On October 30, 2023, Dr. Anand Puppala, TAMU Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering and director of the CIR, and Dr. Zach Grasley, TAMU Department Head of Civil & Environmental engineering, attended the NEx MOU Signing Ceremony to commemorate the new allied partner agreement between Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) and NEx, an ACI center of excellence of nonmetallic building materials. The signing ceremony took place during the ACI Concrete Convention in Boston, MA.
NEx is an American Concrete Institution (ACI) Center for Nonmetallic Building Materials motivated by three factors: reduce carbon footprint, improve sustainability, and support innovation. The mission of NEx is to “collaborate globally to expand and accelerate the use of non-metallics in the built environment to drive innovation, research, education, awareness, adoption, and deployment.” NEx is represented by Waleed Al-Otaibi (Director, Saudi Aramco), Jerzy Zemajtis (Executive Director, NEx), Gusai AlAithan (Liaison Director, Aramco Americas), and Aparna Deshmukh (Technical Director, NEx) at this meeting.
Presently, Texas A&M is actively involved in the execution of a project sponsored by NEx, focusing on the development of polymer soil stabilization guidelines. The signed MOU will serve as a pivotal step toward broadening and strengthening the collaboration between the two entities.
With this MOU signing, TEES of Texas A&M University joined as an allied partner of the ACI NEx and, along with the Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR), researchers from TAMU will be conducting research on composite and polymeric materials and their application in civil infrastructure.
To learn more about the NEx, visit www.nonmetallic.org
To learn more about the American Concrete Institute (ACI), visit www.concrete.org
