GEOBACTICON · The efficiency of bio-self-healing concrete within ground conditions
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-11-01 → 2020-12-31
- EU contribution
- €195,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-CAR
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The efficiency of bio-self-healing concrete within ground conditions
• What is the problem/issue being addressed? Research to date has focused on the self-healing process in air or water environments. However, almost all structures (including bridges, buildings, tunnels, dams) are built on or in the ground. Thus, a significant amount of concrete structural elements are exposed to all sorts of ground conditions, e.g. different soil types, groundwater regimes, chemical and bacterial compositions that naturally existed within the ground. Research in this area is necessary because in underground concrete structures, cracks are invisible, surrounded by soil and their location cannot be accessed. This research helped to understand how different complicated ground conditions could influence the bio-self-healing process and whether an adjustment should be adopted by concrete designers. • Why is it important for society? The research vision is to reduce the expensive maintenance cost of underground infrastructures by reducing the uncertainty of the design of bio-self-healing concrete used for these structures. Therefore, the outcomes of this research are highly relevant to the construction industry and the knowledge produced by the project will have an economic, financial and societal impact in the EU and other regions. • What are the overall objectives? The hypothesis of this research is that the bio-self-healing process can be differently influenced by different ground conditions. Therefore, the project aims to explore the efficiency of the bio-self-healing solution in underground concrete structures. The research combined, in a novel interdisciplinary approach, several methods applied in materials/concrete, geotechnical engineering, and microbiology to conduct a series of lab-scale experiments on mortar specimens incubated within various soil environments. This allowed the investigation of the effect of several factors, including the type of soil, saturation regime and class of (chemical) exposures, on the bio-self-healing process.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Concrete is the most used construction material worldwide for infrastructure projects. Due to deterioration, regular maintenance works are necessary to seal the concrete cracks and restore durability. In Europe, infrastructures such as tunnels and earth retaining walls alone cost approximately 5 billion EUR per year. Self-healing strategies (particularly bacterial-based self-healing) are regarded as a promising solution to reduce the high maintenance and repair cost of concrete infrastructures. It is believed if self-healing concrete had been used for all these structures, up to 120 million EUR could be saved annually on their maintenance. The research to date has tended to focus on the self-healing process in air or water environment. However, infrastructures (i.e. bridges, buildings, tunnels) are built on or in the ground, where part of their concrete structures are inevitably embedded in soil environment with all sorts of ground conditions such as different types of soil, saturation regimes, and chemical exposures. It is not clear if the process of self-healing is efficient within concrete elements exposed to such complicated ground conditions. The project aims to explore the efficiency of the bacterial-based self-healing (bio-hydrogels) in underground concrete structures. By using a novel interdisciplinary approach, the research combines state-of-the-art technologies applied in materials/concrete, geotechnical engineering, and microbiology to conduct a series of lab-scale experiments on mortar specimens incubated within various soil environments. Purpose-built experimental tools are used to investigate the effect of several factors including the type of soil, saturation regime and class of (chemical) exposures, on the bio-self-healing process. The outcomes of this research are highly relevant to the construction industry and the knowledge produced by the project will have an economic, financial and societal impact in EU and other regions.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF DERBY · DerbyCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/798021
- https://www.researchgate.net/project/GEOBACTICON-The-efficiency-of-bio-self-healing-concrete-within-ground-condition
Data: CORDIS, © European Union