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New Environmental friendly and Durable conCrete, integrating industrial by-products and hybrid systems, for civil, industrial and offshore applications – EnDurCrete

Project description

Reinventing concrete for a sustainable future

As our cities grow and their infrastructure ages, the need for durable and sustainable concrete has never been more urgent. Drawing on a fusion of innovative technologies, the EU-funded EnDurCrete project aims to create concrete with remarkable mechanical properties, self-healing capabilities and self-monitoring abilities. By integrating low-clinker cement, nano and micro technologies and hybrid systems, EnDurCrete promises enhanced durability, high mechanical properties and self-healing capabilities. Testing in tunnels, ports, and offshore structures will prove the concrete's extended lifespan (+ 30 years) and reduced cost (− 35 %). With an expected economic value of EUR 1 billion and the creation of thousands of high-quality jobs by 2025, EnDurCrete aims to ensure widespread dissemination and lasting impacts on developing robust business models.

Objective

The main goal of Endurcrete Project is to develop a new cost-effective sustainable reinforced concrete for long lasting and added value applications. The concept is based on the integration of novel low-clinker cement including high-value industrial by-products, new nano and micro technologies and hybrid systems ensuring enhanced durability of sustainable concrete structures with high mechanical properties, self-healing and self-monitoring capacities. Among key technologies there are: nano-enabled smart corrosion inhibitors, self-sensing carbon-based nanofillers, multifunctional coatings with self-healing properties and sensorised non-metallic reinforcement systems. Innovative design concepts will be developed for smart installation, disassembly and re-use of the new green pre-cast and cast in place elements aiming at enabling easy recycling and re-using approaches.
The functionality of the developed concrete structures will be proved under severe operating conditions supported by experimental and numerical tools to better understand factors affecting durability and capture the multiscale evolution of damage as well as to enable service life prediction.
Demonstrators will be tested in working sites of tunnels, ports and offshore structures, in order to prove the enhanced durability (+40%, i.e. +30 years) and decreased cost (-35%) of the new concrete systems in such critical applications.
Innovation aspects such standardization, life cycle assessments, health and safety and training activities will be performed. Finally, in order to maximize the exploitation of findings and ensure dissemination and impacts beyond the project duration, business models and plans for the proposed solutions will be developed.
The Consortium, led by HeidelbergCement and involving 16 partners (6 SMEs), will have a strong economic and social impact (1billion € and 6900 high quality jobs by 2025), considering concrete markets and related applications. The foreseen project duration is 3.5 year

Call for proposal

H2020-NMBP-2016-2017

See other projects for this call

Sub call

H2020-NMBP-2017-two-stage

Coordinator

HEIDELBERG MATERIALS AG
Net EU contribution
€ 1 024 889,71
Address
BERLINER STRASSE 6
69120 Heidelberg
Germany

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Region
Baden-Württemberg Karlsruhe Heidelberg, Stadtkreis
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
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Total cost
€ 1 052 460,02

Participants (17)