Today, with the Research Institute in Duesseldorf, the German Cement Works Association has available a renowned and internationally recognised scientific establishment. This covers all aspects of cement production and use. The Institute has a modern equipment park and is also optimally equipped for sophisticated, pure research.
Research on the performance of the cements has always been a central task of the Research Institute. Today a major focus of the Institute’s work concerns the interplay of the main and minor constituents of the cement. Depending on the area of application, individual performance features can deliberately be influenced. Here, the reactivity of the main components is of decisive importance. Also, the grinding fineness of the individual constituents can be deliberately coordinated by separate grinding.
The main constituents blast furnace slag, limestone, fly ash and burnt shale in particular make a considerable contribution to the reduction of the CO2 emissions from cement works. The studies on Portland composite cements at the Research Institute concentrate on the granulometry of the main cement constituents. Apart from their strength-forming capacity, the long-term durability of the concretes produced from these cements is decisive for their market success.
In the concrete building technology field, the technical and economic principles for concretes with special performance features are being further developed in laboratory studies and practical applications. Among these are for example concretes with high acid resistance or self-compacting concrete.
For high-strength concretes, load-free deformation (contraction) and tensile strength and breaking strain were studied. In addition, there are wide-ranging research studies on transport construction, e.g. road construction, the products of road construction, and the ballastless track for the newly constructed stretches of the German Railways.
