36TH International Conference on Cement Microscopy

The International Cement Microscopy Association (ICMA) is proud to announce its Thirty Sixth (36^th) International Conference on Cement Microscopy to be held in the famous City of Milan, Italy on April 14-17, 2014. A call for papers has been released requesting Abstracts related to microscopy of cement, clincker, concrete and related materials. Abstract submission deadline is December 15, 2013.  See more information on their website (soon):  www.cemmicro.org

SCP Meeting June 11, 2013 Indianapolis, Indiana

Please join us for our SCP meeting in Indianapolis during the ASTM meeting.  The meeting will be held at the JW Marriott - Room 201 on Tuesday from 6:30 to 8:00.  

We will have a presentation by Karl Peterson of the University of Toronto.  The presentation title and description follows. 

 

"Combined vacuum/high-pressure fluorescent epoxy impregnation and microscopy of geo-materials after mechanical testing"

Fluorescent microscopy techniques are widely used in the assessment of concrete materials, but seldom used in the field of rock fracture. For the observation of fractures, many researchers have turned to x-ray computed tomography (CT). X-ray CT provides excellent three-dimensional information, but often with poor resolution, due to limitations imposed by the dimensions of the tested materials. The high resolution of a petrographic microscope allows for a more detailed examination of fractures.   After mechanical testing, test specimens may easily break apart, so it is necessary to stabilize the material with epoxy prior to production of thin sections. Combined vacuum/high-pressure impregnation is a versatile technique popularized by a private materials testing firm, and implemented here with standard equipment common to most universities or testing laboratories. After impregnation with fluorescent epoxy, the samples are prepared in thin section, and images recorded with a petrographic microscope equipped with a excitation/barrier filters, a low power objective, and a manual xy stage. Results are compared with slices from x-ray CT reconstructions from the same sample.

Update on Friday, June 14, 2013 at 3:34PM by SCP

Click here to view the PowerPoint (left-click to advance the presentation).

Click here to view the presentation in PDF format.

SCP Meeting Minutes

Atlanta, GA - December 4, 2012

Attendees: Ted Sibbick, Daniela Mauro, Mauro Scali, Nancy Whiting, Ali Gurhan, Mark Lukkcarila, Kirsten Freeman, Anol Mukhopadhyay, David Rothstein, Bob O’Neill, and Nick Scaglione

Introductions

Committees
The Code of Ethics committee will be dissolved. If, for any reason, changes are needed to the Code of Ethics, the responsibility will fall to the By-Laws Committee. The By-laws will need to be revised to remove the Code of Ethics as a committee.

Nick Scaglione discussed the need to fill all of our committees with active members to get more of the membership involved in the running of the society. Currently the board members are the only ones performing the committee duties. Volunteers were solicited at the meeting and are shown below. The italicized names are officers that are required committee members in accordance with the By-Laws. The board members will work to fill the remaining openings.

Membership: Gerard Moulzolf, Ted Sibbick, Mark Lukkarilla
Nominations: Laura Powers, Kirsten Freeman
By-Laws: Mauro Scali, Bob O’Neill, Ted Sibbick
Programs: Nancy Whiting, Anol Mukhopadhyay, Daniela Mauro

Membership (86 total members, 6 new members in 2012 - 3 voting and 3 associate)
There was some discussion on a way to make our meetings more accessible to increase remote participation by members who are not able to attend our meetings. One suggestion was that we may be able to provide on-line participation for members who are unable to attend the meeting. Mauro Scali and Daniela Mauro will investigate possibilities for on-line participation and report their findings at the June 2013 meeting, which will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana.

SCP Membership Certificates
Laura Powers is working on a certificate for voting and associate members.

Presentations
Nick Scaglione gave a presentation on the Lake Loramie Spillway and Dam structures.

Ali Gurhan gave a presentation that illustrated examples of DEF, ASR, and Freeze-Thaw deterioration that he has encountered.

Ted Sibbick gave a presentation on estimating water-cementitious materials ratio in concrete using fluorescent microscopy. He cautioned that the method works best for plain portland cement concrete mixtures and shows greater variability in mixtures containing pozzolans or alternative cementitious materials, such as fly ash and slag.

SCP Meeting December 4, 2012, Atlanta, GA

The next meeting for SCP will be in conjunction with the December ASTM meetiing, Tuesday evening 12/4/12.  Details on time and place will be posted soon.

ASTM Committee Meeting C09 Concrete and Aggregates
Sunday December 02 2012 - Wednesday December 05 2012
Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Atlanta, GA

The subcommittee meetings of particular interest to SCP members are C09.65 Petrography, and its related Task Groups: 

C096500 Task Group on Water Cement Ratio	Monday	02:00PM - 03:00PM
C096500 Task Group on C856	Monday	06:00PM - 07:00PM
C096500 TG of SEM	Tuesday	09:00AM - 10:00AM
C096500 TG on C457	Tuesday	12:00PM - 01:00PM
C096500 Petrography	Tuesday	01:00PM - 03:00PM

 Find additional details related to the C09 ASTM meeting at:

http://www.astm.org/MEETINGS/filtrexx40.cgi?-P+MAINCOMM+C09+-P+EVENT_ID+1423+-P+MEETING_ID+42800+/usr6/htdocs/newpilot.com/MEETINGS/lineschedulemain.frm

ICMA goes to CHICAGO!

International Cement Microscopy Conference (ICMA) will hold its 35^th Conference in the City of Chicago, IL, Spring 2013.  Presentations are expected to include a good blend of practical applications, new techniques and novel approaches and the latest research efforts in the field of microscopic evaluation of portland cement, concrete and related materials.  A ‘CALL FOR PAPERS’ requests submission of an Abstract by Dec 15, 2012.  We encourage you to share your work and experiences by presenting paper(s) at the 2013 conference.  Your participation is what makes the ICMA conference one of the best cement and concrete technology conferences.  See the ICMA website for further information (www.cemmicro.org).