Autogenous healing of engineered cementitious composites under wet–dry cycles

Abstract

Self-healing of Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) subjected to two different cyclic wetting and drying regimes was investigated in this paper. To quantify self-healing, resonant frequency measurements were conducted throughout wetting–drying cycles followed by uniaxial tensile testing of self-healing ECC specimens. Through self-healing, crack-damaged ECC recovered 76% to 100% of its initial resonant frequency value and attained a distinct rebound in stiffness. Even for specimens deliberately pre-damaged with microcracks by loading up to 3% tensile strain, the tensile strain capacity after self-healing recovered close to 100% that of virgin specimens without any preloading. Also, the effects of temperature during wetting–drying cycles led to an increase in the ultimate strength but a slight decrease in the tensile strain capacity of rehealed pre-damaged specimens. This paper describes the experimental investigations and presents the data that confirm reasonably robust autogenous healing of ECC in commonly encountered environments for many types of infrastructure.