Useful and practical hints on the process of producing high-strength concrete

Researchers and designers starting investigations and work involving high-strength concrete, may face difficulties in producing high-performance concrete, including mix design and other practical issues. This question is still vital and significant in many countries in the world where the high-strength concrete industry is still developing. The hurdle of poor approaches (available in the literature) tackling this issue has encountered the authors of this paper when a major project on performance of high-strength concrete columns in fire was started at the University of Ulster. This paper is constructed in an easy way to simplify the method of producing high-strength concrete. The present paper includes the results of 15 trial mixes, where issues such as using silica fume and superplasticizer are discussed. This paper addresses new-to-the-field researchers and designers (worldwide) beginning studies and work involving high-strength concrete.