Cement and cementitious materials are of paramount importance in todays society. In light of their widespread use in the construction of bridges, airport, average homes and countless other keycomponents of modern infrastructure their stability and reliability is of uncomparable significance.
However, it is well known that the leeching of ions has a destabelizing effect on those materials, a process which is accelerated by industrial exhaustion and acidic rain - everyday occurances in urban centers.
With this background in mind it may come as a surprise that many fundamental questions to cement and cementitious materials have not yet been answered by science.
For one there is no reliable knowledge about the nanostructure, the basic builidng blocks of cementitious materials. Furthermore there is still a lack of models describing the progression of ion leeching from the cement matrices.
The Department of Virtual Material Design of Fraunhofer SCAI supplies tools, which solve such problems.