7 March 2011
Dundee in concrete congress with Indian Institutions
The University of Dundee will join with eight Indian higher education institutions to host a major international congress on concrete technology and construction in Delhi this week.
Concrete consumes some 30 billion tonnes of cement and 100 billion tonnes of aggregates per annum on a global scale and remains the world's number one construction material.
However, environmental concerns over CO2 emissions mean that alternative constituent materials must be examined to create sustainable infrastructure projects, a crucial driver in India’s proposed $1 trillion infrastructure spend in the forthcoming 12th Plan.
The Concrete Technology Unit at the University of Dundee is internationally renowned for its research excellence and has hosted gatherings of experts in concrete for many years.
It is joining with partners in India to host the UKIERI 'Concrete for 21st Century Construction' congress at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi from March 8th to 10th.
'The event is the culmination of three years of collaborative research which will go some way to promoting the development of sustainable high performance infrastructure in India and the UK,' said Dr Moray Newlands, of the University of Dundee.
'The UKIERI funding has meant that the wealth of concrete knowledge from India and UK has come together to create advances in development of novel cements through to structural applications of green concrete.'
The Indian Institutions involved are the lead Indian partner, the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani; along with Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana; Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; National Institutes of Technology at Jaipur, Jalandhar, Surat and Surathkal; and SRM University, Chennai.
The institutions are all partners in the collaborative research programme carried out in both the countries under the UKIERI Scheme (UK-India Education and Research Initiative) funded by the two governments. The group has now been working together for nearly 2 ½ years, dealing with issues relating to sustainability and high performance in concrete infrastructures.
The UKIERI Concrete Congress will address new developments in concrete and construction and their role in responding, within the framework of appropriate, innovative and sustainable use of materials, to the rapid growth in the national infrastructure demands.
For more on the UKIERI congress see: http://ukiericoncretecongress.com/.
For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
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University of Dundee
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E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
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