Multi-scale Study of Ecological, Self-healing, and Nano-engineered Self-centering Cementitious Composites for Modular Construction

加拿大面临着严峻的民用基础设施困境。建筑活动消耗了50%的从地壳中提取的材料，产生了近一半的固体废物，而建筑环境约占温室气体排放的40%。与此同时，民用基础设施继续过早地恶化。延期维修造成了大量老化建筑的积压，造成了国家财富的真正流失，基础设施赤字估计达到1250亿美元。这种情况会扼杀经济繁荣；我们民用基础设施的危险状况（例如蒙特利尔协和高架桥的倒塌）的鲜明提醒不断出现。这项研究希望能成为解决这一难题的可行方案。它将创造新的生态胶凝复合材料，可以忍受很长时间暴露在恶劣的环境中。这种粘合剂将主要使用工业副产品进行设计，从而减少温室气体排放和垃圾填埋处理。使用纳米种子可以增强这种粘合剂的性能，从而产生极低的孔隙率和优异的耐久性。它们将进一步被赋予自愈能力，以减轻使用寿命的损害。此外，新型复合材料将使用抗腐蚀形状记忆合金进行增强，这种合金提供强度和延展性，但在过度加载后可以自我修复并恢复其原始形状。这个新系统将配备射频识别和压阻传感器，以便为结构健康监测提供信息。建筑信息模型（BIM）将利用生态、自修复和智能复合材料打造模块化的建筑理念。这种新结构范式的性能将通过广泛的多尺度测试来证明。由于模块化结构的特殊耐用性和节省，它将具有具有竞争力的生命周期成本，同时生产有弹性和可持续的民用基础设施。申请人在该领域取得了重大进展，并准备通过NSERC发现基金提供持续支持，进一步推进这一倡议。这项研究的意义可能是至关重要的；它提供了一种同时解决基础设施耐久性和可持续性问题的整体方法。这项研究的影响可能是普遍的，其学术意义应该推动可持续和智能建筑领域的知识，使加拿大在这个日益增长的利润和竞争市场中处于领先地位。参与的六名研究生和五名本科生将获得必要的技能和知识，以在工业界和学术界引领这一领域的变革进步。

Canada faces an acute civil infrastructure dilemma. Construction activities consume 50% of materials extracted from the earth's crust and generate nearly half of the total solid waste, while the built environment accounts for about 40% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In chorus, civil infrastructure continues to deteriorate prematurely. Deferred maintenance has created a colossal backlog of aging structures, inflicting a veritable drain of national wealth and an infrastructure deficit evaluated at $125 Billion. Such a situation looms to stifle economic prosperity; stark reminders of the perilous condition of our civil infrastructure (e.g. collapse of Montreal's Concorde Viaduct) continue to emerge. This research aspires to be a viable initiative for unraveling this dilemma. It will coin novel ecological cementitious composites that can endure very long exposure in aggressive environments. Such binders will be engineered primarily using industrial by-products, thus reducing both GHG emissions and landfill disposal. The performance of such binders will be enhanced using nano-seeding to produce extremely low porosity and superior durability. They will further be endowed with self-healing ability to mitigate service life damage. Moreover, the new composite will be reinforced with corrosion-resistant shape memory alloys that provide strength and ductility, yet can self-repair and regain their original shape subsequent to excessive loading. This new system will be instrumented with Radio-Frequency Identification and piezo-resistive sensors in order to provide information for structural health monitoring. Building Information Modeling (BIM) will be used to forge a modular construction concept using the ecological, self-healing and smart composite. The performance of this new construction paradigm will be demonstrated through extensive multi-scale testing. It will have a competitive life cycle cost owing to exceptional durability and savings of modular construction, while producing resilient and sustainable civil infrastructure.  The Applicant has made significant progress in this area and is poised to further advancing this initiative provided a sustained support via an NSERC Discovery Grant. The significance of the research could be paramount; it offers a holistic approach to solving infrastructure durability and sustainability problems simultaneously. The impact of the research could be pervasive and its scholarly significance should advance knowledge in the area of sustainable and smart construction, putting Canada at the far front of this growing lucrative and competitive market. The participating six graduate and five undergraduate students will gain essential skills and knowledge to lead transformative advances in this field both in industry and academia.