Franz-Josef Ulm

About

Franz-Josef Ulm is the Class of 1922 Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research interests are in the mechanics and structures of materials, focusing on the nano- and micro mechanics of porous materials such as concrete, rocks, and bones. He investigates the durability mechanics of engineering materials and structures, computational mechanics, and the bio-chemo-poromechanics of high-performance composite materials. As the Faculty Director of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub), he contributes to advancing sustainable construction materials and practices. Ulm's work emphasizes understanding the nanogranular nature of materials like C-S-H, shales, and bone, and exploring their mechanical properties at microscopic levels. His academic background includes a Diplom Ingenieur from TU Munich, a Docteur-Ingenieur from ENPC Paris, and habilitation from ENS de Cachan. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards and honors, including the Theodore von Karman Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers and election to the National Academy of Engineering.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Composite material
• Computer Science
• Crystallography
• Geology
• Data science
• Chemistry
• Physics
• Earth science

Selected publications

• Carbon–cement supercapacitors as a scalable bulk energy storage solution

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2023 · 130 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  The large-scale implementation of renewable energy systems necessitates the development of energy storage solutions to effectively manage imbalances between energy supply and demand. Herein, we investigate such a scalable material solution for energy storage in supercapacitors constructed from readily available material precursors that can be locally sourced from virtually anywhere on the planet, namely cement, water, and carbon black. We characterize our carbon-cement electrodes by combining co…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The physics of cement cohesion

  Science Advances · 2021 · 72 citations

  Cement is the most produced material in the world. A major player in greenhouse gas emissions, it is the main binding agent in concrete, providing a cohesive strength that rapidly increases during setting. Understanding how such cohesion emerges is a major obstacle to advances in cement science and technology. Here, we combine computational statistical mechanics and theory to demonstrate how cement cohesion arises from the organization of interlocked ions and water, progressively confined in nan…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Nacre toughening due to cooperative plastic deformation of stacks of co-oriented aragonite platelets

  Communications Materials · 2020 · 54 citations

  Abstract Nacre’s structure-property relationships have been a source of inspiration for designing advanced functional materials with both high strength and toughness. These outstanding mechanical properties have been mostly attributed to the interplay between aragonite platelets and organic matrices in the typical brick-and-mortar structure. Here, we show that crystallographically co-oriented stacks of aragonite platelets, in both columnar and sheet nacre, define another hierarchical level that…

  DOI

• Cementing CO2 into C-S-H: A step toward concrete carbon neutrality

  PNAS Nexus · 2023-03-01 · 44 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Addressing the existing gap between currently available mitigation strategies for greenhouse gas emissions associated with ordinary Portland cement production and the 2050 carbon neutrality goal represents a significant challenge. In order to bridge this gap, one potential option is the direct gaseous sequestration and storage of anthropogenic CO2 in concrete through forced carbonate mineralization in both the cementing minerals and their aggregates. To better clarify the potential stra…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The role of concrete in life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of US buildings and pavements

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021-09-07 · 36 citations

  articleOpen access

  Concrete is a critical component of deep decarbonization efforts because of both the scale of the industry and because of how its use impacts the building, transportation, and industrial sectors. We use a bottom-up model of current and future building and pavement stocks and construction in the United States to contextualize the role of concrete in greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions strategies under projected and ambitious scenarios, including embodied and use phases of the structures' life cycle.…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Roland J.‐M. Pellenq

  114 shared

• Roland J.‐M. Pellenq

  Institut Européen des Membranes

  82 shared

• Jean‐Marc Leyssale

  35 shared

• Hadrien Laubie

  34 shared

• Farhang Radjaï

  Université de Montpellier

  33 shared

• Christian Hellmich

  32 shared

• R. J.-M. Pellenq

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  30 shared

• Adri C. T. van Duin

  Pennsylvania State University

  28 shared

Awards & honors

• Robert L'Hermite Medaille, RILEM (2002)
• Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize (2005)
• Maurice A. Biot lecture at Columbia University (2010)
• Stephen Brunauer Award, American Ceramic Society (2011)
• Theodore von Karman Medal, American Society of Civil Enginee…

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