The world’s first RPC road bridge at Shepherds Gully Creek, NSW

Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) is a cementitious material consisting of cement, sand, silica fume, silica flour, superplastiser and water. The material was developed by Bouygues, the parent company of VSL, and is marketed under the brand name of Ductal. It is almost self placing, and has a compressive strength of 180 MPa. The durability properties are orders of magnitude better than current high performance concrete. In structural applications, RPC is used without any passive reinforcement. Very fine high strength steel fibres are able to withstand secondary tensile stresses. Prestressing counterbalances the main tensile stresses due to bending. The bridge over Shepherds Gully Creek is the first bridge in the world to be constructed using Ductal for normal highway traffic. The bridge is approximately 150km north of Sydney and replaces an existing timber bridge. This paper presents the properties of Ductal and the details of the bridge. It also presents the conditions under which the use of RPC is favourable.