Most of the contents of this book were originally developed in the late 1980s at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales. The contents were targeted towards third-year courses in reinforced and prestressed concrete structures. The book was believed useful for both students learning the subjects and practising engineers wishing to apply with confidence the then newly published Australian Standard AS 3600-1988. In 1995 and following the publication of AS 3600-1994, the contents were updated at Griffith University (Gold Coast Campus) and used as the learning and teaching material for the third-year course ‘Concrete structures’ (which also covers prestressed concrete). In 2002, further revisions were made to include the technical advances of AS 3600-2001. Some of the book's more advanced topics were used for part of the Griffith University postgraduate course ‘Advanced reinforced concrete’.

In anticipation of the publication of the current version of AS 3600, which was scheduled for 2007, a major rewrite began early that year to expand on the contents and present them in two parts. The effort continued into 2009 which produced in Part I Reinforced concrete, inter alia, the new chapters on walls, as well as on footings, pile caps and retaining walls, plus an appendix on strut-and-tie modelling. In addition, a new Part II has been written, which covers five new chapters on prestressed concrete. The entire manuscript was then thoroughly reviewed and revised as appropriate following the publication of AS 3600-2009 in late December 2009.