Mineral Processing Building Expansion
University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research
Lexington, Kentucky
The Center for Applied Energy Research is a designated research center under the University’s Vice President for Research and is located off Iron Works Pike in northern Fayette County, Kentucky. For the Carbon Fiber Development Facility, the University of Kentucky selected Omni Architects to provide design services for a facility to house a Carbon Fiber Development research program. The project is being funded through a Federal Budget Appropriation in two phases.
The research program is being funded to construct a pilot-scale process development unit for the conversion of coal to high-value carbon products. In partnership with ORNL, and with funding from the DOE, UK CAER will produce high-value carbon fiber from raw coal at the largest scale in the US. This new purpose-built facility is necessary to efficiently and safely process tons of coal into mesophase pitch, recover and utilize by-products, and develop new sustainable technologies to generate high value carbon fiber, binders and other materials for composite structures.
At the Minerals Processing Facility, the Omni Architects team was selected to provide design services for an expansion to the existing building. The project is funded through a federal grant from the DoD. This project requires the design and construction of an addition to the current building, constructed approximately 10 years ago.
The University’s Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) is working in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense on the approximately 2,000 SF expansion, which is essential for increasing bulk storage of raw materials needed to develop high performing concrete for military applications. The elimination of heavy precast rebar-laden structural elements will greatly simplify logistics, speed of construction, and on-going repair. The purpose of the research is to create cements and concretes that can be used to construct or repair bridges, runways, roadways and other hardened structures. These materials must be simple to deploy and use; quickly achieve a very high strength; and achieve high bond strength with little or no surface preparation.
The expansion will allow CAER to develop more concrete variations and increase the scale and scope of specimens for advanced field testing and implementation. As the raw materials are sensitive to environmental conditions such as heat and moisture, monitored and conditioned storage space is required to ensure uniformity in the materials and products.