Collaborative Research: Nanoengineering of Resilient Lightweight Concrete Mesostructures for Thermally Efficient Building Envelopes

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Cement-based materials are known for their load-bearing capacity and ability to be shaped into large complex forms, while ensuring cost-effectiveness. However, concrete is a poor thermal insulator. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, energy loss through inefficient building envelopes inflicts excessive financial burden on homeowners. In this research, heat transport will be studied in a novel lightweight concrete that possesses superior intrinsic thermal resistance. If successful, the results will benefit our society with a new multifunctional building material that can lower heating and cooling energy consumption, while maintaining structural performance, with a collateral benefit that it is lightweight. The acquired knowledge can be utilized by industry and academia in development of highly needed energy efficient and resilient building envelopes. Furthermore, this new material can bolster our national energy security, as well as offering positive socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Graduate and undergraduate students will be offered unique multidisciplinary learning experiences across fields of heat transport, atomistic simulation, materials synthesis and characterization. The objective of this research is to nanoengineer high efficiency scattering mechanisms into the molecular structure of calcium-silicate-hydrate (C-S-H) using short-chain organosilanes molecules to achieve a novel lightweight concrete with high thermal resistance and load bearing capacity. This research combines materials synthesis and characterization methods with atomistic simulations to study fundamentals of heat transport and cohesion in C-S-H crosslinked with size-specific organometallic molecules. Molecular simulations will be performed at University of California, Irvine, to scientifically-inform the experimental synthesis efforts carried out by researchers at the University of Houston. Multi-scale methods of materials characterization will be applied to assess thermo-mechanical properties of novel lightweight cement composites incorporating C-S-H organo nano-laminates and micro-cenospheres.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.