Self-healing Concrete For Safer And More Durable Infrastructure
Usually the focus here is on legal issues. But sometimes new design and construction developments are so remarkable I've got to mention them. This is one of those developments.
Last week Lynn Becker at Chicago Architecture Plus wrote about research underway on a new self-healing concrete at the University of Michigan called Engineered Cement Composite ("ECC").
ECC can heal itself when it cracks. Just add water and carbon dioxide. Several wet days will mend a damaged member made of ECC. ECC is designed to bend and crack in narrow hairlines instead of breaking and splitting open in wide gaps like traditional concrete. The result is that ECC can repair itself.
When ECC is strained, many micro-cracks form instead of one large crack that causes failure. Here, a specimen is bending as a force of five percent tensile strain is being applied. Regular concrete would fail at .01 percent tensile strain.
U of M posted this video of Professor Victor Li explaining how ECC works. It's definitely with watching.
More information about ECC is available from U of M's Advanced Civil Engineering Material Research Laboratory.
ECC emerging from the lab into practical use could have profound effects on design and construction of new projects, especially infrastructure projects like bridges, runways, and roads composed of exposed concrete bearing extremely heavy and moving loads.
Last week Lynn Becker at Chicago Architecture Plus wrote about research underway on a new self-healing concrete at the University of Michigan called Engineered Cement Composite ("ECC").
ECC can heal itself when it cracks. Just add water and carbon dioxide. Several wet days will mend a damaged member made of ECC. ECC is designed to bend and crack in narrow hairlines instead of breaking and splitting open in wide gaps like traditional concrete. The result is that ECC can repair itself.
When ECC is strained, many micro-cracks form instead of one large crack that causes failure. Here, a specimen is bending as a force of five percent tensile strain is being applied. Regular concrete would fail at .01 percent tensile strain.
U of M posted this video of Professor Victor Li explaining how ECC works. It's definitely with watching.
More information about ECC is available from U of M's Advanced Civil Engineering Material Research Laboratory.
ECC emerging from the lab into practical use could have profound effects on design and construction of new projects, especially infrastructure projects like bridges, runways, and roads composed of exposed concrete bearing extremely heavy and moving loads.
- Increased strength
- Less frequent maintenance using less labor and fewer materials...
- Leading to lower costs and more sustainable projects that consume fewer resources over their useful lives.
- Whether standards of care will one day require designers to specify ECC on certain parts of certain types of projects, or at least discuss its use with clients.
- Whether the government will require minimum amounts of ECC, or materials like it, on public projects.
- Construction defect claims arising from improper mixing or installation of ECC.
Construction Law Today is a legal blog about construction contracts, disputes, finance, and the people whose job it is to deal with them.
I hope you do not mind my forwarding your message on self-healing concrete to 39 construction contractors across the US.
Regards,
Larry