Cement is the main constituent of the most widely used building material and will continue to be largely used in the years to come. Its production generates CO2 emissions.
It is, thus, of primary importance to optimize the use of this cement in the concrete structures, while checking that these structures have lifespan compatible with the stakes of the sustainable development. To take up this challenge, it is essential to use adapted tools of quantification making it possible to justify, in a rigorous and reliable way, the strategic and technical choices adopted.
The numerical methods (finite elements, finite volumes, finite differences …) constitute a relevant response to this challenge. They potentially allow, due to a best taken into account of the rheological, physico-chemical, and mechanical concrete properties, and of thermo-hydro-mechanics and environmental boundary conditions on the structures, to optimize these structures (optimization with respect to time, money, safety, energy, CO2 emissions, and, more generally, life cycle), in a way more reliable than the codes and analytical approaches currently used.
The control of the concretes placing in the formworks, their durability, their cracking, their shrinkages, and their creeps, with respect to the sustainable development (evaluation of CO2 emissions, for example) constitute, therefore, the principal topics of this international conference.
The objective is to join together researchers, engineers, architects, urbanists, industrials and owners, to exchange and reflect on the use of these numerical tools and their contribution with respect to the current stakes of sustainable development.
