{"id":73913,"date":"2016-04-10T01:37:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-10T05:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=73913"},"modified":"2025-01-18T00:29:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T05:29:57","slug":"uvic-scientists-developing-smart-cement-heals-seals-cracks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/04\/10\/uvic-scientists-developing-smart-cement-heals-seals-cracks\/","title":{"rendered":"UVic scientists developing smart cement that heals, seals cracks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"One<\/a>
One of the University of Victoria buildings. (Photo from Instagram\/shotbyric<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VICTORIA \u2013 Scientists at the University of Victoria are working to cement their lead in making so-called smart concrete that heals and seals cracks, greatly reducing potential infrastructure disasters and extending lifespans of buildings and structures.<\/p>\n

Civil Engineering Prof. Rishi Gupta says his department is conducting research to develop material combinations that produce long-lasting, crack-free concrete and mixtures that can heal cracks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my world we talk about concrete, and concrete is the world\u2019s most used construction material,\u201d he said at a recent display of his research at the British Columbia\u2019s legislature.<\/p>\n

He said the focus of his facility is to come up with a variety of mixtures that allow for crack-free concrete.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf (the concrete) does decide to crack we are actually coming up with systems which are smart and have the ability to heal themselves.<\/p>\n

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\u201d<\/p>\n

Gupta said his research has two primary areas of focus when it comes to concrete: making it crack free and monitoring the life span of infrastructure built with concrete.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working with fibres that actually go into concrete,\u201d he said. \u201cB.C. is one of the leaders in fibre-reinforced concrete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gupta said his department is testing the healing and sealing abilities of concrete as varying amounts of fibres are added to the mixture such as industrial waste like fly ash and wood cellulose.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually have a patent that was very recently approved and we have the only technique in the world that can be used to measure how fast systems like these can seal themselves,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are able to predict what the life of concrete would be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gupta said the mixtures work on cracks and extend the life of concrete, which also benefits the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cConcrete is associated with not being very sustainable because every tonne of cement produces about a tonne of carbon dioxide,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you can make your structure last longer, you\u2019ve actually made the material more sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The university will also be testing two new tools that can measure the lifespan and the strength of concrete on buildings and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The electrical resistivity meter tests the strength of concrete through electrical resistance currents in minutes as opposed to hours and without drilling core samples from the structure, he said.<\/p>\n

Conventional concrete strength measurements involve chloride permeability tests which take up to 10 hours for a single reading or drilling into the structure and removing a concrete sample.<\/p>\n

Also being put to use is Canada’s first Laser Scanning Vibrometer, a hand held infrared device that when pointed can determine the strength of a structure through its heat signals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a structure was cracked for example you could see the thermal signature through this,\u201d Gupta said. \u201cThe use for that is you can be standing a couple hundred feet away from a bridge and you can actually monitor how the bridge is performing.\u201d<\/p>\n

B.C.\u2019s Technology Minister Amrik Virk said the UVic research could result in safer bridges and buildings around the world.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you imagine concrete that heals itself?\u201d he said. \u201cThe ability to look at aging infrastructure, not only in North America but around the world, where we could potentially apply a coating on concrete that’s going to solve overpasses from falling down.\u201d<\/p>\n

B.C.\u2019s Knowledge Development Fund provided $120,000 to Gupta\u2019s research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VICTORIA \u2013 Scientists at the University of Victoria are working to cement their lead in making so-called smart concrete that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":73915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,5],"tags":[9636],"class_list":["post-73913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-technology","tag-cp","mauthors-dirk-meissner","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285142,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73913\/revisions\/285142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}