IoT-Based Self-Healing Concrete (SHC) : Using Bacteria and Environmental Waste

Abstract

Concrete is a vital material for resisting applied load on it, but if the applied load on concrete is higher than the resisting load, a serious problem occurs that damages the life of buildings by producing crack in concrete. Concrete is the mostly used material in construction. However, it has some disadvantages like carbon dioxide gas produced from cracks developed in concrete, which directly gives bad impact on our environment. Cracks in concrete are one of the implicit weaknesses through which water and other substances percolate, introducing corrosion, and thus slowly retards the life of concrete. Not to mention that large sums of fortune are being spent to maintain the concrete work. If crack formation in concrete is not taken care of, then life of buildings would be reduced, which may cause lots of problem in the future. Different sizes of crack develop in concrete that need to be repair manually; it will help in preventing shortening of the life of concrete. It is said that concrete is like the backbone of a building. Crack formation is very common in concrete, which decreases strength, durability, and workability. Here, durability term is directly related to strength of concrete, and it is defined as to maintaining its engineering properties in weathering conditions, chemical attacks, etc. It specifies the 132length of the life of concrete. Degree of durability depends upon different types of concrete depending on environment. For example, in coastal areas, the need of concrete will be subjected to distinct demands in comparison of concrete used in other areas. Not only it affects the concrete, but also it affects reinforcement also when it comes in contact with substances like hydrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide, and other reacting agents. Repair of crack developed in concrete demands maintenance and various types of treatment that is very expensive. Therefore, to avoid all these problems, self-healing approaches are introduced into the concrete work, which will be helpful for repairing of concrete biologically (using microorganisms and environment waste) and by chemically (using reacting agents). Self-healing techniques in cementitious materials will help to enhance the life of concrete. One of them is “microencapsulation” (it is the process in which tiny particles are merged with glue and are surrounded by the coating of small capsule containing many useful properties. Capsules can also be used to fit in solids, liquids, and gases. Coated material of capsule is made up of ethyl cellulose, polyvinyl alcohol, etc.), which is the best self-healing method, where these microcapsules break and release healing agent in cracks. Here, one thing should also notice that sodium silicate plays a great role as self-healing agent in cementitious material. Also, for enhancing the engineering cement structure, characteristics are substituted by concrete constructions bacteria like Bacillus pseudofirmus. Huge variety of bacteria are present in the nature, and according to their living conditions, some of bacteria can survive in alkaline environment such as Bacillus sphaericus and Bacillus subtilis. Different bacterial types have different condition of growth. Bacteria help to improve structural properties like strength, permeability, and durability of concrete. According to research, it was found that the aggregate of light weight together with bacteria enables to self-healing concrete properties. The work is all about healing process of concrete. Since it is a matter of research and analytics, we found that the types of concrete are different; thus, the healing processes are also different. We had used quality analysis and reporting for the materials where quality analysis is done by a tool, and depending on that, we can decide what kind of healing techniques should be used to overcome the problem. The following generated data will ultimately get accumulated to form a database that suggests a type of cement available in the market and the types of fault that can be dealt with. The work is meant for detection of cracks by crack detection sensor or fiber-optic sensing system. The information is conveyed with a 133location-based message to the municipality authorities. The sensor together with Internet of things forms a system that enables quick repair of roads with the application of self-healing cement.