Floating breakwater pontoon pilot cast with carbon textile reinforcement-based ultra high durability concrete: Materials development and testing, and implementation in the North Atlantic (Irelands west coast)

Abstract

A floating unit with three pontoons made of epoxy-coated carbon textile reinforced, ultra-high durability concrete (ECF UHDC), mineral impregnated carbon fibre-reinforced UHDC (MCF UHDC) and, as references, steel-reinforced concretes has been designed and installed in the Northern Atlantic. While marine structures with steel reinforcement require large cover depths, which cause problems in size, cost, environmental friendliness and short service life, carbon textile reinforced concrete (TRC) cannot suffer from chloride-induced corrosion of a metal reinforcement. In the EU H2020 project “ReSHEALience” (rethinking coastal defence and green-energy service infrastructures through enhanced-durability highperformance cement-based materials), TRCs have been modified with functional admixtures from consortium partners. A mineral self-healing promoter and alumina nano-fibers have, among others, been implemented to boost high-performance concretes towards UHDCs. Resulting composite variants have been applied in a full-scale floating unit that has been launched in the harbor of Galway at the Irish West Coast in June 2020. Such a floating body is a representation of breakwaters installed to reduce wave impacts to the coast. Besides, TRC-based UHDC can be applied as strengthening and repair layer on concrete structures to enhance their service life in general.