Adding pigment to cement is one way to produce colored concrete. Researchers in China and Morocco showed that the content and purity of the pigment can have adverse effects on the cement’s properties.
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Despite concrete being the second most consumed material in the world, the global construction industry currently is experiencing a cement shortage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn how a recent decision by the Swedish Supreme Land and Environmental Court may complicate Sweden’s cement production further in the coming months and years.
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Wind instruments can be made from an array of materials because the sound depends mainly on how the air is shaped rather than the instrument’s body. Learn how a German mechanical engineer used 3D printing to design a trumpet out of concrete.
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Substituting waste materials for cement in concrete helps lower the concrete industry’s carbon emissions and keeps waste materials out of landfills. However, large amounts of glass cullet in concrete will decrease the concrete’s mechanical properties. Researchers in Poland investigated reinforcing the cement–glass composite using plastic fibers.
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To date, recycling of building rubble into new construction products is limited because the material does not meet strict building regulations. A new £6 million project led by Manchester Metropolitan University and partners across Europe aims to overcome this limitation using additive manufacturing because products produced this way are not subject to the same building restrictions.
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Numerous factors contribute to failure of concrete sewer pipes. Researchers at The Ohio State University used a surrogate model to identify which factors play the largest role in these failures, isolating critical areas for improvement.
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Carbon capture and storage is one method the global cement industry is investigating to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. An ongoing study in Norway could become the world’s first cement plant to use this technology at full scale.
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ACerS Fellow David Lange has been involved in the Cements Division since the early 1990s. He believes his Division experience has contributed to his career growth.
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Existing creep damage models for concrete assume compressive and tensile creep are identical, but recent experimental evidence suggests otherwise. Researchers from the United Kingdom and China propose a modified model that accounts for drying-induced damages and load eccentricity to more accurately model creep.
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Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder designed a living building material cemented together with cyanobacteria-secreted calcium carbonate—offering possibilities for construction in resource-limited settings.
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