New issue of NCR is out!

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Two times a Year a new issue of NCR journal is issued.  This June issue number 72 is out.  

The interest for Nordic Concrete Research is increasing. The December 2024 issue of NCR contained eight papers and the June 2025 issue contains eleven papers which is all-time-high for the regular NCR issues. The eleven papers come from Finland (5) and Sweden (6) but currently we have also Danish and Norwegian papers under review. Iceland is also showing an increased interest for NCR helped by Dr Dórótea Höeg Sigurðardóttir who is assisting editor Johan Sifwerbrandt as co-editor of NCR. 

 

Sustainability and durability for extending the service life of concrete structures and, hence, also contributing to increased sustainability, constitute the topics for most of the papers. This reflects our industry’s main focus during the last 15 years. Three papers are focusing on frost that is one of the major deterioration mechanisms in concrete in our Nordic countries. Transports of moisture and chlorides are phenomena that may cause deterioration and both are treated in this NCR issue. A contribution divided in two parts is summarizing findings from a Swedish survey on real damages on a large number of buildings. A paper is discussing concrete for circular economy. Today, more research money is spent on concrete materials than on concrete structures, but this issue contains three papers on various topics that ought to interest the structural engineer; one on estimating concrete strength in-situ, one on shear forces in composite bridges and one on bending stiffness of post-tensioned concrete beams. 

 

When this issue is published, the 25th Nordic Concrete Research Symposium in Sandefjord in Norway is only a month ahead. The symposium is an excellent opportunity for NCR authors, NCR reviewers, and NCR readers to network and discuss their current and future work. We encourage all contributors in the symposium to consider to extend thir short papers to a full paper in NCR including all necessary details and a more developed analysis. Submit the full paper to NCR either in September 2025 (for NCR No. 2/2025) or March 2026 (for NCR No 1/2026). 

 

You find new and previous NCR issues here 

Welcome to Web-site of The Nordic Concrete Federation (NCF)

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Welcome to Web-site of The Nordic Concrete Federation (NCF)

We have the pleasure to welcome you to the Web-site of the Nordic Concrete Federation (NCF). The Nordic Concrete Federation (NCF) is a collaboration organization of the concrete associations in the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. NCF is publishing bi – annually publications (NCR) and proceedings from Nordic workshops. Previously issues… Continue Reading

Nordic webinar: CO₂-uptake in concrete

Concrete absorbs CO₂ from the atmosphere throughout its lifetime. How can we benefit from of the natural carbonation process on our path to net-zero concrete?

Across the Nordic region, efforts are ongoing on multiple fronts to reduce concrete’s CO₂ emissions. We are replacing Portland cement with supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) and we will soon utilize CCS cement. The contribution of carbonation is also significant. Carbonation is a natural process that is already occurring, yet few have included it in their Environmental Product Declarations.

How significant is the impact of carbonation, and how should we document it?

In this Nordic webinar, we dive deeper into the role of carbonation from an environmental perspective.

Click here to register.

Call for paper to The XXVth Nordic Concrete Research Symposium in Sandefjord

Nordic Concrete Federation (NCF) welcomes colleagues from the Nordics, Baltic and worldwide interested in concrete research and education to the XXIV Nordic Concrete Research Symposium in Sandefjord, 19. – 22. August. 


The Symposium will cover all aspects of concrete related to materials, design, production, construction, use/application and sustainability.   

The target group for the symposium comprises PhD-students, researchers, teachers, consultants, architects, contractors, suppliers, industry and owners/users. The program will include keynote presentations, plenary sessions, informal “concrete cafes”, excursion and social program. 

 

Call for paper is now open and the deadline for submission is February 14th.
Read more about the scope and submit your paper here
Link to web page for the Symposium 

 

Issue no 71 of NCR journal is now out

The Nordic Concrete Research Journal is published bi-annually. And no. 71, the second issue of 2024, is now available.  

The aim is to publish reviewed papers on research, recent experiences, and education within the broad concrete field. The scope covers all aspects of concrete and other cementitious materials, e.g., materials, design, construction, assessment, maintenance, repair, strengthening, dismantling, and recycling. The scope is limited to papers that have a Nordic connection, e.g., through the environment conducting the investigation, affiliation of any of the authors, or if the subject of the paper is devoted to any specific Nordic circumstances such as geographical, geological, or organizational ones. 

This issue contains the following articles:

Evaluating Concrete Strength Under Various Curing Conditions Using Artificial Neural Networks 

Provoking and Foreseeing Sudden Changes in the Workability of Pumped Concrete

Effect of Slag Content and Carbonation/Ageing on Freeze-Thaw Resistance of Concrete 

Durability of Concrete with Recycled Aggregate 

Automatic Measurement Techniques for Compositional Properties of Fresh Concrete: Focus on Water/Cement Ratio and Air Content 

Cathodic Protection of Marine Prestressed Concrete Bridges – Review of Case Studies 

Distribution of Corrosion Attack in Chloride Exposed Concrete – Summary of Field Observations 

Form Pressure in Composite Columns of 3DPC and SCC 

   

“Nordic Concrete Research” has no article processing chargers (APCs) nor article submission charges. 

Read and download issue 71 here. 

The NCF board meeting in Oslo, April 2024

The NCF board with representatives from all the five Nordic countries met in Oslo on April 23rd for the annual NCF  board meeting. The The meeting was hosted by the Nordic Concrete Association.

The NCF board in Oslo April 2024
 

The board was represented by these delegates:  

Danish Concrete Association:
Marianne Tange Hasholt
Anders Haumann

Norwegian Concrete Association:
Cecilie Hagby, Managing Director/ Treasurer NCF
Berit Gudding Petersen, Chair

Finnish Concrete Association:
Mirva Vuori, Managing Director
Markku Leivo, Chair

Swedish Concrete Association:
Richard McCarthy, Managing Director

Icelandic Concrete Association:
Þorbjörg Hólmgeirsdóttir, Managing Director
Børge Johannes Wigum, Chair

The board had good discussions and updated each other on relevant topics in the Nordic countries.Collaborative projects such as webinars, workshops and national competence requrements was adressed. The board also discussed the NCR Journal and aspects regarding Index Factor and how to promote the journal and make it even more prefered and known. The board expressed a great thank you to Johan Siwferbrandt for editing the journal and for keeping and renewing the list of reviewers. Dorothea Höeg Sigurdardottir from Iceland was  elected as co editor for the NCR. The NCR Journal is issued in June and in December with 6 to 9 articles per issue.  

 

RCNCF meeting in Oslo

The RCNCF met in Oslo for the annual in-person meeting. The committee also reported to the board and attended a joint dinner with the NCF board hosted by the Norwegian Concrete Association.

The RCNCF members in Oslo April 2024

The RCNCF discussed the NCR Journal and the list of reviewers. The committee also discussed themes for workshops and agreed on a plan for digital workshops. The next symposium was discussed and  Terje Rønning  Chair of the Organizing Committee welcomed all to join the Symposium in Sandefjord, Norway August 2025.

Do you want to learn more about “3D Concrete Printing”?

Photo: Sika
Then join this webinar.
3D concrete printing (3DCP) is a new and exciting technology that may change the concrete production. Several interesting R&D projects on 3DPC is currently ongoing in universities, research institutes and companies in the Nordic countries. Svenska Betongföreningen (The Swedish Concrete Association) is organizing a webinar on 3DCP in order to disseminate knowledge about this technology.
Date: Thursday, March 21, 2024 and Time: 1.00 to 4.30 p.m.
Click here for more Information, program and registration.
The webinar is also a part of the Nordic co-operation inside the Nordic Concrete Federation which board has decided to start a series of webinars on various hot topics.

New NCR is now out, no. 69 is now ready!

New NCR is now out, no. 69 is now ready!

The December 2023 issue of Nordic Concrete Research Journal is available for download at the open access platform Sciendo. Click here for access.

About the issue:

The science of concrete covers three different parts; (i) materials, (ii) structures, and (iii) production. In recent years, a large share of the Nordic concrete research has been focusing on sustainability, especially on more environmentally friendly concrete mixtures where parts of the Portland cement content have been replaced by industrial by-products, e.g., fly-ash, silica fume, and slag. Simultaneously, the research devoted to concrete structures and especially concrete production has diminished. Thus, it is satisfying that current issue of Nordic Concrete Research presents at least one paper on production, in this case on workability. In Norway, a sudden and problematic change in workability has been observed in as much as 30 % of the concrete production. Likely causes are changes in the material properties, especially in the particle size distributions of both fine and coarse aggregates. Shotcrete and 3D printing (3DP) och concrete have several similarities. In both cases, formwork is omitted, casting is replaced by spraying or printing through a nozzle and the fresh concrete needs to have a certain strength in order to either adhere to a surface or carrying the subsequent printing layers. Since the maximum aggregate size is limited in both cases, the cement content is fairly high. In a Swedish paper, tests where parts of the Portland cement are replaced by slag are conducted. A key to success in the shotcrete business is rapid hardening and, in this paper, it has been shown that a compressive strength of 18 MPa could be obtained already after 24 hours for a replacement level of 35 percent. By using 3DP, it will be possible to optimize concrete structures based on the stress flow, i.e., increasing the local material volume or thickness in areas with high stresses and minimizing the thickness in areas with low stresses. A Swedish paper shows an attempt to study this in the laboratory by the use of small-scale specimens. Carbonation of concrete leads CO2 uptake from the atmosphere and thus a CO2 sink. In a Swedish paper, forced carbonation has been studied on crushed cement pastes containing Portland cement and either fly ash (FA) or ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS). The CO2 uptake was found to be higher in mixtures containing FA or GGBS than in the reference mix containing solely Portland cement. The final two papers deal with various durability problems. One Danish paper is investigating the chloride migration in concrete mixes with blended cement whereas the other one (a Finnish paper) is focusing on the concrete cover that is necessary for long-term durability. Different none destructive test (NDT) methods were studied to measure the concrete cover. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) has advantages in concrete structures with reinforcement in large percentages and with a complex geometry whereas the simple cover meter is the most suitable method in simpler reinforcement arrangements.

Nordic Concrete Research – Publ. No. NCR 69 – ISSUE 2 / 2023 – Preface Stockholm in December 2023 Johan Silfwerbrand Editor of NCR

Click here for an overview of all previous issues of the NCR Journal.

New NCR is now out, no. 68 is now ready!

New NCR is now out, no. 68 is now ready!

Issue 1 of NCR no. 68 (July 2023) covers six very different topics, three towards materials and three towards structures.
The material papers deal with frost, chloride diffusion and moisture, i.e., three important aspects that are of specific interest in the Nordic countries.
The papers devoted to structures treat influence of Alkali Silica Reactions (ASR) on load effects, fatigue, and the interaction between the concrete bridge deck and its edge beam.

Johan Silfwerbrand Editor of NCR give you an insight of what to expect from the different articels.
“I think this is typical for both Nordic concrete research in general and Nordic Concrete Research (NCR) specifically. The Nordic concrete research may look fragmented but a common denominator is that all papers deal with practical problems that need to be solved in order to make concrete structures more durable, more efficient and more environmentally friendly. The diversity also reflects our research funding systems.
In the 1990s, both Sweden and Norway had large research programmes devoted to high performance concrete with both governmental and private financing. In more recent years, there have been national research programmes on, e.g., self-compacting concrete and “green” concrete but none of these programmes has had the same size and the same life-time as the ones on high performance or high strength concrete.
Today, the most frequent area of concrete research is sustainability and especially replacement of part of the Portland cement with other binders, but there are hardly any national programmes in this area. As long as there is a lack of large national research programmes, the Nordic concrete research will cover a lot of different topics as this issue of NCR is a good example of.”
Stockholm in June 2023, Johan Silfwerbrand Editor of NCR

Annual NCF board meeting in Iceland

The NCF board with representatives from all the five Nordic countries met in Reykjavik April 28th for the annual NCF  board meeting.
Thank you to Børge Johannes Wigum for making all the arrangements and to Iceland Concrete Association  and Hornsteinn for excellent hosting!


The NCF Board: In front: Þorbjörg Hólmgeirsdóttir, Mirva Vuori, Marianne Tange Hasholt (Chair), Cecilie Hagby, Børge Johannes Wigum, Terje Rønning (Special advisor). In back: Richard McCarthy, Johan Silwferbrandt (Chair of the RCNCF), Markku Leivo and Anders Haumann. Not present: Berit Gudding Petersen and Henrik Vinell
Photo: Hornsteinn

The board was represented by these delegates:  

Danish Concrete Association:
Marianne Tange Hasholt
Anders Haumann

Norwegian Concrete Association:
Cecilie Hagby, Managing Director/ Treasurer NCF
Berit Gudding Petersen, Chair

Finnish Concrete Association:
Mirva Vuori, Managing Director
Markku Leivo, Chair

Swedish Concrete Association:
Richard McCarthy, Managing Director
Henrik Vinell, Chair

Icelandic Concrete Association:
Þorbjörg Hólmgeirsdóttir, Managing Director
Børge Johannes Wigum, Chair/Chair NCF 2021/22

The board had fruitful discussions on collaborative projects such as webinars, workshops and national competence requrements. The board also discussed the NCR Journal and aspects regarding Index Factor and how to promote the journal and make it even more prefered and known. The access to dedicated and competente reviewers is an important asset. The board expressed a great thank you to Johan Siwferbrandt for editing the journal and for keeping and renewing the list of reviewers. The NCR Journal is issued in June and in December with 6 to 9 articles per issue.  

The NCF board decided on venue and dates for the next Nordic Concrete Research Symposium. 
The symposium will be hosted by the Norwegian Concrete Association in Sandefjord August 19th – 22nd 2025.  

Interesting and inspiring RCNCF meeting in Reykjavik

Representatives for five Nordic countries met in Reykjavik on April 27th for the annual in- person meeting in the RCNCF. With great engagement regarding cement, alternative binders and concrete the council discussed workshops, webinars and the NCR journal in addition to strategic planning for the council’s assignments and focal points. To joyful excitement of the delegates there were also time for a spontaneous field trip to Hornsteinns planned excavation sites for natural pozzolan. Thank you to Børge Johannes Wigum for organizing the meeting and the field trip. And thank you to Hornsteinn and the Iceland Concrete Association for hosting the meeting and the wonderful dinner in Reykjavik Thursday night.


Representatives from the RCNCF: in front: Johan Silwferbrandt (Chair) Katarina Malaga, Børge Johannes Wigum, Cecilie Hagby and Jens Peder Ulfkjær. In the back:  Terje Rønning, Mårten Janz, Jukka Lahdensivu, Jouni Punkki and Wolfgang Kunther.

Field trip to the natural pozzolan, Hyaloclastite, sites: 
All photos: Hornsteinn