V International PhD Student Workshop on Durability of Reinforced Concrete: From Composition to Service Life Design

The proceedings of the PhD workshop in Finland are published! The whole book can be downloaded at: http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/technology/2012/T65.pdf

Rumor has it that the next workshop will be held in Aachen, Germany, in 2013. We'll just have to wait and see if that's true. Till next time!

Concrete cracking Pt1.

Cracks in concrete cover are definitely a concern for concrete infrastructure. The figure shows cracks propagate not only vertically, i.e. towards the reinforcement, but also horizontally once it has reached the steel bar position.  It is clear that the internal cracked concrete area is far larger the surface crack width. Hopefully, this will be taken into account in future durability design approach.

Until next time,

Jose

Betondag

Yesterday was the annual "Concrete day" (Betondag) in Rotterdam. The M3C4 presented their research. It was fun! See how Jose's enjoying it! Till next time!

Cracked concrete infrastructure

Betondag 2012 is coming next Thursday November 15th to Rotterdam. A brief, but interesting presentation regarding the influence of cracks on concrete durability will be given by two PhD candidates of the M3C4 project. If interested, don't hesitate to attend the presentations given by PhDs during Betondag.

Until Thursday!

Betondag 2012 + Birthday

M3C4 PhD candidates Branko Šavija and José Pacheco will be have a brief presentation of their work during Betondag 2012 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. We will be glad to be there and want to meet, discuss or say hi to anybody who is interested in our project. For more information regarding Betondag 2012, please check the program:

http://www.betonvereniging.nl/?id=236

PS. The M3C4 group is happy to congratulate Branko on his 27th birthday. Many more of these to come!
See you

Erik Schlangen at TEDxDelft

For everyone who missed it, here is a link to Erik Schlangen's TEDxDelft talk: (starts about 02:28) http://collegerama.tudelft.nl/Mediasite/Play/082d74bbb0784c09854297f0e202d3671d

PAT-ASR Development of a Performance Assessment Tool for Alkali Silica Reaction: Erik Schlangen in TEDx Talks

PAT-ASR Development of a Performance Assessment Tool for Alkali Silica Reaction: Erik Schlangen in TEDx Talks

UCM3 in Eindhoven

On October 3rd the M3C4 project had its 3rd Users' Committee Meeting, held in TU/e in Eindhoven. Fruitful discussion and more importantly, a green light for the culmination of the project were achieved. Lots of interesting work to be done that will be posted soon!

TU Delft Library is cool!

According to CNN International website, TU Delft has one of the 7 coolest libraries in the world! For more information regarding the remaining six libraries, please visit:

http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/escape/7-coolest-libraries-world-934450

Other concrete blogs

There seems to be an increasing number of blogs dealing with concrete research on the internet. We don't know if we (Microlab) started it, but we like the trend!

For more info, check out the following:

1. www.cementscience.com  - This is a website on research of cement science, a world of cementitious materials by Tan Zhijun.
2. http://www.csla-project.blogspot.com - Concrete Service Life Assessment (The VTT/Tekes Research Project CSL)  will study the characteristics of chloride ion transport in concrete subject to frost attack (surface scaling and internal cracking), and develop models for more reliable service life design approach taking into account the interacted effect of degradation mechanisms. This blog was started by Dr. Miguel Ferreira of VTT, Finland.

Cheers!