Bacteria based healing of concrete - Using crack management to enhance durability
Themes: Structural Engineering, Materials
Early stage commercial environment application
A TRL is a measure to indicate the matureness of a developing technology. When an innovative idea is discovered it is often not directly suitable for application. Usually such novel idea is subjected to further experimentation, testing and prototyping before it can be implemented. The image below shows how to read TRL’s to categorise the innovative ideas.
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Why?
Self-healing concrete maintains and repairs itself. Cracks are automatically sealed far beyond the autogenous repair limit, resolving leakages and delaying durability issues. This reduces the total costs of ownership.
How?
Capsules of dormant limestone forming bacteria and their nutrients are mixed in the concrete during construction. A crack exposes the bacteria to water, which will repair the crack by converting their nutrients into limestone.
When?
The bacteria are already being applied ‘ad hoc’ as spray or mortar, as an innovative method of crack repair. Application of the capsules at the construction stage would be even more beneficial.
Dr. Henk Jonkers
Ir. Renee Mors
Dr. Virginie Wiktor
Dr. ir. Lupita Sierra-Beltran
Dr. Santiago Garcia