East African Student Seminar on Materials technologies for sustainable construction

About the seminar

Civil engineering demands for enormous amounts of materials. The most important material used in civil engineering construction is concrete. It is ubiquitous in the world. It makes out about 50% by mass of everything that is produced in the world, and it is responsible for about 10% of the global carbon emissions. No other mass material has a lower carbon footprint and a lower energy demand, yet the increasing global demand for concrete along with dramatically changing boundary framework require for more conscious usage of cement and concrete technologies.  This means, civil engineers in the future must become more conscious in the use of construction materials, and ways have to be developed how less materials are used in general. For concrete this means, using less Portland cement and using the cement in concrete more efficiently, for example by replacing cement by supplementary cementitious materials and by minimizing the water content by using rheology controlling admixtures. And, it means, using concrete only where its outstanding properties can be activated, and avoiding concrete where materials with lower carbon footprint can also be used, for example soil. The lectures are given by international experts in their fields, who will give detailed insight into materials backgrounds and technologies on nano and micro scale with relevance for the macro scale. Besides the courses, the seminar is also thought to bring students from East African countries together to network among themselves and to have opportunities to get in direct contact with experts in the area. The seminar and the mobility for East African students is organized within the framework of the Local-Care project, which was awarded the German-African Innovation Incentive Award 2018, funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research. The RILEM Mishikaki Night is sponsored by RILEM. 

Find more information about the courses and lecturers on the programme below.