Life cycle assessment of self-healing engineered cementitious composite (SH-ECC) used for the rehabilitation of bridges

In Europe, more than 167 million tons of concrete were produced in 2015, of which roughly 30% was used in the infrastructure sector. A huge amount of concrete is expected to be used in the next decades for the rehabilitation of bridges. Typically, the major damages in concrete bridge structures are related to freezethaw and exposure to chlorides, which may cause cracks and rebars corrosion. In this paper the potential of using self-healing engineered cementitious composite (SH-ECC) for rehabilitation of bridges is analyzed with incorporation of 1 m% of two in-house developed (semi-)synthetic superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) and 2 v% of oil-coated synthetic PVA microfibre. A life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was adopted to compare the global warming potential (GWP) of this novel material and technique with other repair solutions, such as rehabilitation involving traditional ordinary Portland cement (OPC) concrete and repair with Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete (UHPFRC)