Under the condition that the project is selected, the positions will be financed by the Luxembourgish AFR (Aide Formation Recherche) fellowship.
- 3 years contract, possible extension of further 1 year, 40 h per week
- student status
The PhD-student will work under the guidance of a professor on a research theme but will also assist in teaching with 1 hour per week. She/he should finish work with a doctoral degree in engineering science.
Theme:
Eco High Performance Concrete for Sustainable Production of Concrete Elements
Project Description:
Within the proposed project an Eco High Performance Concrete for Sustainable Production of Concrete Elements will be developed. As the production of cement clinker is responsible for five per cent of the whole emissions in the world, concrete formulations developing and concrete structures designing by considering only technical and economical parameters is no longer valid.
The negative environmental impact of concrete structures can be partly reduced by a substitution of cement clinker by environmental friendly powder constituents, e.g. inert rock powders or reactive by-products, whilst the required workability characteristics and the properties of hardened concrete can be maintained. In a first step, especially new formulations on the basis of natural micro-silica and Al-silicates will be analysed with the objective to create a more economic and thus more competitive material. Whereas a transfer of knowledge and expertise gained from the development of high-performance and ultra-high performance concrete will be considered, the main application domain of the new proposed concrete will be the domain of conventional concrete structures.
But the optimization potential will not only be based on a reduction of the cement clinker amounts. In addition a reduction of the raw material consumption by using compounds on the basis of recycled material as well for the aggregates as for the eventually introduced fibres will be analysed. But also the reduction of energy consumption aspects during cement manufacturing, mixing and mixing time, transportation, placing and pumping of the eco concrete will be aspects that must be optimized.
A further important objective of the project will be the formulations for ECO-HPC concrete. Different mixtures will be examined by variation of the fibre and superplasticizer content and by variation of the water/cement ratio as well as the mixing regime on their characteristics of fresh and hardened concrete. Especially new formulations on the basis of natural micro-silica and AL-silicates will be analysed with the objective to create a more economic and thus more competitive material. With the development of a more competitive construction material the proposed research will contribute to a larger application of this type of concrete especially in the domain of ready mix concrete. To promote the new developed construction material at the end a life cycle analysis will examine its sustainability for constructive applications.
