The alkali activation of alumino-silicate materials is a complex chemical process evolving dissolution of raw materials, transportation or orientation and polycondensation of the reaction products. Publications on the field of alkali-activated binders, state that this new material is likely to have high potential to become an alternative to Portland cement. While some authors state that the durability of these materials constitutes the most important advantage over Portland cement others argue that it's an unproven issue. This paper presents a review of the literature about the durability of alkali-activated binders. The subjects of this paper are resistance to acid attack, alkali-silica reaction, corrosion of steel reinforcement, resistance to high temperatures and to fire, resistance to freeze-thaw. Special attention is given to the case of efflorescences, an aspect that was received very little concern although it is a very important one.

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h i g h l i g h t sMechanical properties and durability indicators of SFRSCC and SCC were assessed. Self-compacting requisites were maintained, adding 60 kg/m 3 of steel fibers to SCC. Steel fibers contributed for the increase of post-cracking flexural resistance. The addition of steel fibers to SCC did not affect the durability indicators. a b s t r a c tDurability is one of the most important aspects of concrete due to its fundamental incidence on the serviceability working conditions of concrete structures. Research on the durability of steel fiber reinforced self-compacting concrete (SFRSCC) is still scarce, particularly in the aspects of corrosion resistance, which did not yet demonstrate clearly whether the corrosion of steel fibers may or may not lead to cracking and subsequent spalling of the surrounding concrete.For conventional concrete, without steel fibers, there are some widespread used durability indicators, which applicability to SFRSCC and its common values are practically unknown. For this purpose, an experimental work with SFRSCC and self-compacting concrete (SCC) specimens was carried out in order to characterize their mechanical properties and evaluate durability indicators.The results showed that the addition of steel fibers to SCC was very effective in terms of increasing the post-cracking flexural resistance and the energy absorption, and did not affect significantly the selfcompacting requisites and the durability indicators of SCC.

An estimated 1000 million tyres reach the end of their useful lives every year and 5000 millions more are expected to be discarded in a regular basis by the year 2030. Up to now a small part is recycled and millions of tyres are just stockpiled, landfilled or buried. This paper presents results about the properties and the durability of HPC with partial replacement of sand by tyre rubber wastes. Fly ash and metakaolin are used as partial cement replacement. The durability performance was assessed by means of capillary water absorption and resistance to sulphuric acid attack. The results show the existence of a synergetic effect between fly ash and metakaolin that minimizes the strength loss associated to the use of rubber waste. Results also show that is possible to use rubber waste up to 15% and still maintain a high resistance to acid attack. The mixes with 45% fly ash and 15% metakaolin show a much higher resistance to sulphuric acid attack than the reference mix independently of the rubber waste content.

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Over the last few decades, the astonishing developments of super plasticizers technology allowed great achievements on the conception of concrete mixes exhibiting self-compacting ability. Since the eighties, some methodologies have been proposed to achieve self-compacting requirements in fresh concrete mixes, based on the evaluation of the flowing properties of these mixes. There still persist, however, some doubts about the most appropriate strategy to define the optimum composition of a self-compacting concrete (SCC) mix, based on a required performance. The behavior of SCC as a structural material can be improved if adequate steel fiber reinforcement is added to SCC mix composition. In fact, the fiber reinforcement mechanisms can convert the brittle behavior of this cement based material into a pseudo-ductile behavior up to a crack width that is acceptable under the structural design point-of-view. Fiber addition, however, increases the complexity of the mix design process, due to the strong perturbation effect that steel fibers cause on fresh concrete flow. In the present work, a mix design method is proposed to develop cost effective and high performance Steel Fiber Reinforced Self-Compacting Concrete (SFRSCC). The material properties of the developed SFRSCC are assessed as well as its potentiality as a structural material, carrying out punching and flexural tests on panel prototypes. A material nonlinear analysis is carried out, aiming to address the possibility of calibrating the constitutive model parameters by obtaining, with an inverse analysis, the fracture parameters using forcedeflection relationships recorded in simpler laboratory tests, like the three point notched beam bending test. The contribution of steel fibers for punching resistance is also, by this means, discussed.

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