Concrete Solutions 2011

The M3C4 project contributed to the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Concrete Repair - Concrete Solutions 2011. The conference was held on September 26 to 28th 2011 in the city of Dresden, Germany. New contacts, interesting feedback and a lot of fun are the result of such conference.

Until next time,

In time, chloride ions penetrate the concrete cover. When a sufficient amount reaches the reinforcing steel, corrosion commences. In order to control the process, we should be able to model it. First results can be seen in the video.

Users Committee Meeting M3C4

On Tuesday, 20th of September, the first users committee meeting of the M3C4 project was held in Delft. Progress has been presented to representatives of the industry and the STW. A discussion was sparked and ideas have been exchanged. A lot of questions were left unanswered for the next time... Till then!

Youtube as a knowledge base

Did you know that youtube has a lot of videos dedicated to research and science? Next time you need something, try searching for it there instead using google! Some examples of videos about thin section making:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB_QLUP6Ft0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZftQDf04E2M

Looks familiar? This is the very machine available in our lab! Enjoy!

Final batch CTC

On Friday August 26th the final batch of CTC specimens was carried out. So far, the team is ready to cure and then expose the specimens. The cutting of the specimens is programmed for the beginning of September and results seem promising. We'll keep it updated...

Our efforts are finally starting to pay off... First simulations have been performed for the steady-state diffusion, and the figure shows the result. More coming soon!

Cutting of specimens CTC

The first trials of the specimen cutting for the CTC project were carried out with success. These trial specimens were meant to try the cutting procedure before using the real CTC specimens.

Here are also some images of the final results!

CTC specimens

On July 4th, the first series of specimens cast according to the recommendation of RILEM TC-CTC "Chloride threshold concentration" were cast by the PhD members of the team. The overall result did not showed any problems regarding to the mix design or the casting procedure. Any researcher or research lab interested in this Rilem committee is welcome to contact any of the team members for discussion about the mix design or the future work. Until next time,

Life's so hard...

Life as a PhD student is not easy... A lot of hard work is involved!

Concrack 2 Workshop

A second workshop dedicated to control of cracking in reinforced concrete structures, titled Concrack 2, was held in Paris, from 20-22 of June. The M3C4 team presented the results of their simulation, and discussed it with the other participants. Further work is expected to make the simulation results more "realistic", and thus closer to measurements. Fruitful discussions with other participants on the topic of concrete modelling are apreciated. Till next time!