Optimization the thermal degradation radiation emission - and failure behavior- resistance of raw material - based biological shielding concretes

Summary

The Egyptian government is planning to depend mainly on the nuclear
power plants to generate the electrical energy in the coming decades. This
would demand the use of high density, i.e., heavyweight, natural raw
materials in building the concrete biological shields of these nuclear power
plants. In Egypt, barite; serpentinite; hematite; magnetite, ilmenite and
galena are all high density natural resources available in the Eastern and
Western Desert as well as Sinai. Some of these natural raw materials were
previously characterized to produce heavyweight concrete. However; there
is a lack of knowledge in both: (a) definition of the optimum characteristics
and production conditions of the variously used heavyweight aggregates in
biological shielding concrete in addition to (b) explanation the physicomechanical
failure behavior of the biological shielding concrete based on the
mineralogical and microstructural drastic transformations induced by the
nuclear radiation and thermal attack. Therefore, there is a demand driven
need for further detailed studies regarding the different aspects of using the
natural Egyptian raw materials as heavyweight concrete aggregates. Such
studies will save lots of hard currency which would be directed to import
such materials abroad.

Therefore, this proposal aims directly from one side to: (a) optimize the use
of the different varieties of Egyptian natural raw materials as heavyweight
aggregates to produce biological shielding concrete; (b) explain the failurebehavior
of the physico-mechanical properties of the radiated and thermally
attacked biological shielding concrete based on the microstructural and
mineralogical/phase transformation as well as (c) creating a statistical model
to prospect the optimized radiation shielding and thermal degradation
properties of biological shielding concrete.
The industrial community end users of the proposal outputs are mainly
cement and concrete stakeholders in line with the Ministry of Electricity and
Energy in Egypt. All the planned proposed tasks will be accomplished jointly
by Egyptian and German scientists from Ain Shams University (ASU), Egypt,
and Martin-Luther University (MLU), Germany.

Achievements

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List of Publications from the Project

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Partners

• Herbet Pollmann

Project Members

Project Leaders