CRACK-FREE ENGINEERED CEMENTITIOUS COMPOSITES TO OVERCOME DURABILITY CHALLENGES IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Almost all major infrastructures utilize concrete as construction material. Being brittle in nature, Conventional Concrete cracks easily under mechanical and environmental loads. The concrete materials used for next generation should be lighter than the Traditional Concrete, should be high ductile and possess good transport properties with self-healing properties. Additionally, it should be environmental friendly and energy saving one. This paper focuses on development of high ductile and self-healing Engineered Cementitious Composites by using Polyvinyl Alcohol fiber of 2% by volume of concrete. Research results indicate that durability challenges can be overcome by using Engineered Cementitious Composites which have a strain capacity of nearly 1.675% times than the Ordinary Concrete. Various transport properties such as Rapid Chloride Penetration, Sorptivity and Permeability are studied in this paper. Because of intrinsic self-control tight crack widths and robust self-healing performance, Engineered Cementitious Composites can be accepted as crack-free concrete towards sustainable development.