Autores UPV
Ferrara Liberato,
Gonzalez Marin Jesus Maria,
Gettu Ravindra,
Krelani V,
Moscato Simone,
Pirritano Francesco,
Roig Flores Marta,
Serna Ros Pedro,
Theeda Swathy M
Abstract
Self-healing cementitious composites are a broad category of smart construction materials to which strong and highly qualified research efforts are currently being devoted worldwide, with the aim of providing a sound scientific background to their consistent, and - design-wise - "consciously safe", use in the engineering practice. Tailored additions can be employed to enhance the self-healing capacity, among which the so-called crystalline admixtures, play a prominent role. Crystalline admixtures consist of proprietary active chemicals, which, because of their hydrophilic nature, react with water and cement particles in the concrete to form calcium silicate hydrates, increasing the density of the CSH phase, and/or pore-blocking precipitates in the existing micro-cracks. The mechanism is analogous to the formation of CSH and the resulting crystalline deposits become integrally bound with the hydrated cement paste, thus contributing not only to a significantly increased resistance to water penetration but also to the healing of the existing damages and cracks.
This paper summarizes the results of a wide experimental investigation jointly performed by Politecnico di Milano (Italy), Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai (India) and Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain) to assess the effectiveness of different commercially available crystalline admixtures on the self-healing capacity of cement based materials.
