A partial goal of the REVOZIM project is the installation and operation of a functional unit (fully instrumented models) for testing green roof compositions. The project activity is related to the partial design of suitable water management in an urbanized area, given that the watering is obtained from the so-called gray water, resp. white water, ie treated, slightly polluted so-called gray water from bathrooms, kitchens, laundry, etc.

The composition of the green roof is prepared as an innovated substrate, made on the basis of recycled materials – bio-coal and recycled material from construction waste. A disadvantage of currently commonly used substrates is the fact that the main components are primary rocks (for example spongilite, which must be mined in nature) or primary products (for example expanded clay, with high energy intensity of production). Substrates that use a high proportion of biological materials, such as tree bark, are at risk of rapid loss of green roof mass due to biodegradation.

The output of this part of the project are basically two utility models – a substrate for laying foundation carpets and a substrate for green roofs. Both of these substrates respond to the above-mentioned disadvantages and in accordance with the principles of circular economics, the presented innovative solution then replaces some of the primary materials with recycled materials. The first recycled material is recycled building material based on crumb brick. The second recycled material is biochar – pyrolyzed sewage sludge.

 

The AdMaS Center heard a call for help from Mother Rosa’s Home for the elderly in Rajhrad, which was struggling not only with a lack of staff, but also with a disappearing supply of protective equipment.

Dozens of protective shields printed on the 3D printer of the Faculty of Civil Engineering under the leadership of Assoc. Prof. Jan Pencik were delivered into the establishment. These are used in the home not only by the permanent staff, but also by a number of volunteers who decided to help those in need during this difficult time. One of the Centre’s employees also offered his time and willingness to help and spent weekends taking care of the home residents.

On Saturday, November 14, 2020, Professor Kudrna spoke in the Czech Television news program “Studio ČT víkend” about his opinion on the construction of a tunnel next to the world monument Stonehenge in England, which provokes a lot of controversial opinions from both experts and the public.

After lengthy preparations, the British administration decided to build a continuation of the 4-lane A303 between London and the south-west of England, which runs just past Stonehenge. The road is only 2-lane, in front of this narrow section there are traffic jams with a significant impact on the environment, and therefore a generous solution was proposed using an excavated tunnel in a rock massif 1.7 km long with high investment costs.

Despite these facts, the British media held a number of protests and expert discussions, especially from the ranks of historians. Professor Kudrna is of the opinion that the construction solves the problems of transport and the environment and does not disrupt the work of historians, as the monuments stands only in the surface layers.

On October 15, 2019, the online General Meeting of the CAMEB National Competence Center project was held online. The meeting was opened by the Chairman of the Board, Assoc. Prof. Ferkl from the Czech Technical University in Prague, who informed that in connection with the information provided by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR), it is possible to request an extension of the existing center of competence by two calendar years.

Given the fact that there was a time shift in the original intention of TA CR to announce a call for NCC II and NCC II projects will probably be financed only from year 2023, the extension of NCC I provides an opportunity to bridge the transition period of 2021 and 2022. It was confirmed from the solvers of sub-projects that they have the content and financially secured research content for the years 2021 and 2022 ready.

Some members are no longer interested in being part of the project from 2021, on the contrary, other entities have expressed interest in joining, which was approved by the General Meeting and will be taken into account in the amendments to the contract.

The wording of the Annual Report and the resignation of one of the members of the Board and the appointment of his deputy were also agreed.

Furthermore, Assoc. Prof. Ferkl pointed out that the mandate of the other members of the board would end and therefore proposed the re-election of all members of the board, which was subsequently approved.

UNDERLAYERS WITH A HIGH PROPERTY OF SECONDARY RAW MATERIALS

As part of the solution of the ADMATEC sub-project, which is a sub-project of the CAMEB center, one of the topics is focused on stabilizers for the base layers. In addition to experienced researchers at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Brno University of Technology, the research team also includes students of doctoral, master’s and bachelor’s degree programs. One of the student of the bachelor’s program under the professional guidance of prof. Drochytky devoted herself to the possibilities of using secondary raw materials for soil-based stabilizers. As part of her activities mainly verified products after coal combustion and construction recyclates. The results of her work then confirm that a 20% replacement of soils with secondary raw materials is clearly possible. The materials achieve parameters comparable to the original mixture and in some cases even exceed them several times.

UNIQUE SUSPENSION FOR EARTH STRUCTURES

One of the topics of the ADMATEC sub-project is focused on suspensions for earth structures. This is a unique solution of earth structures using liquefied soils, which makes appropriate use of the self-compacting effect of the suspension, which perfectly fills the excavation space and within 24 hours becomes walkable and ready for further construction work. At the same time, it reaches the parameters of the original soil and is re-excavated by classical technologies. As part of the research activities, a student of the bachelor’s study program also took part in solving partial tasks. These were mainly ashes and recyclates. The conclusions of his work confirmed that 20% replacement of soil with secondary raw material in most cases not only does not worsen the parameters of the original mixtures, but in the case of fluid ashes increases the strength of the mass several times with a significant reduction in shrinkage.

The aim of the project is the development of a virtualized environment as a tool for communication of individual participants in the design of a building. Communication in this environment will be audiovisual, ie in addition to the audiovisual presentation, it will also allow its recording. The record will then serve as a basis for editing the visualized intent.

Proven technology “Interconnection of software components of the building information model and virtual reality”

Verification of the functionality of the connection of the building information model (BIM) with the virtual reality (VR) engine (software) on the Unreal platform. Proven technology is a necessary starting step for the subsequent development of a real superstructure over this VR engine, which will enable
interactive work in a fully virtualized environment.

Unreal Engine (UE) was chosen as the basic programming environment for the proven technology of this grant, as it provides a wide range of programming options compared to other platforms. Specifically, Unity was still considered, but at the time of choosing the strategy and starting operations (01-05 / 2019) did not have the appropriate tools to view architectural BIM models and convert them to a VR-enabled engine.

Thanks to the template for collaborative views, which began to develop under the UE in 2018 and the Datasmith-software plugin for converting BIM models into the UE, it was possible to load models including metadata, ie non-geometric information of individual elements of the BIM model. Currently, the aforementioned Datasmith supports a large number of formats for CAD / BIM software, including IFC and RVT. Our goal is to develop a collaborative tool for BIM models, created on the Autodesk Revit platform for its widest use on the market for collaboration between professions involved in building a BIM model. Within the proven technology, the activity was focused on the issue of information transfer between the RVT model and the UE, where the goal is to transfer not only geometry, but especially metadata.

Software tool for audiovisual communication in a virtual environment

A tool for the use of virtual reality as a means of communication during the design of a building. The communication will be audiovisual, ie in addition to the audiovisual presentation, it will also enable its recording. The record will then serve as a basis for editing the visualized intent. The  information model of the building will be the input data that will be virtualized.

The project is developing a software tool that allows you to share your stay in a virtual environment, to which users connect from multiple computers and platforms. Within one “world”, users accessing from the desktop PC / Mac environment as well as users using VR technology can cooperate with each other. Within this world, users can move either by virtual walking or by virtual teleport. In this virtual world, there is a building model (s) that carry metadata obtained from Revit architectural software. This information is readable to the user by the user marking the element. Selected elements can be moved by the user for a better idea of ​​possible modifications.

Professional book The use of virtual reality in the design of buildings

A professional book describing the use of virtual reality during the complete process of building design, including testing its functionality and safety. The publication will focus on issues of building representation in a virtual environment, design planning, work coordination and analysis
design safety for users.

 

 

 

On  October, 1 and 2, 2020, under the auspices of the expert group “Drainage of urbanized areas CZWA” and the Research Center AdMaS, firm ARDEC organized already XX. year of the URBAN WATER CONFERENCE 2020 in Velké Bílovice . The media partner of the conference was stavební server.com, the magazine Vodní hospodářství and the internet portal Vodovod info. The main partner of the conference was the company PREFA Brno a.s.

The URBAN WATER 2020 CONFERENCE has traditionally maintained a high level of presentations. The conference program was divided into 3 blocks. A total of 24 lectures were presented. Due to the difficult situation with COVID19, a number of delegates excused from conference, often at the last minute. Therefore it was decided that the lectures would be broadcast live using Microsoft TEAMS and that selected lecturers would also be allowed to deliver their lectures online.

The first day of the conference ended with a social evening in the riding hall of the state chateau Lednice. The event attended about 70 delegates which led informal discussions and gained personal contacts. Cimbalom music was played for listening, Moravian wines from top wineries and rich refreshments were prepared for the participants. The social evening was, despite the strict adherence to all currently valid measures and restrictions associated with Covid 19, very positively evaluated by the participants.

The twentieth year of the conference confirmed that the URBAN WATER CONFERENCE maintained the favor of participants despite the difficult situation, as about 100 delegates from research institutes and universities, design and supply companies, sewer operators and municipal councils, etc attended. Other participants had an opportunity to watch the online broadcast of lectures.

Preparations  of the XXI. URBAN WATER CONFERENCE, which will take place on October 7 and 8, 2021, have already started. Conference will traditionally focus on water management in 2021, water resources, ensuring the need for water from alternative sources, the concept of urban drainage solutions, urban watercourses, flood protection in relation to urban drainage, progressive technologies of wastewater treatment, technological WWTP processes and experience from the implementation of urban drainage constructions. A special section will also be devoted to contributions related to the COVID 19 pandemic.

 

At present, sewerage networks for municipal and industrial wastewater are standardly built using single-skin pipes, even in environmentally or otherwise exposed localities with increased risk. As a rule, on-line inspection of the tightness of the pipe jacket on these sewer networks is not performed and required, and therefore the identification of the fault at the time of its occurrence is not ensured. In these areas with an increased risk, the possible contamination of soil and groundwater is not prevented, as well as the operative elimination of any defects that have not been ensured.

The goal of online monitoring carried out in the AdMaS center in cooperation with Satturn HoleSov and the Department of Telecommunications at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication is therefore the most detailed coverage of the sewer network for leak localization, while high measurement accuracy is not required. These assumptions predetermine the possibility of using “cheap sensors”, which do not necessarily accurately measure the measured quantities. It is sufficient if they can capture with sufficient accuracy the “changes” caused by the creation of a leak. Sophisticated applications using optical cable using Raman scattering in optical fiber also seem to be suitable.

 

 

 

From 16 to 17 September 2020, Transport Infrastructure Conference was held in the castle brewery of the town of Litomyšl, which was attended by 21 exhibitors with 470 delegates this year.

Director of the Center, Asoc. Prof. Zdenek Dufek, gave one of a total of 51 lectures during the main program. He was accompanied  by 3 other colleagues who represented the research and activities of the AdMaS Center and FCE as a whole in the exhibition stand and established new contacts for possible future cooperation.

 

The joint efforts of young scientists from the AdMaS research center, together with young researchers from the UCEEB center, led to the installation and revitalization of a functional unit for testing green roof compositions during the summer months. Although this summer’s precipitation was above average, the project activities are focused on “combating drought” and measures for appropriate water management in urban areas.
A partial goal of the project is to apply the possibility of using the so-called gray water (little polluted water from bathrooms, kitchens, laundry, etc.), which is after treatment as so-called white water suitable for irrigation, flushing toilets and other technological purposes. The AdMaS center operates fully instrumented models of green roofs irrigated with the above-mentioned gray, resp. white water, which are partly formed by a substrate of recycled building materials and materially transformed sewage sludge by microwave torrefaction into the form of a solid carbonaceous product (so-called “biochar”).
During testing, the quality and quantity of the inlet and outlet gray (white) water and the quality of the fitted green carpet are monitored. Already a visual comparison of two models of green roofs shows that the model where a substrate containing biochar is used generally shows better vegetation quality (color, density, etc.) and clearly significantly more efficient management of the entire composition of the green roof with watering.