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Construction & the Environment

The Advanced Concrete and Masonry Centre

Follow this link for Current Research Projects

Research Focus:

Our activities focus on the characterisation of construction materials at a range of scales from the nano to the macro-scale. The aim is to improve our fundamental understanding of the structure-property relationship and processes within materials, that control mechanical and durability behaviours across these scales. The staff expertise is complimentary to permit an expansion of such research work focussing on the cycle of characterisation through modelling to design of new materials. Additional research focuses on the properties of natural geomaterials and their relationship to performance in construction environments

Key themes are:

• Verification of new special materials designed and manufactured with desirable properties and performance characteristics, as a result of modelling activities, closing a full cycle of investigative-modelling activity.

• The investigation of special materials, for example high performance and self compacting concrete, traditional lime mortars tailored for compatibility, materials in extreme environments, control of durability through direct fabrication or adapted properties of existing materials.

• Development of an interdisciplinary approach to sourcing and interpretation of materials issues in building conservation, and their functional properties.

• Realising waste reuse and the development of binders for alternative cements in and novel geopolymers in support of environmental agendas.
  

Selected research projects:

• Developing technological capacities for designing innovative cement-based materials
• Current mechanisms and future patterns of stone decay in cleaned sandstone and granite buildings
  

Heritage Masonry

The conservation, and the effective restoration of our built heritage depends on the proper understanding of the materials used in construction and their modern equivalents (for example the Great Hall of Stirling Castle, top, and sandstone masonry at Bothwell Castle, bottom). This is the rationale behind Heritage Masonry research at the Advanced Concrete and Masonry Centre.

International recognition of the conservation related materials research at the Advanced Concrete and Masonry Centre is growing. Our work centres around the following projects:

• Characterisation of mortars in historic buildings.
• Development and testing of modern conservation lime mortars.
• The Experimental Lime Kiln (ELK)

 

 

 

The Advanced Concrete and Masonry Centre is a partner in the Glasgow Research Partnership for Engineering funded by the Scottish Funding Council, as part of the Mechanics of Materials and Structures and Bioengineering Joint Research Institute. In 2004 a collaboration with the Mechanics and Materials group at Civil Engineering at the University of Glasgow saw the establishment of the Centre for Microstructural Modelling and Characterisation with funding from the EPSRC.