The RUB offers a place of learning and teaching on its area of just under five square kilometers. It enjoys the reputation of being the "concrete university" and thus holds the opportunity for civil engineers in particular to consolidate their newly acquired knowledge on campus. With the design principles for concrete structures from over 50 years ago, there are already damaged areas of the reinforced concrete structures in the form of rust spots or even spalling in some places, which need to be regularly inspected and repaired.
Content
In cooperation with the Alfried Krupp School Laboratory of Science, the Chair of Building Materials Technology would like to introduce school students to the secrets of concrete repair. Based on real-life internships at the university, the students can gain an insight into the lecture content of the students and at the same time gain initial experience for their engineering studies. With the planned demolition of the NA building, students will have the opportunity to see the building from the inside and conduct their own investigations into the durability of the building. Following the building inspection, the repair of a reinforced concrete beam will be simulated in the IAN laboratory, where the new knowledge can be put into practice.
Organizational
This project
The work done by the students during the project is supported by a short handout. The project is bookable on request to schuelerlabor@rub.de.
Contact person:
As part of the annual Girls' and Boys' Day, students in grades 8 to 10 are given the opportunity to participate in exciting workshops on the topic of "Concrete is COLORFUL", which is offered by the chairs of Solid Construction and Building Materials Technology of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering in cooperation. An insight around fresh and hardened concrete awaited them.
In the concrete laboratory, the participants first learned what concrete is actually made of. With this knowledge, they produced their own fresh concrete in the concrete mixer. They were able to feel the fresh concrete with their own hands and found that it felt "squishy and crumbly at the same time," as if "you were throwing stones into meatball dough." The actual consistency was determined with the aid of a spreading test. This resulted in a spreading dimension class of F2 (plastic), which was still too stiff for processing. The students learned that it was not water but the superplasticizer additive that was to regulate the consistency. After the superplasticizer was added, the concrete became soft (F3) and concreting could start. Everyone was allowed to create their own keepsake with brightly colored concrete and decorations to take home. Deep red hearts and colorful balls were the result of the first workshop part.
The second part took place in the experimental hall. Here, the participants saw a cube compression test to determine how many small cars a cube with an edge length of 15 cm can carry. The students worked out the behavior of a cylinder under splitting tension and then observed this in the experiment.
Over the course of three days, pupils get to know the range of faculties, advisory services and student life at the RUB. The aim is to support undecided students in their choice of study and to get to know the desired course of study in more detail. The Chair of Building Materials Engineering offered a workshop on "Concrete is more than just a dull gray building material" as part of the 2017 Summer Campus. During the workshop, scientific staff members of the chair reported on their experiences during their studies and bring the students closer to concrete as a building material. In interesting experiments the students got to know concrete with different design possibilities and properties. They were given the opportunity to produce different concretes themselves in the laboratory and to change certain concrete properties by adding admixtures and additives. In the process, the students were able to make a personal souvenir and take it home afterwards.
The idea and goal of the school internship is to give students an understanding of professions such as engineers or technicians. The students should be informed about technical professions at an early stage of their schooling (middle school) - before choosing advanced courses. During the school internship, scientific staff members reported on their experiences during their studies as well as their work as engineers in a scientific environment. Of course, the students were also introduced to concrete as a building material during the internship. For this purpose, the students produced concrete with the support of scientific staff and building material testers and learned about its basic properties. As a souvenir of the student internship, the students were able to take home colored concrete blocks they had made themselves in various shapes.
Copyright © baustoffe 2023
Last update: Nov 21, 2023
