Self-Healing Capability of Fiber-Reinforced Cementitious Composites for Recovery of Watertightness and Mechanical Properties

Various types of fiber reinforced cementitious composites (FRCCs) were experimentally studied to evaluate their self-healing capabilities regarding their watertightness and mechanical properties. Cracks were induced in the FRCC specimens during a tensile loading test, and the specimens were then immersed in static water for self-healing. By water permeability and reloading tests, it was determined that the FRCCs containing synthetic fiber and cracks of width within a certain range (<0.1 mm) exhibited good self-healing capabilities regarding their watertightness. Particularly, the high polarity of the synthetic fiber (polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)) series and hybrid fiber reinforcing (polyethylene (PE) and steel code (SC)) series showed high recovery ratio. Moreover, these series also showed high potential of self-healing of mechanical properties. It was confirmed that recovery of mechanical property could be obtained only in case when crack width was sufficiently narrow, both the visible surface cracks and the very fine cracks around the bridging of the SC fibers. Recovery of the bond strength by filling of the very fine cracks around the bridging fibers enhanced the recovery of the mechanical property.

[1]  Nele De Belie,et al.  Self-healing phenomena in cement-based materials , 2013 .

[2]  Tomoya Nishiwaki,et al.  Fundamental Study on Self-Repairing Concrete Using a Selective Heating Device , 2010 .

[3]  Tomoya Nishiwaki,et al.  Development of Self-Healing System for Concrete with Selective Heating around Crack , 2006 .

[4]  Carolyn M. Dry,et al.  Three designs for the internal release of sealants, adhesives, and waterproofing chemicals into concrete to reduce permeability , 2000 .

[5]  Carola Edvardsen,et al.  Water Permeability and Autogenous Healing of Cracks in Concrete , 1999 .

[6]  Takatsune Kikuta,et al.  Experimental Study on Self-Healing Capability of FRCC Using Different Types of Synthetic Fibers , 2012 .

[7]  Tomoya Nishiwaki,et al.  Development of Engineered Self-Healing and Self-Repairing Concrete-State-of-the-Art Report , 2012 .

[8]  de Jeff Hosson,et al.  Self Healing Materials. An Alternative Approach to 20 Centuries of Materials Science , 2007 .

[9]  V. Li,et al.  Snubbing and bundling effects on multiple crack spacing of discontinuous random fiber-reinforced brittle matrix composites , 1992 .

[10]  Michael D. Lepech,et al.  Autogenous healing of engineered cementitious composites under wet–dry cycles , 2009 .

[11]  H. Mihashi,et al.  Tensile Behavior of Ultra High Erformance Hybrid Fiber Reinforced Cement-Based Composites , 2013 .

[12]  Henk M. Jonkers,et al.  Self Healing Concrete: A Biological Approach , 2007 .

[13]  Nele De Belie,et al.  Self-Healing in Cementitious Materials—A Review , 2013, Materials.

[14]  Tomoya Nishiwaki,et al.  Self-Healing Capability of Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites , 2011 .

[15]  Patric Jacobs,et al.  Self-healing efficiency of cementitious materials containing tubular capsules filled with healing agent , 2011 .

[16]  Henk M. Jonkers,et al.  Quantification of crack-healing in novel bacteria-based self-healing concrete , 2011 .

[17]  C. Joseph,et al.  Adhesive-based self-healing of cementitious materials , 2009 .