admixtures.
Utilising the latest in high performance polymer technology, Glenium 8008’s unique formulation delivers concrete mixes with final strengths of over 100MPa.
Not surprisingly, the ability to produce Ultra High Strength concrete is seen as a critical factor in urban and inner-city areas where ground space is scarce and expensive.
By allowing lean design structures with smaller and fewer columns as well as wider spans, UHS concrete can play a major role in assisting designers and architects to enlarge room space and maximise the usable floor area.
Glenium 8008 incorporates the latest generation polycarboxylate technology and addresses a number of issues and challenges traditionally associated with the manufacture of UHS concrete, particularly in terms of setting times.
The low dosage required – even when the proportion of water to binder is at 20% or less - minimises their impact on setting times.
