Self Healing Bendable Concrete On Walls

Concrete that heals itself has been developed at the university of michigan.

Self healing bendable concrete on walls.

Bendable concrete also can adjust its own thermal capacity so that it stores more heat when the outside temperature is high keeping building interiors cool. It s flexible it ca bend and if it cracks it can heal itself. Amazingly enough li says he s invented self healing concrete. This is a natural benefit because the concrete is also designed to heal itself.

These bacteria are actually limestone producing bacteria and when mixed with concrete they can make the concrete to heal itself where cracks form. The new concrete works by bending with the pressure caused by such problems as freeze thaw cycles. Flexible concrete gains self healing property which helps to fill the microcracks by a complex product that is formed by the reaction of cement with the rainwater. It has a self healing property as the cement particles make reaction with the rain water and makes some complex product that expands and fill the microcracks that are developed in the flexible concrete.

It is an incredible invention. Li s self healing concrete is based on a material he came up with in 1990 called engineered cementitious composite. It s like if you get a small cut on your hand your body can heal itself said victor li a professor of materials science and engineering at the university. The bending strength or tensile capacity of flexible concrete is in the range of 10 to 15 mpa and compressive strength is upto 70 mpa.

The engineered cement composite is designed to bend. Instead of being so rigid as to crack in a large gaping manner the concrete will crack much more subtly throughout the material. Bio concrete as he calls it is normal concrete with special bacteria mixed in it. The michigan department of transportation has a performance target.

The strain capacity of flexible concrete is three hundred times greater than the conventional concrete. The material in question is called bio concrete born out of a collaboration between microbiologist henk jonkers and concrete technologist eric schlangen the cost saving self healing material. Benjamin wylie collegiate professor of civil engineering and a professor of materials science and engineering. It has some of the same ingredients as portland cement except the coarser bits.

The ultimate tensile strain of bendable concrete can go up to 3 to 5. Self healing is possible because the material is designed to bend and crack in narrow hairlines rather than break and split in wide gaps like traditional concrete.