Design and performance of bacteria-based self-healing concrete

The research is attempting to develop concrete that can self-heal cracks, potentially reducing costs of repair and maintenance work on infrastructure projects dramatically. The research described in this paper was carried out to demonstrate the use of microbiologically-induced calcite-precipitation as a means of autonomic self-healing of concrete in a full-scale site trial. The paper describes microbiology and concrete technology investigations carried out to select an appropriate combination of spores and nutrients, and to devise a method for encapsulating these safely within the concrete. It is demonstrated that for the encapsulation method used and the agents chosen it is possible to produce self-healing concrete with similar ealy-age and mechanical properties to that of normal concrete.

Author: K.A. Paine, M. Alazhari, T. Sharma, R. Cooper, A. Heath

Section: Concrete

Keywords: self-healing, bacteria, lightweight aggregates, encapsulation