Materials and technology solutions to tackle the challenges in daily concrete construction for housing and infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa's economic rise has caused a high demand for housing and infrastructure. This rapid growth has resulted in urgent challenges of enormous dimensions for urban and infrastructural planners and the entire construction sector. Considering the African supply chains and resources, cement and concrete are doubtless the most important materials that will support mastering the challenges and building the future in a sustainable way.

Despite the promising perspectives, the social, economic and geographic boundary framework in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa exhibits a high number of peculiarities. Disadvantageous parameters during the concreting process, which negatively affect the quality and durability of concrete structures, are discussed with regard to implications for the safety and lifetime of structures. However, most sub-Saharan African countries feature a high potential for innovation and new, individual ways. Based on this consideration, non-standard concepts are discussed, namely how to bring about robust and well workable concrete reliably into practice, cost-efficiently and as ready-to-use pre-mixed dry mortar compound under consideration of local materials such as natural pozzolans, cassava starch and lignosulphonate. The development and performance of such a pre-mixed mortar compound is briefly demonstrated. These implemented in daily concrete practice could significantly contribute to improved durability of construction for the relevant sectors of housing and infrastructure.

Keywords:

• sub-Saharan Africa
• cement
• concrete
• supply chains
• standards
• local low-cost raw materials