CIES PhD student wins the Concrete Institute of Australia competition

CIES PhD student James de Burgh won the Concrete Institute of Australia (CIA) Competition on “Pushing the Boundaries in Concrete Technology”. The competition, opened to young researchers Australia wide researching in concrete technologies and structures, required a max 1000 word essay on the subject with selected finalists doing a 10 minute speech/presentation at the CIA Mini Symposium held on 17th September.

In his presentation, James discussed how concrete technology and design practice have changed in the last 40 years; and following this the likely changes in the next 40 years. His presentation addressed a number of areas including: the multi-scale structure of concrete; the development of "bottom-up" techniques for cementitious material development and the importance of sustainability (and options for more sustainable concrete). In addition he discussed how our design processes and methodologies may change and adapt with the predicted massive future increase in computing power. These points were discussed in the context of James’ own work at UNSW; examining and modelling the hygro-thermo-mechanical processes leading to concrete spalling in