Blaine Brownell will introduce the Ultra High Performance Concrete Workshop at Columbia University on January 11 with a talk entitled “Concrete Transformations: From Mongrel Material to Smart Surface.” Jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Columbia’s Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Connecticut, the workshop intends to explore the possibilities inherent in a new material with no track record but with strength almost equal to that of steel, at one-third the specific weight and a fraction of the cost, while promising to last a hundred years or longer.
