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Deck caps of bridges—in Germany shortly known as "bridge caps"—are usually made of steel reinforced concrete to form the anchoring area for the guardrail of bridge deck edges on existing cantilever slabs. Combined with protective devices, the outside arranged deck caps provide safety against lateral breaking or crashes of vehicles. Due to their exposed position in the cross section of bridges and the particularly intensive stresses, the deck caps are considered as wear parts and have to be renewed several times during the service life of a bridge. The decisive factor here is the discrepancy between the frost resistance of the concrete and the crack width restriction. On the one hand, only very small cracks (<0.2 mm) can be accepted to prevent corrosion of the rebars under the strong exposure of these elements. To confine crack widths without applying an excessively high degree of reinforcement, a low concrete compressive strength is advantageous. On the other hand, a sufficient frost resistance requires a correspondingly high compressive strength. With carbon reinforcement, these contrary points could be defused and simultaneously the needed durability could be provided. Therefore, slightly modified deck cap concretes combined with a carbon reinforcement mesh were tested to examine the bond behavior with and without freeze–thaw attack. To prove the characteristics of this combined system, the crack formation and crack distribution were investigated experimentally. The test results were compared to calculated values from a mathematically tool to be able to develop different reinforcement concepts in future that can ensure an optimized crack formation and crack width for deck caps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about congresses and symposia related to structural concrete. The 49th Ulmer Beton-und Fertigteiltage will be held during February 15-17, 2005 in Ulm, Germany. The 2nd International Conference on Concrete and Development will be held during April 30-May 2 in Tehran, Iraq. The 5th International Conference Analytical Models and New Concepts in Concrete and Masonry Structures will be held during June 12-14 in Gliwice-Ustron, Poland. The 2nd International Conference on Concrete and Reinforced Concrete will be held during September 6-9 in Moscow, Russia.

This article focuses on the International Symposium on Ultra High Performance Concrete, which took place during September 1-15, 2004. The symposium was organized by the Departments of Structural Materials and Structural Engineering of the University of Kassel, Witzenhausen, Germany, and supported by fib, Deutscher Beton-und Bautechnik-Verein e.V., Deutscher Ausschuss fur Stahlbeton and the American Concrete Institute. Over 200 participants attended 79 presentations given over the course of eight sessions.

The article presents a list of federation internationale du beton (fib) congresses and symposiums. Fib Symposium: Concrete Structures: The Challenge of Creativity will be held from April 26-28, 2004 in Avignon, France. 5th International PhD Symposium in Civil Engineering will be held from June 17-29, 2004 in Delft, Netherlands. International Symposium on Ultra High Performance Concrete will be held from September 13-14, 2004 in Kassel, Germany.