Soluble Silicates as Additives for Self-Sealing and Self-Healing Concrete

2016 ◽  
Vol 1813 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. E. Rendon Diaz Miron ◽  
M. E. Lara Magaña

ABSTRACTTensile strength of concrete is limited and therefore is sensitive to crack formation. Steel reinforcement is added to bear the tensile forces; nonetheless, this does not completely omit crack formation. Repair of cracks in concrete is time-consuming and expensive. Self-sealing and self-healing of cracks upon appearance would therefore be a convenient property. We propose a mechanism to obtain self-repair of the concrete by adding soluble silicates (ASS) which will induce a self-sealing and self-healing process catalyzed by natural periods of wet and dry states of the concrete. Self-sealing approaches prevent the ingress of harsh chemical substances which may deteriorate the concrete matrix. This can be achieved by self-healing of concrete cracks (e.g. further cement hydration, calcium carbonate precipitation) and autonomous healing (e.g. further hydration of partially soluble silicates added as healing agents). The autogenous healing efficiency depends on the amount of deposited reaction products (ASS), its solubility (ratio of calcium to sodium silicate), the availability of water, and the crack width (restricted by adding microfibers). The self-sealing efficiency is generally evaluated by measuring the decrease in water permeability and air flow through the crack. The healing efficiency is usually evaluated by testing concrete´s regain in mechanical properties after crack formation; by reloading the cracked and autonomously healed specimen and comparing the obtained mechanical properties with the original ones. Self-sealing and self-healing of concrete gives a broad perspective and new possibilities to make future concrete structures more durable.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (17) ◽  
pp. 5739
Author(s):  
Xenia Tsilimigkra ◽  
Dimitrios Bekas ◽  
Maria Kosarli ◽  
Stavros Tsantzalis ◽  
Alkiviadis Paipetis ◽  
...  

Microcapsule-based carbon fiber reinforced composites were manufactured by wet layup, in order to assess their mechanical properties and determine their healing efficiency. Microcapsules at 10%wt. containing bisphenol-A epoxy, encapsulated in a urea formaldehyde (UF) shell, were employed with Scandium (III) Triflate (Sc (OTf)3) as the catalyst. The investigation was deployed with two main directions. The first monitored changes to the mechanical performance due to the presence of the healing agent within the composite. More precisely, a minor decrease in interlaminar fracture toughness (GIIC) (−14%), flexural strength (−12%) and modulus (−4%) compared to the reference material was reported. The second direction evaluated the healing efficiency. The experimental results showed significant recovery in fracture toughness up to 84% after the healing process, while flexural strength and modulus healing rates reached up to 14% and 23%, respectively. The Acoustic Emission technique was used to support the experimental results by the onsite monitoring.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (77) ◽  
pp. 3279-3287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guoqiang Li ◽  
Harper Meng ◽  
Jinlian Hu

Severe wounds in biological systems such as human skin cannot heal themselves, unless they are first stitched together. Healing of macroscopic damage in thermoset polymer composites faces a similar challenge. Stimuli-responsive shape-changing polymeric fibres with outstanding mechanical properties embedded in polymers may be able to close macro-cracks automatically upon stimulation such as heating. Here, a stimuli-responsive fibre (SRF) with outstanding mechanical properties and supercontraction capability was fabricated for the purpose of healing macroscopic damage. The SRFs and thermoplastic particles (TPs) were incorporated into regular thermosetting epoxy for repeatedly healing macroscopic damages. The system works by mimicking self-healing of biological systems such as human skin, close (stitch) then heal, i.e. close the macroscopic crack through the thermal-induced supercontraction of the SRFs, and bond the closed crack through melting and diffusing of TPs at the crack interface. The healing efficiency determined using tapered double-cantilever beam specimens was 94 per cent. The self-healing process was reasonably repeatable.


Polymers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 968
Author(s):  
Jinsil Kim ◽  
Pyong Hwa Hong ◽  
Kiwon Choi ◽  
Gyeongmin Moon ◽  
Jungsoon Kang ◽  
...  

A functional polyurethane based on the heterocyclic group was synthesized and its self-healing and mechanical properties were examined. To synthesize a heterocyclic polyurethane, a polyol and a heterocyclic compound with di-hydroxyl groups at both ends were blended and the blended solution was reacted with a crosslinker containing multiple isocyanate groups. The heterocyclic polyurethane demonstrates better self-healing efficiency than the conventional polyurethane with no heterocyclic groups. Furthermore, unlike the conventional self-healing materials, the heterocyclic polyurethane examined in this study shows an outstanding recovery of the mechanical properties after the self-healing process. These results are attributed to the unique supramolecular network resulting from the strong hydrogen bonding interaction between the urethane group and the heterocyclic group in the heterocyclic polyurethane matrix.


Polymers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuqing Qian ◽  
Xiaowei An ◽  
Xiaofei Huang ◽  
Xiangqiang Pan ◽  
Jian Zhu ◽  
...  

Dynamic structures containing polymers can behave as thermosets at room temperature while maintaining good mechanical properties, showing good reprocessability, repairability, and recyclability. In this work, alkyl diselenide is effectively used as a dynamic cross-linker for the design of self-healing poly(urea–urethane) elastomers, which show quantitative healing efficiency at room temperature, without the need for any catalysts or external interventions. Due to the combined action of the urea bond and amide bond, the material has better mechanical properties. We also compared the self-healing effect of alkyl diselenide-based polyurethanes and alkyl disulfide-based polyurethanes. The alkyl diselenide has been incorporated into polyurethane networks using a para-substituted amine diphenyl alkyl diselenide. The resulting materials not only exhibit faster self-healing properties than the corresponding disulfide-based materials, but also show the ability to be processed at temperatures as low as 60 °C.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haoliang Huang ◽  
Guang Ye

In this research, self-healing due to further hydration of unhydrated cement particles is taken as an example for investigating the effects of capsules on the self-healing efficiency and mechanical properties of cementitious materials. The efficiency of supply of water by using capsules as a function of capsule dosages and sizes was determined numerically. By knowing the amount of water supplied via capsules, the efficiency of self-healing due to further hydration of unhydrated cement was quantified. In addition, the impact of capsules on mechanical properties was investigated numerically. The amount of released water increases with the dosage of capsules at different slops as the size of capsules varies. Concerning the best efficiency of self-healing, the optimizing size of capsules is 6.5 mm for capsule dosages of 3%, 5%, and 7%, respectively. Both elastic modulus and tensile strength of cementitious materials decrease with the increase of capsule. The decreasing tendency of tensile strength is larger than that of elastic modulus. However, it was found that the increase of positive effect (the capacity of inducing self-healing) of capsules is larger than that of negative effects (decreasing mechanical properties) when the dosage of capsules increases.


Polymers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pejman Heidarian ◽  
Abbas Z. Kouzani ◽  
Akif Kaynak ◽  
Ali Zolfagharian ◽  
Hossein Yousefi

It is an ongoing challenge to fabricate an electroconductive and tough hydrogel with autonomous self-healing and self-recovery (SELF) for wearable strain sensors. Current electroconductive hydrogels often show a trade-off between static crosslinks for mechanical strength and dynamic crosslinks for SELF properties. In this work, a facile procedure was developed to synthesize a dynamic electroconductive hydrogel with excellent SELF and mechanical properties from starch/polyacrylic acid (St/PAA) by simply loading ferric ions (Fe3+) and tannic acid-coated chitin nanofibers (TA-ChNFs) into the hydrogel network. Based on our findings, the highest toughness was observed for the 1 wt.% TA-ChNF-reinforced hydrogel (1.43 MJ/m3), which is 10.5-fold higher than the unreinforced counterpart. Moreover, the 1 wt.% TA-ChNF-reinforced hydrogel showed the highest resistance against crack propagation and a 96.5% healing efficiency after 40 min. Therefore, it was chosen as the optimized hydrogel to pursue the remaining experiments. Due to its unique SELF performance, network stability, superior mechanical, and self-adhesiveness properties, this hydrogel demonstrates potential for applications in self-wearable strain sensors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 2585
Author(s):  
Maciej Radzieński ◽  
Paweł Kudela ◽  
Wiesław Ostachowicz ◽  
Patryk Bolimowski ◽  
Rafał Kozera ◽  
...  

The aim of this research is a feasibility study of self-healing process monitoring in composite laminates. A novel nondestructive method based on the full wavefield of Lamb wave processing is proposed. Experimental verification is presented for glass-fiber-reinforced polymer plate with embedded self-healing function in the form of a dry microcapsule powder. After impacting the specimen to create barely visible impact damage, a series of laser vibrometer full wavefield measurements were carried out and processed to assess self-healing efficiency.


Soft Matter ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 2276-2284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zichao Wei ◽  
Srinivas Thanneeru ◽  
Elena Margaret Rodriguez ◽  
Gengsheng Weng ◽  
Jie He

Moisture that competes with dipicolylamine to bind Eu dynamically controls the mechanical and optical properties of polymer films, as well as their self-healing efficiency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 146
Author(s):  
Francesca Ferrari ◽  
Antonio Greco

This work is focused on the production of a smart material from cyclic butylene-terephthalate (CBT), characterized by the built-in capability to recover its damage, through the catalyzed ring opening polymerization (ROP) of its oligomers; in particular, molten CBT, after filling the damaged zone, can be converted into poly-butylene terephthalate (PBT), thus promoting a join of the broken surfaces and fixing the crack. To obtain a material with self-healing potential, the production of a partially polymerized system is required. For this purpose, two solutions were studied: the first one involved the use of two catalysts with different activation times, whereas the second solution implied the intercalation of the faster catalyst inside the nanoclay lamellae. Since the intercalation allowed slowing the activation of the catalyst, residual CBT can be converted in a second step. Mechanical properties of partially reacted PBT samples and their healing ability were checked by flexural analyses; in order to promote the healing process, samples were notched to simulate partial damage and left in oven for different times and temperatures, to allow the activation of the unreacted catalyst with the consequent ROP of the residual CBT; flexural tests on samples after healing showed a good recovery of mechanical properties.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Gong ◽  
Jian Xu ◽  
Er-hu Yan ◽  
Jun-hua Cai

In this study, the molecular dynamics simulation was used to explore the effects of carbon-based nanomaterials as binder modifiers on self-healing capability of asphalt binder and to investigate the microscopic self-healing process of modified asphalt binders under different temperature. An asphalt average molecular structure model of PEN70 asphalt binder was constructed firstly. Further, three kinds of carbon-based nanomaterials were added at three different percentages ranging from 0.5 to 1.5% to the base binder to study their effects on the self-healing capability, including two carbon nanotubes (CNT1 and CNT2) and graphene nanoflakes. Combining with the three-dimensional (3D) microcrack model to simulate the asphalt self-healing process, the density analysis, relative concentration analysis along OZ direction, and mean square displacement analysis were performed to investigate the temperature sensitive self-healing characters. Results showed that the additions of CNTs were effective in enhancing the self-healing efficiency of the plain asphalt binder. By adding 0.5% CNT1 and 0.5% CNT2, about 652% and 230% of the mean square displacement of plain asphalt binder were enhanced at the optimal temperatures. However, the use of graphene nanoflakes as an asphalt modifier did not provide any noticeable changes on the self-healing efficiency. It can be found that the self-healing capability of the asphalt was closely related to the temperature. For base asphalt, the self-healing effect became especially high at the phase transition temperature range, while, for the modified asphalt, the enhancement of the self-healing capability at the low phase transition temperature (15°C) became negligible. In general, the optimal healing temperature range of the CNTs modified asphalt binders is determined as 45–55°C and the optimal dosage of the CNTs is about 0.5% over the total weight of the asphalt binder. Considering the effect of carbon-based nanomaterials on the self-healing properties, the recommended carbon-based nanomaterials modifier is CNT1 with the aspect ratio of 1.81.


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