European Concrete Paving Association (EUPAVE) held the “Enhancing Concrete Life in Infrastructure through Phase Change Systems (ECLIPS)” workshop on “Innovative and Sustainable Concrete Pavements” on March 23, 2017 in Brussels, Belgium.
ECLIPS—a multi-national project carried out by: Arizona State University, USA; University of California Los Angeles, USA; Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science-Empa,Switzerland; Technical University-Delft, Netherlands; and TECNALIA-Spain—is working on the incorporation of phase-change materials with a suitable phase-transition temperature, enthalpy of phase change, and degree of dispersion in the concrete. The project is funded through the Infravation Grant—an initiative of the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) and coordinated by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment. EUPAVE and American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) are in charge of the dissemination of the ECLIPS project and main outcomes. For more information about Infravation and the project funding, please go to the special ECLIPS webpage: http://www.eupave.eu/documents/eclips.xml?lang=en.
The theme of this workshop was “Innovative and Sustainable Concrete Pavements”. The workshop gathered speakers from the project itself and members and partners of EUPAVE. Karl Downey, Secretary General-EUPAVE, opened the workshop and introduced EUPAVE to the participants. Mr. William Bird, Project Officer of the Infravation Program-European Commission, explained the European Commission’s rationale for funding transport research, including the Infravation Program. Luc Rens, Managing Director-EUPAVE, introduced the speakers and moderated the discussion that followed. The morning session focused on the results of the ECLIPS research so far. Narayanan Neithalath, Arizona State University and ECLIPS Project Coordinator gave a presentation on this multinational collaboration on enhancing concrete durability in transportation infrastructure. Presenters included:
- Edurne Erkizia, TECNALIA: The synthesis of silica encapsulation of phase change materials for addition to concrete.
- Gaurav Sant, University of California Los Angeles: The measuring, modeling and characterizing the influence of phase change materials in concrete pavement applications.
- Andreas Leeman, EMPA: The impact of PCM on thermal cracking sensitivity and deformability response.
- Erik Schlangen, TU DELFT: The influence of PCM on micromechanical properties of cement paste and risk of cracking in concrete.
- Peter Wilbers, The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, and Infravation Programme Coordinator: The program.
Innovations from industry were presented by:
- Luc Rens, EUPAVE Managing Director: Pervious concrete pavements
- Sergio Tortelli, Italcementi – HeidelbergCement: Demonstrated a case of sustainable jointless paving using calcium sulpho-aluminate (CSA) cement.
- Anne Beeldens, AB-Roads: The inductive charging through concrete roads with a Belgian case study and application.
- Steven Schaerlaekens, Holcim Belgium: Ultra-high performance concrete for durable transport infrastructure
- Narayanan Neithalath gave the concluding remarks of the workshop and thanked the attendees for their participation.
The next EUPAVE Workshop will be on Slipform Pavers
on September 7, 2017 at Matexpo in Kortrijk, Belgium.
