RODRIGUEZ, REIGH ANNE B.

V114

SELF-HEALING CONCRETE

Specification:

200 years life span

Concrete with water-activated bacteria that produces calcite to heal cracks
SUMMARY:

Concrete is the most important material in constructing an infrastructure but we all

know that concrete can only withstand compressive forces and not tensile forces.
When a strucrure is subjected to tensile there is large possibility that it will start to
crack. Dr. Henk Jonkers, a microbiologist who specialises in the behaviour of bacteria
in the environment, has developed self-healing concrete. Self-healing concrete is a
product made to produce limestone to heal cracks in the concrete structure though
there are another ways to repairs the cracks which is applying a concrete mortar that is
bonded to the damage surface but the mortars needs to be keyed into the exisitng
strucuture. By that we can say that repair can be time consuming and expensive
because it is often very difficult to gain access to the structure. That is why
Self-Healing concrete would be a viable product for most structural concrete
operation.