University of Tartu in collaboration with Bauroc will start to develop a novel porous concrete
- 11. April 2017
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- Cooperation projects,
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The scientists of the Institute of Technology of the University of Tartu, in collaboration with Bauroc AS, will start to develop a novel porous concrete. They will try to take its’ relationship between weight and strength to a new level. The breakthrough is expected from the introduction of new composite materials.
“Finding a suitable composite material is difficult since, during the manufacturing process of the porous concrete, pressure and temperature are high, in addition, the environment is alkaline and there is saturated water vapour in the device. This all puts high demands on the composite materials,” Tarmo Tamm, Senior Research Fellow in Material Science explains.
During the one-year development project, amongst everything else, a laboratory model system will be constructed, which would provide comparable results to the installations of Bauroc factory, especially with the processes taking place in the autoclave, because otherwise, it would not be possible to implement the results in the factory in the future. At the last stage of the project, the experiments will be carried out in the Bauroc factory, to test whether the results obtained in the laboratory suit real production.
The director of the factory and board member, Karmo Kapstas, is hopeful: “As a result of the cooperation, Bauroc hopes to ensure the best thermal insulation properties compared to other stone materials also in the more distant future and to continue to compete with other multi-layer insulation solutions with ECOTERM+ blocks meant for the single-layer exterior wall construction, which have become a flagship of the company.”
The joint project of the scientists and entrepreneurs was initiated with the help of the cooperation network ADAPTER. It is one of the first inquiries, which reached a contractual activity. ADAPTER is a web-based environment for entrepreneurs to find the most suitable partners for their research and development activities. Through ADAPTER, the company gets comparative quotes from all public universities.