Material research involves a large scale of interdisciplinary research activities, whose aim is to achieve new advanced materials, effective technology of their production, observation and then their usage not only in civil engineering but also in other fields like mechanical engineering, energetics, IT, electrical engineering and others.
Research in this field is focused on multi-level, multi-functional materials on a nano- and micro-scale. On this level, it is possible to study the material, measure or modify it thanks to special devices like electron microscopes and nanoindentors. Due to their accuracy, it is possible to determine their structure, properties, measure the mechanical response or predict the possibility or suitability of the usage of the material.
Doc. Jiří Němeček from the Department of Mechanics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering CTU has been focusing on the research of materials for 20 years. With his students he focuses most often on cement and other types of building materials like thin metal films and foams. The uniqueness and high-quality equipment of the facility can also be seen in the fact that for the first time in the world, it was possible to measure, on a scale of several units of micrometers, the properties of tensile strength or the fracture energy of particular phases of cement paste, which is the basis of other composites based on cement. Since there is a vast amount of uniquely gathered data at this facility, there has also been created the portal CEMHub, which allows to share all the information and data.