Presented by

Abhishek kumar gupta

Civil branch
3rd year
Nit kkr
 ABSTRACT
 Concrete has been used since roman times for the development
of infrastructure and housing but its basic component have
remained the same i.e fine aggregate ,coarse aggregate and
cement with water.
 Just a few decades ago concrete was often misunderstood ,disliked
and captured by its image fixed due to the rapid urbanization of
the 1960s.but since that time concrete has made considerable
progress , not only in technical terms but also in aesthetic term.
 It is no longer the heavy, cold and grey material of the past ;it has
become beautiful and lively. By research and development ,a
newly developed concrete has been created which is more
resistant, lighter, white or colored etc and this concept was first
put forward by Hungarian architect Aron Losonzi at the
technical university of Budapest and the first transparent concrete
block was successfully produced by mixing large amount of glass
fibre in to concrete in 2003 as LiTraCon
 The transparent concrete mainly focuses on transparency
and its objective of application pertains to green technology
and artistic finish. At present green structure focuses gently
on saving energy with indoor thermal system. Therefore it is
imperative to develop a new functional material to satisfy
the structure in terms of safety monitoring(such as damage,
detection, fire warning), environmental protection ,energy
saving and artistic modeling.
 Necessity
 Due to globalization and construction of high rise building ,
the space between buildings is reduced; this causes to
increasing the use of non-renewable energy sources, so there
is a need of smart construction technique like green building
and indoor thermal system in which translucent concrete is
used which use the sunlight as a source of light instead of
electrical energy by which it reduces the load on non-
renewable sources and result it in to the saving energy.
 It allows more light and less weight as compare to normal
concrete.
 Normal concrete is replaced by transparent concrete which
has natural light and art design due to use of optical fiber ,
so decrease the use of artificial light.
MATERIALS USED FOR
TRANSLUCENT CONCRETE
 Cement
Portland (OPC)grade(33,43,53),standard
consistency 40% ,specific gravity
3.14,initial and final setting time 51 &
546 minutes.
 Fine aggregate
Passing through 4.75 mm sieve,5% of
the coarser material ,specific gravity
2.75, fineness modulus 2.8,water
absorption 1.1%, loose and compacted
density of sand 1600 and 1688.
 Coarse aggregate
crush granite aggregate ,maximum
size 10mm, specific gravity 2.6and
fineness modulus 5.6 ,the loose and
compacted bulk density 1437& 1556
kg/m3,water absorption 0.4%
 Optical fiber elements
What is optical fibers …….???
&
what is its impact in civil engineering
OPTICAL FIBER
 An optical fiber is a hair thin
cylindrical fiber of glass or any
transparent dielectric medium.

 The fiber which are used for

optical communication are wave
guides made of transparent
dielectric.

 Its function is to guide visible

and infrared light over long
distances.
Structure
 Core-central tube of very thin size
made up of optically transparent
dielectric medium and carries the
light from transmitter to receiver.
The core diameter can vary from
about 5 um to 100 um

 Cladding –outer optical material

surrounding the core having
reflecting index lower than core. It
helps to keep the light within the
core throughout the phenomena of
total internal reflection

 Buffer coating – plastic coating that

protects the fiber made of silicon
rubber. The typical diameter of the
fiber after coating is 250-300 um
 Total internal principle
•when a ray of light travels from a denser to a rarer medium such
that the angle of incidence is greater than the critical angle, the ray
reflects back in to the same medium ,this phenomena is called total
internal reflection .
•In the optical fiber the rays undergo repeated total number of
reflections until it emerges out of the fiber , even if the fiber is bent
TOTAL INTERNAL REFLECTION IN FIBER
•The life of fiber is longer than copper wire
•Handling and installation costs of optical fiber is very
nominal
•It is unaffected with electromagnetic interference
•Attenuation in optical fiber is lower than coaxial
cable or twisted pair
•There is no necessity of additional equipment for
protecting against grounding and voltage problem
•As it doesn’t radiate energy so any antenna or detector
can’t detect it hence provides signals security
 Optical fiber in transparent concrete
 Translucent concrete is a
concrete based building
material having light
transmissive property

 Light-Transmissive property
is mainly due to uniform
distribution of high
numerical aperture Plastic
Optical fibers (POF)
throughout its body.

 Hence it is also known to be

transparent concrete,
LiTraCon.
 Principle
• Translucent concrete works based on “ Nano -Optics “.

• These fibers passes as much light when tiny slits are placed
directly top of each other . Hence optical fibers in the
concrete act like the slits and carry the light across
throughout the concrete.
 MANUFACTURING PROCESS
 Light –transmitting concrete is
produced by adding 4% to 5%
optical fiber by volume in to
concrete mixture.

 The concrete mixture is made

from fine materials and coarse
materials with cement.

 Thousands of strands of optical

fibers are cast into concrete to
transmit light.
 Smaller or thinner layers allow an
increased amount of light to pass
through the concrete
EXPERIMENTAL SAMPLE MOULD
 We design our sample mould with
simple plastic tray.
 Use optical fiber cable at size of
(100 um)
 Due to small thickness of optical
cable we are using fine concrete
(without coarse aggregate)
 Making a ratio of 1:2 for mixing
 Clay is used to withstand optical
cable for support.
 WORKING METHOD
 Choosing a desire mould
 Make a needed design
 Attach clay on the
bottom of the mould
 Induce optical fiber a
desired shape
 After induce, pour fine
concrete at its
approximate ratio
 Set to dry and allow to
curing
 OUTPUT
•We get out transparent concrete in desired shape
Evaluation method of light guiding of smart transparent concrete

There are many performance indicators to be

considered whether the transparency of material is
good or not , such as transmittance , haze ,refractive
index , birefringence and dispersion and so on . In this
paper ,the transmittance is used to appraisal the light
guiding of smart transparent concrete . For the
homogeneous materials such as homogenous glass or
LiTraCon above mentioned , their transmittance can
be directly calculated by the ratio of the incident
energy and transmission energy of light expressed
following equations :
 Light guiding experiment of smart
transparent concrete

 Newport 835 optical power meter

COMPRESSION TEST FOR MOULD
 EXPECTED STRENGTH
PRODUCT LTC
FORM Prefabricated block
Ingredients 100% concrete ,4% optical fibre

Density 2100- 2400 kg/m3

Block size 150mm *80 mm
Thickness 25- 50 mm
Color Grey
Fiber distribution Organic
Finished Polished
Compressive strength 31- 44 N/mm2
 ADVANTAGE
 The main advantage of these products is that on large scale
objects the texture is still visible – while the texture of finer
translucent concrete becomes indistinct at distance .

 When a solid wall is imbued with the ability to transmit light , it

means that a home can use fewer lights in their house during day
light hours .

 It has very good architectural properties for giving good

aesthetical view to the building .

 Where light is not able to come properly at that place transparent

concrete can be used .

 Energy saving can be done by utilization of trans[arent concrete

in building .

 Totally environment friendly because of its light transmitting

characteristics so energy consumption can be reduced .
 DISADVANTAGE
The main disadvantage with this concrete is very costly
because of the optical fibers.

Casting of transparent concrete block is difficult for

the labour so special skilled person is required.
 Application
o Illuminate the wall
o Pavement shine at sunset
oCreative design
 Some other applications
 Illuminating speed bumps on roadways at night
 Light side walks at night
 In furniture for decorative and aesthetic purpose
 Lighting indoor fire escapes in the event of a power
failure
 Partitions wall and it can be used where the sunlight
doesn’t reach properly

 Increasing visibility in dark subway stations

 Conclusion
 A novel architectural material called transparent concrete
can be developed by adding optical fiber or large diameter
glass fiber in the concrete mixture. The transparent
concrete has good light guiding property and the ratio of
optical fiber volume to concrete is proportional to
transmission. The transparent concrete not looses the
strength parameter when compared to regular concrete and
also it has vital property for the aesthetical point of view. It
can be used for the best architectural appearance of the
building . Also used where the light can’t reach with
appropriate intensity . This new kind of building material
can integrate the concept of green saving with the usage
self- sensing properties of functional materials.