Designing a self-healing concrete and obtain from the concrete in the cracked stage a durability that is at least 30% longer
compared to conventional high performance concretes. This is one of the objectives of the Horizon2020 ReSHEALience project, funded by the European Commission, coordinated by Professor Liberato Ferrara of the Milan Polytechnic, and which sees, among others, a strong synergy with the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia. Politecnico di Milano explains that “improving the performance of cementitious materials with the ability to extend the functionality of the material and structures in extremely aggressive scenarios and reduce ordinary and extraordinary maintenance operations, can also make it possible to overcome the usual limits – 50 years – the current design codes “.
The durability of cementitious materials thus becomes a “performance” to be designed through the synergy of the composition of the material and the structural concept. ReSHEALience is validating new cementitious composites with self-healing capabilities structural with reference to the cracked stage, which is the normal state of service of a reinforced concrete structure. To do this, the researchers “engineered” the durability of concrete through micro- and nano-scale components such as crystalline additives, alumina nanofibers, cellulose nanofibers and nanocrystals, capable of enhancing the material’s ability to repair itself.
With these studies we therefore moved from a concept of durability of the material intended as passive protection from external aggressive agents towards an “active” vision of this performance. Finally, PoliMi underlines that “in the validation phase, six full-scale pilot structures were built with the high-durability cementitious materials developed in the project, 2 of which in Italy, 2 in Spain, 1 in Ireland. and 1 in Malta and, in real structural operating conditions, they are constantly monitored through an extensive network to verify their performance over time. “