Authors:
Ramamohanrao Pannem; Karthik Chintalapudi;
Abstract:
Self-healing concepts are being adopted for the enhancement of durability of concrete and the extension of service life of concrete structures. Bio-mineralization is an eco-friendly bio-process, which shows promising results in sealing micro-cracks by Microbially-Induced CaCO3 Precipitation (MICP). Introduction of specific bacteria into concrete with self-healing agent helps mediate MICP. Adopting greener alternatives and utilization of bi-products, such as fly ash which is used to prepare light-weight aggregates, reduces the demand for raw
materials. A comparison between normal concrete and light-weight concrete is carried out to assess the ability of sealing cracks in concrete. Compressive strength, split tensile strength and crack width analysis were done for bacteria-based specimens. SEM and EDS analyses were also performed to investigate the calcite precipitation in concrete specimens and chemical deposition of bacterial concrete.
Keywords:
Light-weight concrete, Bacteria, SEM, Self-healing