Erik gave a presentation at the EMI2026 conference in Naples where he presented plans and first results of the MAGICON project

For our ERC-advanced grant MAGICON project we purchased a new tool to perfrom small cantilever beding inside our ESEM. Next to cantilever bending we will also do tensile splitting and compression of pillars and also other fancy tests.

Yesterday we milled our first cement-paste sample:

This week we bought a dental-milling machine (DGShape DWX-52i plus) from Dentalhouse in Veenendaal, the Netherlands.

clink on the image below to go to the post.

In the Results-section the project posters of Kangtai, Arpan, Jasmijn and Kelsey are added for you to download.

Looking back to 3 days wonderful expericence at Science is Wonderful in Brussels. We (Shan, Jasmijn, Maiko and Erik) are completely exhausted after these 3 days, but had great fun. Talking to all the kids (~4500) and teachers/parents that visited our booth, having a meet and greet with the EU-Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva, doing some video-shoots for the ERC-website and taking part in a visit at the European Parlement; it was all worth the effort. Below you can see some highlights/

Today is the first day of Science is Wonderful in Brussels. It is a science fair for schoolkids in the age of 7 to 17, which is organised by the EU. It will run for 3 days and in total around 4500 youngsters will visit. We have a booth showcasing the research we are doing on concrete and specifically the work in the ERC-project MAGICON. The Magicon team is represented by Jasmijn, Shan, Maiko and Erik. It is great fun explaining what concrete is, how you make it and break it again, and of course giving examples how to make it more sustainable,

Today we had our kick-off meeting of the MAGICON project.

Did you maybe also ask yourself.... WHAT IS THE STRENGTH OF CONCRETE? 

Today we had a short informal online Magicon get together before our real kick-off meeting on January 6.