Understanding Radiation and Temperature Effects in Cement-Based Materials

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

This project uses the fundamentals of material science to tackle the pressing needs for designing safe and failure-resistant concrete structures for extreme thermal and radiological environments. This approach can have a significant impact on discovering new cementitious materials with improved service life and safety for use in key public infrastructures such as nuclear power plants and oil and gas reservoirs, and will impact several other areas such as safe landing areas for airplanes and tunnel liners exposed to fire. The education program will develop new engineering modules and curricula that will be broadly disseminated to catalyze the fusion of computational material science and extreme conditions. Furthermore, underrepresented students and women will be recruited and retained in STEM areas through the professional Engineering Leadership Alliance at Rice University. The overarching technical objective is to fundamentally understand the physiochemical degradation processes of Calcium-Silicate-Hydrate (C-S-H), the smallest building blocks of concrete, at elevated temperatures and radiations, followed by utilization of this knowledge to design new intercalated hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN)/C-S-H composites. The underlying methodology lies in developing atomistic simulations connected to advanced synthesis and characterization techniques to understand and control the basic degradation phenomena at the heart of conventional and hybrid cement-based materials. This project will be innovative in its attempts to unravel the complex behavior of C-S-H under irradiation using collision cascade simulations. Intercalation of exfoliated hBN sheets with an optimum thickness into the sub-nanometer basal spaces of C-S-H are novel elements in cementitious materials. The research will link the complex ab-initio scale of chemistry, electron transfer, and radiation- and temperature-induced deterioration processes with the scale of mechanics. As such, this project will potentially lead to a new line of research in cementitious and infrastructure materials.