CoMSIRU students score not one but two RILEM scholarships – and they are off to Delft to present their work
Joanitta Ndawula and Alice Titus have been awarded each a scholarship from RILEM, the International Union of Laboratories and Experts in Construction Materials, Systems and Structures. Joanitta and Alice are CoMSIRU Masters’s students and among a few individuals to receive this highly regarded scholarship, chosen from many applicants from around the world in recognition of their research work.
Part of the scholarship is an invitation to the RILEM-Week 2018, held in Delft, Netherlands, 26th–29th August 2018. Here, they will present their research to experts in the field.
Joanitta will introduce her work on "Modelling the spread of reinforcement corrosion products in concrete using the Theory of Porous Media". In her research, she addresses the discrepancies observed between the time-to-cracking service life models applied to chloride-induced corrosion in reinforced concrete structures (especially those in splash and spray zones of coastal structures) and the experimental data published on this topic. She developed a computational model, which is based on porous media mechanics and accounts for the effect of corrosion products permeating from the steel into the surrounding concrete environment.
Alice will present her research on “Durability properties of Western Cape concrete with metakaolin”. Metakolin is a commercial product, made for-use by calcinating kaolin clay at a controlled temperature and used as supplementary cementation material (SCM). Alice elaborates on locally manufactured metakaolin, it’s influence on the durability of local concrete and offers solutions for environmental and economic problems associated with cement production. She also states the case for metakaolin as an alternative to Corex slag, a by-product of steel production and the main SCM used locally.