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| Lafarge and the LCPC put concrete on show at the "European City of Science" From November 14 to 16, Lafarge and the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées (LCPC), are inviting children and adults to the Grand Palais museum to discover or rediscover all the facets of concrete during the "European City of Science", which will mark the start of the annual "Fête de la Science" (Science Festival). A voyage to the heart of this material, to show all the possibilities offered by a mixture of water, sand, aggregates and cement, so simple in appearance, but which through research has become a high-tech material! Visitors, transformed into adventurers in the world of concrete, will be able to test their knowledge with a quiz, and take home a concrete sample with an autumnal flavor, made from Ductal, Lafarge's fiber-reinforced ultra-high performance concrete. The stand design was entrusted to Alain Moatti, architect at the Moatti et Rivière agency: "Concrete is part of our current and future environment, that scientific research is helping us to make more inhabitable. Our project lies between two worlds, like a frontier area where scientific research mingles with a certain idea of the future", he explains. With 10 billion m3 consumed every year, concrete is the world's most heavily consumed product, after water. In the heart of our cities, it is the only material able to respond to huge construction needs, in an era of accelerated worldwide urbanization. Thirty years ago, concrete was the fruit of an empirical formula. Since then, Lafarge, through its Research Center near Lyons, France, the world's leading building materials research facility, and the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées, a public organization, have adopted an approach based on scientific understanding at the nanometric scale for research into cement and concrete, revealing their highly technical nature. This has made it possible to develop new concrete products. More durable, more fluid, more resistant, they also help to limit the material's impact on mankind and the environment and to respond even better to the challenges of sustainable construction, while allowing levels of architectural prowess that would have been inconceivable a few years ago. Today, ready-mix concrete is manufactured totally on a "made-to-measure" basis, in highly automated concrete plants capable of producing up to 500 different formulas. Each formula responds to a specific application or requirement, which makes concrete a material that is able to adapt to current needs and challenges, constantly evolving. An exciting material! write your comments about the article :: © 2008 Construction News :: home page |