SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- SERVICES TO DEVELOP A FUNDAMENTAL THEORETICAL MODEL FOR PREDICTION OF COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH OF CEMENT-BASED MATERIALS
- Notice Date
- 3/30/2004
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541990
— All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition and Logistics Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B129, Mail Stop 3571, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899-3571
- ZIP Code
- 20899-3571
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-04-861-5425
- Response Due
- 4/5/2004
- Archive Date
- 4/20/2004
- Point of Contact
- Tamara Grinspon, Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 975-4390, Fax (301) 975-8884, - Romena Moy, Contract Specialist, Phone (301) 975-4999, Fax (301) 975-8884,
- E-Mail Address
-
tamara.grinspon@nist.gov, Romena.Moy@nist.gov
- Description
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) wishes to identify potential sources to provide services to research and develop a fundamental theoretical model for prediction of the compressive strength of cement-based materials, such as cement paste, mortar and concrete, from the multi-phase, multi-scale microstructure.*****The Government anticipates that capable vendors/parties will possess the following technical expertise: (i) be a world-class mechanician; (ii) be a concrete microstructure expert; (iii) be a multi-scale mechanical theorist. In addition, the vendor/party must (iv) have a track record of publications on the technique of nano-indentation in refereed journals; and (v) be able to provide two (2) references well known in the field of the materials science of concrete who can speak to vendor?s expertise/performance.*****THIS SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE IS FOR INFORMATION AND PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY AND IN NO WAY COMMITS THE GOVERNMENT.** This is not a solicitation for proposals, nor will a contract/order be awarded in response to this notice.** Costs associated with vendors? providing information in response to this announcement and any additional requests for information and/or materials will NOT be reimbursed. *****Interested, capable vendors/parties shall submit a capability statement in response to this Sources Sought Notice, including, at a minimum, the following: * (a) Technical discussion of vendor?s ability to perform the draft Statement of Work (which follows); (b) Name of Company-include a contact person's name, telephone number, and email address; (c) Company Address; (d) Company Size (please specify as either-Large, Small, Small Disadvantaged, Woman Owned Small Business, Veteran Owned Small Business, Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, 8(a), or Hubzone Small Business); (e) Identify whether you are interested in this acquisition as a prime contractor or a subcontractor; (f) Identify whether the services identified in the Draft Statement of Work (which follows) are of a type offered and sold competitively in substantial quantities in the commercial marketplace based on established catalog or market prices and whether these services are exclusively provided to the Government; (g) Identify standard commercial terms and conditions typically associated with these services; (h) Describe experience and past performance with similar types of requirements of similar scope and magnitude and whether they were performance-based (with contract number, Government agency name and address and contract funded amount; (i) Identify existing or potential pricing structure in support of this type of work; (j) Identify qualifications of technical and management personnel; and (k) Identify and clearly mark any proprietary processes or data.***DRAFT STATEMENT OF WORK: BACKGROUND--The Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing Laboratory (VCCTL) is an integrated set of models that is being jointly developed with a NIST-led industrial consortium for the purposes of replacing physical testing in the research and development process and of optimizing concrete at the design stage. The VCCTL industrial consortium consists of nine companies, including leading cement, chemical admixtures, and aggregate companies. The set of models, embodied in software, will have reached version 4.0 at the end of calendar year 2003. One of the most important properties of concrete is the compressive strength. To be able to properly predict this property from fundamental knowledge of materials and the multi-scale microstructure of concrete is crucial to the success of the consortium. The theory to do this has not been carried out, at present, and needs to be done. PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES OF THE WORK: Research is needed to develop a theoretical model that predicts the strength properties of a cement paste based on the intrinsic strength properties of the phases in cement-based materials (measured by nanoindentation), and the digital microstructure of the material (which is already available at NIST). The result is expected to improve current prediction models of the cement paste strength. This theoretical model will also predict the strength properties of mortar and concrete based on the strength properties of the cement paste, and the strength properties of aggregates and eventually of the Interfacial Transition Zone. Publication of results in the open literature is strongly encouraged. CONTRACTOR REQUIREMENTS: The focus of the proposed research is the prediction of strength properties of cement-based materials: cement paste, mortar and concrete. The following tasks should be completed: Task 1 Cement paste: The first task will be devoted to cement paste, composed of a C-S-H matrix, Portlandite crystals, micro-porosity and other relevant solid material components. This microstructure is available in NIST?s Virtual Cement and Concrete Testing Laboratory, and is currently in use for finite element predictions of the elastic properties. The same geometrical representation of the microstructure will be used as a starting point for the implementation of yield design limit theorems, which will be implemented as a minimization problem of the maximum dissipation capacity: (a) The different phases in the cement paste will be assumed to obey a Mohr-Coulomb friction material, characterized by the cohesion and the friction angle. These values are currently under investigation at MIT by means of nanoindentation of C-S-H and Portlandite, and will be made available for model testing. (b) In the upper bound limit analysis approach, kinematically admissible velocity fields at failure will replace the displacement field currently used in the finite element analysis. These velocity fields will serve (1) to calculate the dissipation capacity in the heterogeneous material system as a sum of the dissipation in the bulk material and along interfaces, and (2) the dissipation associated with the compressive force applied to the material at failure. Yield design states that the second is always smaller than or equal to the first. This requires minimizing the first quantity (very similar to finite element analysis) to come the closest to the actual failure load (and associated macroscopic strength). It will be necessary to adapt this computational environment to the 3-D geometrical representation (mesh) of the microstructure developed at NIST. Task 2- Validation of cement paste approach: To validate the approach of Task 1, the contractor will compute both the elastic properties and the compressive strength of digitized material samples of NIST, and compare the results with empirical formulas (such as the ACI formulas) that were fitted on the basis of a large experimental data base. This will allow not only validation of the approach, but will contribute to the physics background of these empirical relations. Ultimately, it should then be possible to determine, purely numerically, the fitting coefficient for a certain range of concrete materials. Task 3 Extension to mortar and concrete -Contractor will explain how the ideas developed in Tasks 1 and 2 for cement paste could be extended to mortar and concrete, using the concept of the Interfacial Transition Zone. Deliverables: A monthly progress report shall be submitted to NIST. The work shall be completed with a final report delivered 12 months from date of award. GOVERNMENT REQUIREMENTS: NIST will provide the contractor with digital images of model concrete microstructure as needed to develop the research. INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA: The results of the multi-scale model analysis will be reviewed by NIST Technical Contact for completeness. The written final report will be approved and accepted based on thoroughness in describing the multi-scale strength model and the method to predict strength, along adequate documentation.*****Vendors/parties shall submit response to: National Institute of Standards and Technology, ATTN Tamara Grinspon, Acquisition and Logistics Division/Contracts, 100 Bureau Drive?STOP 3571, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-3571, via email (tamara.grinspon@nist.gov ) AND facsimile (FAX: (301) 975-6273), on or before 3:00PM EST, April 5, 2004.
- Place of Performance
- Address: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, MD 20899
- Record
- SN00556435-W 20040401/040330211724 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
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