Self-healing of cracks in concrete with various crystalline mineral additives in underground environment

Cracks can deteriorate mechanical properties and/or durability of concrete. A few studies have shown that, cracks can autogenously heal under a certain conditions besides the traditional passive repair with a deliberate external intervention. For underground concrete structures, the presence of water, as a necessity for chemical reactions of the healing additives, is beneficial to healing concrete. In this paper, a natural healing method by mineral additives was developed according to the chemical and physical characteristics of underground environment. The healing capacity of three different crystalline mineral materials classified namely, carbonate, calcium sulphoaluminate expansive agent and natural metakaolin due to permeation-crystallization, expansion and pozzolanic reaction, has been assessed from the mechanical properties, referring to the relative elastic modulus, the strength restoration, and the water permeability of the healed specimens. In addition, the morphology of the healing products in the vicinity of the crack was observed. The results indicate that the specimens incorporated with the three mineral additives show different healing capacity according to the improved mechanical properties and permeability. The permeability of the host matrix decreased a lot after crack healing by natural metakaolin followed by carbonate whereas no noticeable improvement of water permeability has been observed for the specimens mixed with expansive agent. The specimens incorporated with carbonate show the best mechanical restoration in terms of relative elastic modulus and compressive strength. Although the dominate element is CaCO3 by reaction of CO32−, either from the dissolved CO2 or from the additives, and Ca2+ in the cementitious system to fill the cracks, the healing capacity depends greatly on the morphology and the properties of the newly formed products.

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