The European Eurostars project Intelligent Concrete Drying (ICD) aims at reducing the CO2 footprint related to the drying process of concrete by 20-30% compared to current levels and at the same time reducing the risk of delays related to the drying process. This is obtained by developing a new solution to monitor the drying process based on sensors and artificial intelligence (AI).

The project runs from September 2022 to December 2024.

Impact and novelty

Studies have shown that approximately 70% of all energy usage on a construction site (jobsite) relates to the drying of concrete and in Denmark alone this relates to 286GWh and on a Nordic scale only this figure is around 800GWh, no EU figures exist. A figure we will reduce by 25-30% using data sources smarter than current state-of-the-art systems. As a result, we will be able to reduce energy usage with 200GWh equalling a CO2-equivalent of 212.000 ton/ CO2 if coal is used as the energy source.

The novelty lies in the combination of sensor, metadata added with strong theoretical and practical knowledge of concrete, and the process of drying which is handled by an AI engine that can provide the project manager with results/data so he can act - as part of the process of plan, do, check, act. But in terms of development, the big step forward is adding AI into the equation combined with identifying the right way of using sensors during the construction phase.

Partners

Research partners include: Maturix/Sensohive (Denmark) University of Southern Denmark (Denmark), Betonmast Buskerud-Vestfold (Norway), and Norwegian University of Science and technology, NTNU (Norway). The researcher from NTNU that take part in this project are Mette Geiker, Daniel Cantero and Muhammad Zohaib Sarwar.