At their December meetings, ASTM Committees C01 on Cement and C09 on Concrete and Concrete Aggregates approved a joint research subcommittee to explore what areas of standardization would benefit from research. At this juncture, the team is soliciting potential research topics from members of technical committees. Studies will focus on the performance of cement in concrete and the prediction of that performance.

According to Subcommittee Chairman Leslie J. Struble, Ph.D., who chairs two additional ASTM subcommittees, a C01 task group has conducted basic research for several years. As well as defining research needs for standards development, Struble said the group recommends projects to the Executive Subcommittee for potential funding by ASTM Contract and Project Management Services (CPMS, formerly ISR). “When Committee C09 recently formed a research subcommittee,” she said, “the two committees decided to structure these as a joint subcommittee because the research needs in cement and concrete overlap considerably.”

Struble, an associate professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and associate director, Center for Advanced Cement Based Materials, said the joint group will meet regularly to discuss research needs. They will occasionally solicit suggestions from other subcommittees, and “will facilitate the establishment of research projects that meet the defined needs of the two committees, whether through [CPMS] or other funding.”

Members of C01 and C09 are invited to participate. Contact Professor Leslie Struble, 2129 Newmark Civil Engineering Lab, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill. (phone: 217/333-2544). Committee C1 meets June 27-29 in Norfolk, Va.; Committee C09 meets June 24-27 also in Norfolk. For meeting or membership details, contact Staff Manager Jim Olshefsky, ASTM (phone: 610/832-9714). //

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