Building sector is responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the EU. As nZEB becomes the new standard, the role of building materials and smart envelope systems is becoming more and more important. Exploit4InnoMat OITB will make available a high-end Open Innovation Testbed network for building envelopes including roofs and facades, enabling the replication of prototypes in different buildings taking into consideration the trade-offs between the three sustainability pillars, the life cycle stages as well as their impacts. End-User Market Needs for low-cost, flexible, on demand material-based solutions, which will be assessed through an extensive partnership knowledge on materials characterization and modelling, monitoring and process control, environmental and assessment, regulatory and standardization, social acceptance and innovation management, realizing for nZEB solutions. In order to achieve this target a wide range of expertise has been brought to the OITB covering fields such as Open Innovation Testbeds for nano enabled cement, non cement premixes and ceramics, advanced coatings and glazing solutions loaded with aerogel, fibers, PCMs and other nanomaterials providing multifunctional properties; pilot lines for nanodispersion, 3D printing and roboting spraying; as well as a network of four real scale living laboratories for nZEB technologies evaluation, will facilitate a realization tool for developing close to market technological solutions. Additionally, a semi-automated tool combining BIM analysis, fast track modelling and simulation will make enable a digital tool for utilizing building blocks (structural, solar thermal and BIPV) in order to create a harmonized and aesthetically pleasing urban environment.

During the last decades a trend towards the use of lightweight materials in constructions and infrastructures, as well as in the aerospace and automotive industry is observed. Lightweight components are easy to transport, handle and install and demand less operational energy reducing substantially their environmental footprint and the relative costs. Among other materials, concrete and ceramics are on the focus of interest due to their wide range of application and their durability. Based on end applications lightweight attributes must be coupled with enhanced properties and multifunctionalities, such as high mechanical strength, self-sensing, self-cleaning properties, which can be achieved with the aid of nanomaterials. The main objective of the LightCoce project is to cover the gap in the upscaling and testing of multifunctional lightweight concrete and ceramic materials by providing open access to SMEs or Industry to a single entry point ecosystem consisting of already developed Pilot Lines (including three clusters of existing pilot lines; a. Concrete group, b. Conventional Ceramics group, and c. Advanced Ceramics group), process and materials modelling, Characterization, Standardisation, Regulatory, Safety & Environmental Assessment, Data Management and Innovation Management that will be accessible to the interested stakeholders at fair conditions and cost. The ecosystem will support the upscaling activities of European SMEs and industry, covering a large range of end applications from constructions materials (bricks, ceramic tiles), infrastructures (ready mix concrete, prefabricated components), to high tech applications in automotive & aerospace industry. Thus, LightCoce ecosystem targets will be achieved through the collaboration of a well-balanced multidisciplinary consortium consists of 26 Industrial and RTO partners well recognized and world leading experts in their fields: 5 Large Enterprise 8 RTDs, 12 SMEs, and 1 Association spread across 9 countries.

European materials industry is considered a key enabler for industrial development and the EU has a historically strategic position in this sector. However, there is a low uptake in European materials industry for digital technologies. Hereby, it is crucial to provide all stakeholders of the EU with advanced digital technologies to evolve towards an agile European materials industry with intelligent enterprises that maximise and integrate the utility of digital materials sciences knowledge. DiMAT will develop Open Digital Tools with a set of advanced technologies for offering European SMEs and Mid-Caps an affordable (in terms of cost, implementation and usability) full modelling, simulation and optimisation system in each stage of the material value chain (design, processing and manufacturing) for improving quality, sustainability, effectiveness, and competitiveness of materials. DiMAT will deploy 3 integrated Suites: 1) DiMAT Data and Assessment Suite: digital technologies for storing, sharing, representing and assessing materials data; 2) DiMAT DiMAT Modelling and Design Suite: digital technologies for material design, in terms of their internal structure, properties and performance, in order to predict the material behaviour before manufacturing; 3) DiMAT Simulation and Optimisation Suite: digital technologies for creating efficient materials manufacturing simulation processes and determining the behaviour of the material mechanical characterization models to be used in the AI training and prediction. The DiMAT Suites will be demonstrated in 4 Pilots of European designers and producers of different materials: textile, composite, glass and graphite.