Development of an improved cracking method to reduce the variability in testing the healing efficiency of self-healing mortar containing encapsulated polymers

Abstract

Concrete cracking can result in a significant reduction of the durability and the service life due to the ingress of aggressive agents Self-healing concrete is able to heal cracks without external intervention, thereby mitigating the need for manual repair. In the assessment of the healing efficiency of self-healing concrete the to-be-healed crack width is an important parameter and different researchers have emphasised that the variability of the crack width significantly hampers an accurate assessment of the healing efficiency. With two new crack control techniques the variability of the crack width was reduced in order to decrease the variability on the calculated healing efficiency. This paper reports on the application of these techniques for the assessment of self-healing mortar containing encapsulated polyurethane. The healing potential was investigated by looking at the degree of sealing using a water flow test setup. It was observed that by using a crack control technique the variability on the crack width can indeed be reduced. Nonetheless, this does not translate in an equivalent reduction on the variability of the healing efficiency. This indicates that other factors contribute to the variability of the healing efficiency.