Gunnar M. Idorn Award for Lifetime Achievement in the field of Alkali-Aggregate Reactions

In memory of the work developed by Gunnar M. Idorn since the 1st ICAAR, his efforts further on and his concerns regarding the future of these conferences, the Gunnar M. Idorn Award for Lifetime Achievement was given in 2 previous ICAAR, in 2008 at Trondheim and in 2012 at Austin.

The Organizing Committee of the 16th ICAAR has decided to nominate 2 of the most outstanding members of the alkali-aggregate community to receive this prestigious award.

The ICAAR 2020-2022 nominees, for the Gunnar M. Idorn Award for Lifetime Achievement in the field of Alkali-Aggregate Reactions, are Bruno Godart, from France, and Alan Poole, from the United Kingdom.

Bruno Godart is a Civil Engineer who has dedicated his professional life to concrete structures and the mechanisms of concrete deterioration. He started functions in LCPC in 1980 and in 1986 he started a long career in management positions as Head of the Durability of Structures Section, Head of the Engineering Structures Department at LCPC, then at IFSTTAR and lately Deputy Director of the Materials and Structures Department at the Gustave Eiffel University, until he retired in 2021. Simultaneously, he was professor of specialized courses at several universities.
He was an active member of European Normalization Committee and of RILEM Technical Committees contributing with his large experience to the definition of international recommendations and standards. He was president of French commissions about Concrete and co-author of many of the French standards. Bruno Godart is a permanent member of the International Association of Bridges and Structures, since 2017, and also the President of the French Civil Engineering Association (AFGC), since June 2014. He is the author of more than 160 scientific publications.

Alan Poole followed a research and teaching career in petrology of civil engineering materials at Queen Mary University of London. Throughout his later career he has been much involved with investigation of material problems associated with concrete and related materials for government and major civil engineering organizations. One particular area of expertise is alkali-aggregate reaction in concrete, a costly and world-wide problem. He was a member of the international committee for the organization of a series of major ICAAR conferences, on alkali-aggregate reaction, until 2000 and chaired the two held in the UK (1976 and 1992). As a result of consultancy interests, he has gained a wide experience in the investigation of civil engineering material failures of all sorts and has contributed with chapters in a number of technical books and journals, including co-authoring the book “Concrete Petrography”, which deals with all aspects of the investigation of concrete deterioration, and co-authoring and co-editing of the book “Alkali-Aggregate Reaction in Concrete - A World Review”, with contributions from 34 authors. He acts as secretary to the Geological Society Applied Petrography Group, and is also a member of British Standards Institution committees concerned with concrete and aggregates.

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