Research and Development

Cerib Research and Development initiatives are aligned with the principles of both immediate support for precast concrete product manufacturers, through short-term studies, and anticipation of future requirements through medium and long-term research into construction solutions and the associated resources. Some of this work involves inventorying the state of the art, both in France and internationally, and is supported in this by our internal intelligence endeavours.

Cerib Research and Development is divided into 5 fields:
sustainable development
fire and fire-safety engineering (FSE)
concrete technology
structural design
standardization and certification

Topics

Research programmes conducted as part of doctoral studies illustrate the long-term commitment to research that involves public-sector bodies such as universities, laboratories, etc., and private-sector bodies (the precast concrete products industry in particular).

The 2016 programme consists of 64 Research and Development studies, 22 of which are new, and are divided into 5 topics.

Sustainable development (green concretes, durability, energy efficiency, environment) – 19 studies; 7 are new

– Concrete recycling – National RECYBETON project and national research agency (ANR) ECOREB project
– Development of precast concrete products based on agro-sourced by-products
– Optimized of the hardening of concretes made with binary and ternary blended cements
– Solutions for accelerating the hardening of binders based on blast-furnace slab: optimization and durability (new study)
– National PerfDub project – Performance-based approach to the durability of concrete structures – ANR MODEVIE project – Modelling ot the ageing of concrete structures
– Interoperability of electronic tags cast into precast concrete products
– Chemical attack – Complement to guidelines for choosing exposure classes
– Protecting buildings against termite infestation – Solutions of the precast concrete products industry (new study)
– Effect of the protection crawl spaces provide with respect to the risk of reinforcement corrosion in coastal zones (new study)
– Adjustment of concrete cover in accordance with the durability performance of concretes (new study)
– Evolution of the hygrothermal performance of building floors/walls
– Heavy partitions and upper floors in housing
– Performance of concrete solutions in thermal-performance calculation software
– Improving the representativity of calculation of the thermal performance of floors (new study)
– Program for calculating the environmental impact of precast concrete building framing
– Contribution of precast concrete products to the environmental performance of buildings
– Creation and updating of EPDs for the precast concrete industry (new study)
– Contribution of blockwork to the environmental performance of houses (new study)

Concrete technology – 6 studies; 1 is new

– Acoustic vibration of concrete
– Optimization of mix design of semi-dry concrete for block-making
– Optimization of certain characteristics of masonry units
– Facilitating use of very-high-performance concretes in precasting
– Permanent wall forms: properties resulting from core concretes
– Intensely black concrete slab (new study)

Fire / FSE – 10 studies; 2 are new

– Consideration of continuity in the fire design of floors using floor plates
– Fire-break performance of smoke-exhaust and ventilation ducts
– Travelling Fires: Relevance of this fire models for large compartments
– Fire resistance of tall non-loadbearing masonry walls
– Determining fire design scenarios for different building types (new study)
– Fire performance of masonry walls
– Method for taking account of membrane effect in floors
– Fire propagation on insulated sandwich-panel façades
– Parametering of a digital model for assessing the fire performance of non-loadbearing solid panels
– FSE study : effect of aggregate on fire behaviour (new study)

Standardization – Certification – Quality Management – 6 studies; 3 are new

– Cracking of floorplate joints – Identification of first-order parameters for preventing disorders
– Recommendations for preventing internal sulphate attack – Test programme
– Determining the performance of drainage channels, bearing potential normative changes in mind
– Slip resistance of walking surfaces and stairs (new study)
– Non-destructive measurement methods (new study)
– Drafting of standard NF DTU 23.5 (Block and beam floor systems) (new study)

Structural design – 23 studies; 9 are new

– Acoustic performance and durability of noise barriers
– Low-frequency acoustic performance of concrete walls/floors
– Acoustic performance of concrete stairs
– Effects of taking account of transverse vehicle impact in Eurocode-based design of bridge superstructures with pretensioned precast beams
– Damping factor for dynamic analysis in Eurocode based design of railway bridges with pretensioned precast beams
– Protocol for measurement of transfer length in prestressed elements
– Evaluation of the shear resistance of floor systems with lattice joists
– Shear resistance of hollow-core slabs with topping
– Acoustic performance of floor systems using floor plates
– Effect of lattice-girder stiffeners on deformation of floors (new study)
– Acoustic performances of concrete blocks (new study)
– Database of the mechanical characteristics of concrete blockwork (new study)
– Design of floor systems subject to mechanical action due to thermal gradients (new study)
– Characterization of lifting eyes in precast beams (new study)
– Performance of coatings on concrete-block masonry
– Mechanical characterization of unfinished (no concrete core) walls made with permanent forms
– Best-practice guidelines for masonry walls using concrete blocks
– Measurement and characterization of the thermal performance of masonry
– Verification of block and beam floor systems under seismic loading
– Soil-retaining function of permanent wall forms for temporary works (new study)
– Study of punching shear in floorplate floor systems (new study)
– Justifications for using a visco-elastic material in pinned joints in seismic zones (new study)
– Clarification of standard NF EN 1992-1-1 with respect to precast concrete products (new study)

Competitive intelligence – 1 new study

– Circular economy: Issues and opportunities for the precast concrete industry (new study)

BIM Building (Building Information Modelling) technology is also a part of the programme, with the objective of building a database of precast concrete products and systems which can subsequently be shared.