Here, fluid concrete starts to work its way from the drum of a truck mixer and into an MSc thesis
The truck pulled up by the concrete lab early one morning and dumped the grey mass into forms and wheelbarrows. As you can see in this time-lapse video, it kept NTNU-students and staff very busy getting the moulding done.
Concrete is everywhere. It's underfoot as we walk pavements and streets and it keeps our houses off the ground. It's the stuff cities are made of. Also, it is frequently used in protective structures where weight and space limitations are no issues. This makes concrete of particular interest in fortification installations for defence purposes. This is the backdrop of the moulding work done at SIMLab this morning.
The student´s cast slabs are 100 mm thick, and together with appurtenant material specimens, they are now stored for curing. When hardened and ready, they will subject them to impact from ogive-nose steel projectiles in SIMLab's ballistic range. The aim is to reveal their ballistic capacity.
You can read the full story and see the list of spring 21´s MSc theses at SIMLab and SFI CASA. Visit our blog: www.sfi-casa.no