ERICA’s objectives have been achieved through recruitment, training and research of 13 Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) across 8 work packages. At the end of the project, significant progress has been made with the research objectives. In particular
Very substantial progress was made that has enabled routine and large-scale laboratory synthesis of hydrates with controlled and reproducible formulation (e.g. C/S ratio).
Cavitation is a process whereby vapor bubbles start to form in liquids - the role of cavitation of water in cement nano-pores was shown to be a critical phenomenon in drying cement.
Cement is recognised as a “hard” material but at the nanoscale it is much “softer”. A new model of water sorption in cements was introduced combining equations of fluid flow with microscopic changes in hydrate structure. Structural changes were found to occur on different timescales. The model was validated using specialist magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) normally used for clinical diagnosis. New lattice-Boltzmann algorithms helped understand the phenomena.
In collaboration with industrial Partners, a portable MRI system for the in-situ analysis of concrete was built, commissioned and shown to work much better than previous attempts.
We increasingly understand cement at the nano, micro and macro scales. However, linking the different pictures into a coherent whole is challenging. Significant progress was made in learning how to turn nanoscale “recipes” into macroscale measurable properties.
Methods available for multiscale modelling of mechanical properties of cementitious materials were extended and applied to link properties of microstructural constituents (solid material phases, pores) to macroscopic "homogenized" properties of cementitious materials, both in construction and dentistry.
A numerical model for understanding MRI images of cement was converted into a user-friendly publicly-available app.
Significant progress was made in understanding production of low CO2 cements ready for large scale production by industrial partners.
ERICA trained 13 researchers ready to find employment with cement product manufacturers, instrumentation manufacturers and in academia. They received comprehensive academic and transferable skills training comprising 6 Residential Schools, 14 Workshops and industry secondments. Training and dissemination were delivered in collaboration with European and global industry-academic cement science networks Nanocem and Innovandi, respectively.
ERICA mitigated the impact of the Covid pandemic on both training and research. Most formal training was complete before the pandemic struck widely. Research was impacted differently in different Beneficiaries but all ESRs were able to continue either their original, or a modified, line of research, often involving more modelling. Travel between Beneficiaries and Partners was largely prohibited which prevented some networking, dissemination at conferences, and a large fraction of the ESRs’ industry placement programme. ESRs benefitted alternatively from exposure to the industrial research environment in several ways: frequent interaction with their industry supervisors at ERICA meetings; some industry Partners continued work started by ESRs and sent results and samples back to the ESRs in academia; and some ESRs were granted extensions and continued secondments at the end of their projects. ESRs were also able to interact with a wide range of industrials through the Europe/Global academic-industry Nanocem and Innovandi consortia ( https://gccassociation.org/innovandi/ ).
