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

加拿大面临着严重的民用基础设施困境。建筑活动消耗了从地壳中提取的50%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（GHG）排放量的40%。与此同时，民用基础设施继续过早恶化。延期维修造成了大量积压的老化结构，造成了名副其实的国家财富流失和基础设施赤字估计为1250亿美元。这种情况隐约可见，扼杀了经济繁荣;我们的民用基础设施的危险状况（例如蒙特利尔的协和高架桥倒塌）的鲜明提醒继续出现。这项研究渴望成为一个可行的倡议，解开这一困境。它将铸造新型生态水泥基复合材料，可以在侵蚀性环境中长期暴露。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。使用纳米晶种以产生极低的孔隙率和上级耐久性，将增强这种粘合剂的性能。它们将进一步被赋予自我修复能力，以减轻使用寿命损害。此外，新的复合材料将用耐腐蚀的形状记忆合金增强，这种合金提供强度和延展性，但可以在过度加载后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）将用于使用生态，自我修复和智能复合材料打造模块化建筑概念。这种新的建筑模式的性能将通过广泛的多尺度测试来证明。由于模块化建筑的卓越耐用性和节约，它将具有具有竞争力的生命周期成本，同时产生弹性和可持续的民用基础设施。 申请人在这一领域取得了重大进展，并准备通过NSERC发现赠款提供持续支持，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，其学术意义应该促进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丰厚和竞争激烈的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，以引领行业和学术界在这一领域的变革性进展。

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.**