Testing

The Laboratory of Construction Materials (LMC) is a competence centre for all construction materials and carries out testing on demand for partners of the construction industry

Fields

  • Cementitious mortars
  • Masonry
  • Plaster for civil construction (buildings and public works)
  • Metallic and non metallic construction materials

Activities performed

  • Characterisation and analysis of the components of concrete (cement, aggregates, additives);
  • Mix design of concrete and mortars, from conventional to high performance;
  • Characterisation of mechanical properties (strength, deformation and fracture mechanics);
  • Shrinkage, creep and relaxation;
  • Effects of temperature (thermal expansion, freezing);
  • Permeability, moisture movement in porous materials, characterisation of porosity;
  • Durability;
  • Microstructural characterisation by optical and electron microscopy;
  • Non destructive monitoring (infrared thermography).

For all these activities, please see services

List of selected Equipment available at LMC

  • Several mechanical presses with closed loop control (compression up to 5000 kN, tension and flexure from 10 N to 500 kN, modulable loading frame and testing floor, dynamic loading up to 500 kN);
  • Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), laser confocal optical microscope, X-ray diffraction;
  • Climatic test chambers;
  • Micromechanical testing equipment;
  • As well as diverse equipment such as laser particle size distribution, mercury porosimetry, measurement of adsorption isotherms, acoustic emission for detection of cracking, etc.

A full description of the scientific equipment is available here

See the full list of our technical equipment here