Self-healing performance of aged cementitious composites

This study investigates the autogenous self-healing capability of one-year-old engineered cementitious composites (ECC) with different mineral admixtures to understand whether self-healing performance in late ages is similar to that of early ages. Sound and severely pre-cracked specimens were subjected to different environmental conditions including water, air, “CO2-water,” and “CO2-air” for one year plus 90 days of initial curing. Self-healing performance of ECC mixtures was assessed in terms of crack characteristics, electrical impedance testing, rapid chloride permeability testing and microstructural analysis. Laboratory findings showed that the presence of water is crucial for enhanced autogenous self-healing effectiveness, regardless of mixture composition. “CO2-water” curing resulted in the best self-healing performance of all curing conditions, which was confirmed with results from different performance tests throughout the experimental study. By further curing specimens under “CO2-water” (depending on the ECC mixture composition), cracks as wide as half a millimeter (458 μm) were easily closed by autogenous self-healing within only 30 days of further curing, and all cracks closed completely after 90 days. Because high levels of CO2 emission are a global problem, the effectiveness of “CO2-water” curing in closing microcracks of aged cementitious composites specimens through autogenous self-healing can help reduce the increasing pace of CO2 release. The results of this study clearly suggest that late-age autogenous self-healing rates of ECC specimens can be significantly enhanced with proper further environmental conditioning and mixture design.