DMC-Construction Materials Department

Construction Materials Department (DMC) is mainly responsible for quality assurance works of government projects, providing professional advices on construction materials, participate in construction materials product certification.

1. Domain of activities includes

• Quality assurance of public construction project, including quality assurance of precast concrete plants and its components, such as light rail project in Macao, Zone A Reclamation and so on;

• Providing professional advices on construction materials;

• Establishing acceptance and reception procedure on construction materials according to the international and Macao standards;

• The formulation of regional standards, such as the revision of Macao Standard for Concrete;

• Assist other departments to formulate relevant regulations, such as the preparation of bill of quantities, standard method of measurement, relevant technical specifications and so on;

• Responsible for the technical part of product certification activities of construction materials, such as cement, PHC piles, concrete pipes, concrete plants including plants in Macao, precast concrete product plants and concrete plant in Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (120-year design life of concrete) and so on;

• Outdoor environmental assessment and monitoring.

2. Enhance the competitiveness of the construction industry

• Organizing seminars so that the industry will understand the current technology and related requirements in the neighbour area, the domestic and the international, such as concrete durability and quality assurance seminar;

• Committed to promoting and assisting concrete plants in Macao to joint LECM product certification to production in line with Macao Standard for Concrete and ISO 9001 requirements;

• Help Macao concrete industry to introduce 100-year design life of the concrete, in order to respond to the needs of light rail project and other important construction projects;

• Technical exchanges with the industry to encourage innovation and promote the healthy development of their markets.

3. Self-improvement

• Encourage colleagues to participate course related to quality control, a number of colleagues have passed qualification of auditor;

• Establish a database for test data and link it with testing operation. In order to increase efficiency in the report preparation, accuracy and confidentiality the database is using for test reports preparation and data processing by the personnel with authority;

• Academic exchanges and cooperation with the relevant professional bodies, such as building materials for the South China University of Technology, outdoor environmental assessment and monitoring of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University;

• Academic institutions will be invited to relevant professional training to colleagues.

4. Research the durability of concrete

Macao concrete materials mainly imported from mainland of China, while a number of major domestic construction caused a lack of river sand. Meanwhile, Macao is surrounded by the sea, building mostly corroded by chloride ion. Therefore, the durability of concrete is affected by alkali-silica reactivity of river sand, chloride ion content of river sand and chloride ion penetration resistance of concrete. In view of this, LECM have implemented the research for the river sand material used in different Macao concrete manufacturers since 2012.

In addition, there are Center of Materials Testing (NEM) and Center of Chemistry (NQ) under this department, which had obtained certification for ISO 9001 and ISO 17025 in 2007.