LBB Note #5: AIDICO Visit

If you talked to me at all before I came to Spain and asked me what I would be doing here, I would have told you that I would be working at a company called AIDICO. I would be at one of their many labs and coming up with hazard mitigation techniques for six weeks. That wasn't meant to be.

Spain and AIDICO are still in a tough place. A result of the Paro (which is what the Spanish call their labor crisis, a topic that is impossible to avoid if you spend any more time than an hour here), AIDICO was forced to scale back all of their operations, declare bankruptcy, and leave us in no-man's land less than a month before our scheduled arrival date in Spain.

By now you know we were picked up by UPV, and I'm currently doing my research there. On Wednesday we had the day off  from the university to tour the facilities at AIDICO and see some of the research and labs they have over there. 

I don't know why we took the picture like this. We look like the try-hard Avengers.

AIDICO is on the outskirts of Valencia, quite a ways away from our flats in Benimaclet. It is located in an industrial park and surrounded by research institutions that specialize in other fields, like nanotechnology and logistics. The whole park has a very forward-thinking architecture style.

The bridge leading into the industrial park, with Dr. Yazdani and Ana Barella in the foreground.

The first thing we saw was the concrete lab. Pretty standard stuff; cement, gravel, sand and water, and plenty of mixers rolling and mixing concrete. From here we went to the imaging lab. I was really surprised by some of the ultrasound, x-ray and other imaging devices they use to see the condition of structures without having to tear into them for inspection. 

From there it was on to the fire lab. Here, in a large hangar away from the rest of the buildings, two large furnaces (one oriented horizontally and another vertically) were used to do fire tests on structures. 

Vertical furnance

Door fire test

At AIDICO they also have a simulated project-in-progress that's used to test safety equipment for construction workers. They usually throw off sandbags that simulate real people off three or four stories.

Construction safety lab

We ended the trip with a visit to the Nanotechnology building in a separate area of the industrial park. There they are adding microfibers to concrete structures so they could to analyze the stress and strain forces remotely, as well as corrosion resistant paint on concrete. I saw my first electron microscope, so that was really cool.

AIDICO seemed like it was a bustling and interesting place half a decade ago or so, but now it just seems like a technical ghost town. I'm glad to be over at UPV.

Let's cook, Jesse!