KIVI-NIRIA annual conference

Last week the Dutch association for engineers KIVI-NIRIA organised their annual conference. The theme this year was smart materials. Our group organised a session on innovative building materials. In this session we focussed on different self healing projects. The presentations are available for download on the website of KIVI-NIRIA

Porous Network Concrete beam tested

Last week Senot tested some of the beams made with Porous Network Concrete. The beams have a core of porous concrete that can be used to inject a self healing agent and repair cracks. The beams are tested in 3-point bending. After the first loading a self healing agent (in this case epoxy containing fluorescent dye) is manually injected into the porous core.

In a real application the epoxy can be a cement grout and the injection can be automatic after the cracks have been found by embedded sensors.

The internal porous core is filled completely by the epoxy as can be seen in the image of a cross section below:

After injection of the epoxy the specimen is again loaded in 3-point-bending. The specimen is much stronger now and new cracks are formed as shown in the figure below. This photo is made after the tests when the specimen is cut. It clearly shows that the crack that is formed during the first loading is filled completely with epoxy. The new cracks from the second loading step are not filled.

First project using Bacterial Concrete

Close to Breda in the Netherlands a pavilion is made in which self healing Bacterial Concrete is applied.
Read more about this project (in Dutch) in the article below or go to the website of cementenbeton.nl

Upscaling in Progress

To conquer the world we have to do some upscaling of our self healing agents. Most probably it is not enough yet, but we are making progress.

Porous Network Concrete runs for Delft Design Award

This year Delft University has again a competition for the Delft Design Award. The idea of Porous Network Concrete was submitted to the competition. A video of the concept in which Senot is the main actor can be viewed on YouTube.
Click here to watch the video.

More Capsules for Bacterial Concrete

In addition to the existing bacteria-based healing agent immobilized in expanded clay particles, multiple alternative healing agent products are currently being developed.