Jeroen Feij
Employee portrait
Jeroen Feij
‘Extending concrete’s lifespan is an effective way to save the environment’
Jeroen Feij, a materials technologist specialising in concrete, wants to contribute to a better world. One way to do that: extend the lifespans of traditional concrete structures.
Making the world a better place
‘As a child, I was always outside. I would help my father work in the shed, and I enjoyed making things. After high school, I first studied mechanical engineering and then materials science and engineering. I went from steel to concrete, and then stuck with concrete after discovering how versatile it is. Because of its wide range of applications, concrete can break in many different ways. That means you can also keep it whole in many different ways. It’s a world unto itself that I find incredibly appealing. While I was writing my master’s thesis, my father died, and I asked myself: What do I really care about? What do I want to achieve? The answer: I want to make the world a better place than it currently is. Now that I’m a father myself, my motivation to do that has only grown.’
Fehmarn Belt
‘Of course, I know I work in a polluting industry. Producing cement releases a lot of CO2. But that also means that there are many gains to be made. A promising sustainable innovation is geopolymer concrete, which doesn’t use cement. 3D concrete printing also has its advantages. But another way to do it better than we currently do is to optimise the lifespans of concrete structures. We’re doing that on the construction of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, a long immersed sea tunnel between Germany and Denmark that contains lots of concrete and steel. We’re helping the contractor supply crack-free tunnel segments. That will hopefully mean that the tunnel can be used for a hundred years before any maintenance is required.’
Simulating the curing process
‘To help us do this, we’re simulating and optimising the curing process of concrete using special software. Our aim is to minimise the occurrence of thermal stresses and, as a result, the risk of cracks. That might sound abstract, but its impact is very real. Geopolymer concrete is a great innovation, but it’s not yet being used on a large scale. And not at all on tunnel projects at the bottom of the sea. For as long as we can only use traditional concrete for these kinds of large projects, extending lifespans will remain one of the most effective ways to save the environment. That’s an extra motivation for me to get the curing process completely under control.’
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