UKCRIC - Advanced Infrastructure Materials Lab

This proposal is for the creation a new suite of laboratories, known as the Advanced Infrastructure Materials Lab (AIM Lab), within the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Imperial College, part of the UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC), a coordinated investment in world-class national infrastructure research capability.

This is a stand-alone facility, but will be complemented by the UKCRIC natural exposure facilities being developed at the University of Leeds and the UKCRIC extreme exposure facilities being developed at the University of Manchester. These 3 facilities will form a National Centre of Infrastructure Materials:
- Imperial College London - Advanced Infrastructure Materials Lab: enhanced facilities for producing, processing, imaging, analysing and testing infrastructure materials.
- University of Leeds - Infrastructure Materials Exposure Facility: a field exposure site with full meteorological measurement capabilities, plus controlled environment climatic chambers for natural and accelerated ageing of the full range of infrastructure materials and assemblies in both in static and dynamic environments.
- University of Manchester - Fire and Impact Laboratory for Resilient Infrastructure Materials: critical loading and characterization facilities for testing materials under realistic fire and impact loading conditions.

The Imperial College submission also includes funds referred to as Imperial+ (Imperial Plus). These are funds (managed by Imperial) to extend the range of infrastructure materials and research facilities covered by the Centre, via invitations to other leading research groups to bid for complementary equipment.

The focus of the research using these facilities will be to develop better materials for national infrastructure; materials with enhanced technical performance, longer life, and reduced greenhouse gas footprint, which will be more easily recycled and will contribute to lower capital- and recurrent- cost infrastructure. Research will also aim to establish how to use existing materials more effectively. The lab will be relevant to a wide range of infrastructure materials including concrete, modified geomaterials, metals, polymers, composites, timber, masonry and asphalt, for use in civil infrastructure including structures, tunnels, pipelines, paving, track-beds and flood defences.

Game-changing research into construction materials has been limited over the past 25 years, falling between the interests of departments of materials science and civil engineering. A scientific approach is essential and is enabled by state-of-the-art instrumentation, but an understanding of engineering design, construction processes and exposure environments is also needed. This Facility will engage the materials science and civil engineering communities to work together on the next generation of infrastructure materials. Research using the facility (funded by other means, not this grant) has the potential to have great industrial and societal impact by developing better materials for national infrastructure; materials with enhanced technical performance, longer life, and reduced greenhouse gas footprint, which will be more easily recycled and will contribute to lower capital- and recurrent- cost infrastructure. The lab will be relevant to a wide range of infrastructure materials including concrete, modified geomaterials, metals, polymers, composites, timber, masonry and asphalt, for use in civil infrastructure including structures, tunnels, pipelines, paving, track-beds and flood defences.

The construction industry is crying out for materials engineers with an interest and deep understanding of construction materials. Motivated by the creation of this facility, Imperial is launching an MSc course in Infrastructure Materials. The graduates will be well-qualified to make an impact in industry and will also provide a pool of potential PhD students.