Department of Building Materials
The Department of Building Materials is dedicated to scientific and educational activities as well as applications in construction practice in the form of analyses, assessments and consultations. The Department closely cooperates with other departments of the Klokner Institute. Scientific research activities include the development of new building materials, remediation methods and control mechanisms, the study of the microstructure stability of cement composites, and the monitoring of external influences on the ageing process of building materials.
Activities of the Department of Building Materials
The employees of the Department use conventional chemical procedures and modern equipment for their work. You can read more about this on the website dedicated to the Climatic Test Chamber and the Microscopy Laboratory which together with the Chemical Laboratory form the main laboratory facilities of this Department.
The main activities of the Department of Building Materials include for example:
- concrete technology, assessment and proposals of concrete mixture recipes,
- determination of physical and mechanical parameters of concrete, mortar mixtures and materials in the laboratory and in situ,
- moisture surveys of buildings with proposals for remediation measures,
- assessment of the quality of remediation interventions in situ,
- assessment of defects and malfunctions of industrial floors and floors in residential construction with proposals for remedial measures,
- the effect of the electric field on the amount of the electroosmotic flow in building materials.
The Department of Building Materials deals with the development of new building materials, especially on a silicate basis. It uses modern XFR instrumentation and a Raman spectrometer to analyze the chemical composition of building materials, including their structure, which is performed using a LEXT OLS3000 confocal scanning microscope. It also deals with:
- monitoring of the effect of aggressive components of the environment acting on building materials, e.g., the effect of the flow conditions of the liquid medium on the leaching process of individual components of silicate materials
- chemical analyses of a wide range of building materials, i.e., silicate materials, organic materials, etc.
- evaluation of the resistance of building materials to the action of aggressive components of the external environment
- evaluation of the resistance of building materials to the action of physical factors and the external environment (effect of temperature changes, etc.)
- forecast of the durability of building materials
- carrying out construction supervision and consultations
