Smart Approaches for Enhancing, Renewing and Recycling Concrete Structures

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During the next several decades, radical transformations will disrupt and improve the way we design, maintain and interact with our built environment. However, our future infrastructure will also need to contend with the ever-increasing effects of extreme natural events, population growth, resource scarcity and global climate change. To counter these effects, resiliency and sustainability must be intrinsic design features of this future built environment. Concrete is the most widely used building material in the world and it is likely that this demand will continue well into the coming decades. Therefore, any opportunities for increasing resiliency and improving long-term sustainability of new and aging concrete structures will have a significant impact on our infrastructure as a whole. Several strategic opportunities include: enhancing new concrete structures to improve their resilience and sustainability, renewing and extending the life span of aging concrete structures and recycling decommissioned concrete structures. Specifically, this proposal has four primary objectives including: 1.Developing novel concrete materials with intrinsic self-sensing abilities; 2.Developing and improving the performance of structural concrete incorporating recycled and other waste materials; 3.Evaluating methods of combined strengthening and sensing of deteriorating concrete structures; and 4.Investigating the data-driven assessment of concrete structures using advanced fibre-optic sensing systems. Given its extreme climate and both geographically dispersed and growing population, Canada has a vested interest in developing smarter infrastructure which is capable of operating at its highest levels of efficiency at all times. This research is focused on developing solutions to maximize these levels of operational efficiency for our concrete infrastructure. However, to fully capitalize on these opportunities requires a smarter and 21st century approach. Therefore, underpinning this research will be the application of new smart technologies involving fibre optic sensing and a new class of data-driven analytical techniques. Research which can inform the widespread implementation of such technologies and techniques has the potential to disrupt the way in which concrete and other types of infrastructure are currently designed, built and maintained in Canada. The proposed research program will provide highly qualified personnel (HQP) with the modern skill set required for tackling 21st century civil engineering challenges. HQP will become involved in the development and application of next-generation concrete material systems and will develop expertise in the emerging areas of infrastructure sensing and data-centric engineering.