Construction Materials System Engineering Lab

AboutAbout the lab

Not just to build, but to use for a long time.

The Construction Materials System Engineering Lab focuses mainly on concrete, the material of the infrastructure that supports daily life and economic activity.
To build structures that are safe, durable, and in harmony with the natural environment, the lab investigates how to evaluate material durability and how to recycle materials.
To extend the service life of existing structures, it also works on techniques for diagnosing their soundness and methods for expressing the effects of repairs in numerical terms.
The corrosion and corrosion protection of reinforcing steel inside concrete, which progress in harsh environments such as near the sea, have long been a theme studied with electrochemical methods.
The professor who leads the lab has a career dealing with structural deterioration at a port and harbor research institution, and life cycle management of concrete and steel structures placed in marine environments is one of the pillars of the research.
The lab also studies how chemical reactions that occur after cement hardens, such as alkali-aggregate reaction and ettringite formation, cause expansion and cracking.
It also advances research on using industrial by-products such as blast furnace slag and fly ash, and pyroclastic flow deposits (shirasu) that are widely deposited across Kyushu, as construction materials, which leads to making materials with a lower environmental impact.
The technique of using seawater as mixing water for concrete has, with water-scarce regions in mind, expanded to technical guidance for overseas research institutions.
The professor teaches Civil Engineering Materials and Maintenance Engineering at the undergraduate level and Advanced Concrete Engineering at the graduate level, so students can learn continuously from material properties to maintenance in the field.

ResearchResearch themes

Focusing mainly on concrete, the lab conducts materials research to build structures that are safe, durable, and in harmony with the natural environment. There are four main research themes: investigation and diagnosis methods and maintenance of concrete structures; recycling systems for construction materials and reduction of environmental impact; life-extension methods for historic structures based on performance evaluation; and development of new materials that achieve long service life in harsh environments. Corrosion and corrosion protection of reinforcing steel are studied with electrochemical methods, and the lab also verifies how well methods such as impressed current cathodic protection and embedded zinc anodes combined with cross-section repair work. It also studies using local materials such as pyroclastic flow deposits and industrial by-products as construction materials.

VoicesStudent voices

Compiled from answers by students who were in the lab. Ratings and reviews reflect individual students' experiences, not the lab's official views.

Students who take part in an interview may receive a thank-you gift worth ¥1,000, regardless of what they say.