Materials serve as an enabling technology contributing to solutions in problems of concern to society. The civil and environmental profession can contribute to improvements in the quality of life by seeking solutions to infrastructure deterioration, hazard mitigation, structural safety, sustainability, environmental protection, and construction productivity.

The core research at the ACE-MRL is advanced cementitious composites development based on micromechanical design principles, and following the PDDA approach. Over the last decade, Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) with ultra high ductility has been developed. Physically and mechanically, ECC behaves like normal concrete. Under tension, however, ECC behaves more like a ductile metal.

Researches in ECC are currently in the directions of detailed microstructure design and property characterization, ECC with special functionalities, ECC with various processing capabilities and high strain-rate loading effect.