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BFRL Program
HYPERCON: Prediction and Optimization of Concrete Performance
This program will develop and implement the enabling measurement science that will give the concrete industry and state and federal government agencies the predictive capability upon which they can base the use of performance-based standards and specifications in key technical areas.
The overarching problem for the U.S. cement and concrete industry is that either relevant performance-based standards do not exist or that the performance-based standards that do exist are not built upon measurements that reliably predict real performance. This problem becomes evident in the technical problems plaguing the cement and concrete industry and concrete construction users and owners. The main problem is concrete durability, which needs predictive tests for the many new materials being produced, and assured longer service life. Some of these new materials include nanoadditives, whether to the liquid part of concrete (water-filled pore space), or the solid part (a complex composite of cement, hydration products, sand, and gravel), or the interface between the two, which is very large in concrete and crucially affects properties like shrinkage and ionic transport.
But concrete durability is just a part of the larger problem of concrete sustainability - trying to make and use concrete that has less of an environmental impact, uses less energy and produces less carbon dioxide, yet at the same time continues to meet or exceed expectations as the main construction material used in a rapidly-growing world. A large part of sustainability efforts in the cement and concrete industry is focused on increasing the use of fly ash and other waste-stream materials as substitutes for cement. This will reduce the need for cement and safely recycling coal combustion products, yet at the same time will improve the properties of concrete, including durability, to rebuild the nation’s physical infrastructure with more sustainable materials.
Building performance prediction capabilities for cement-based materials is a challenging task due to the complexity of these materials. It is known that the materials industry in general needs performance prediction capability, which for complex modern materials (among which concrete is arguably the most complex) can only be supplied by computational materials science/engineering models or what is called an Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME).1 Therefore, the technical idea that underlies this research program is to use a combination of experimental and computational materials science/engineering, in an ICME approach, to develop performance prediction capability for selected major problems encountered by the U.S. concrete industry and in major national problems involving sustainable transportation infrastructure rebuilding and sustainable nuclear waste containment structures and new nuclear facilities.
The impact of success in improving the sustainability of concrete will include: satisfying the construction needs of a growing U.S. and world economy while minimizing increase in CO2 emissions; close to 100 % recycling of fly ash, minimizing land-fill disposal; improving the performance and durability of concrete used in the infrastructure; and minimizing the CO2/ton of cementitious material used in concrete.
[1] ICME, Integrated Computational Materials Engineering: A Transformational Discipline for Improved Competitiveness and National Security, National Research Council, National Academies Press, 2008.
Component Projects:
Contact:
Edward Garboczi
(301) 975-6708
edward.garboczi@nist.gov
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Last updated: 8/5/2009