AMORPH


 

 

 

 

The AMORPH (Analysis and Modelling Of the Reaction of Pozzolans during cement Hydration) project is funded by a Marie Curie Individual Intra-European Fellowship (IEF) hosted by the Laboratory of Construction Materials at EPFL. It provides the visiting fellow (R. Snellings) the opportunity to learn and engage in research in a competitive and international environment. The project has a duration of two years, commencing on the 1st of June 2012.

The AMORPH project proposes a novel interdisciplinary approach, building on the geological background of the fellow combined with the materials science perspective of the host. Novel concepts of surface chemistry, recently developed in geochemistry, will be applied to the behaviour of SCMs in cement. The focus will be on investigating the effect of SCM and solution chemistry on the rate of the nanoscale surface processes of dissolution and precipitation. The impact of SCMs on the product assemblage and microstructure will be modelled and compared to experiment, exploiting recent breakthroughs in thermodynamic and microstructure modelling of cement systems. Finally, the results obtained will be transferred to practice through practical methodologies for testing SCM reactivity in a basic laboratory environment.