MAT-712: MICROSTRUCTURAL INVESTIGATIONS ON THE SELF-HEALING ABILITY OF ENGINEERED CEMENTITIOUS COMPOSITES INCORPORATING DIFFERENT MINERAL ADMIXTURES

The present study investigates the impacts that self-healing has on the microstructure characteristics of microcracked Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC). These have two contrasting maturity levels and, furthermore, they involve three varying mineral admixtures that have very different chemical constituents. The impact of self-healing on the transport characteristics was examined by employing rapid chloride permeability tests (RCPT). The findings indicated that, if the appropriate mineral admixture type and conditioning were chosen, it would be possible to enhance the majority of the chloride ion penetrability levels following a 30-day period of water curing. As a result, the majority of the findings were in range of the low penetrability level over the 30 days, as set by ASTM C1202. The microstructural indications corroborated the findings from the experiments and provided weight to the notion that the causal factor of the healing was the appearance of calcium carbonate and C-S-H. These served to fill the crack owing to the hydration of the cementitious particles. In summary, the results indicate that the degree of self-healing is subject to variance in accordance with the contrasting chemical compositions that dominate within a certain infrastructure type over the course of its service life