Goal: To Develop Advanced Materials for Building 21st Century American Infrastructure

MotivationNeed to develop advanced construction materials as

Concrete Infrastructure: Lacks Durability & Sustainability

- 7% of the global GHG emissions (2009)- 10 times more energy intensive than average GDP in the US

Cement Plant

Lacks Resilience

ASCE’s Assessment of US Infrastructure

I-90 Truck Crash (2003) Japan Tsunami (2011)

Research Approach

Integrated Structures-Materials Design Framework (ISMD) – Li (2007)

Integrated Materials Design Framework for Sustainable Infrastructure (IMD-SI) – Keoleian et al (2006)

Multi‐scale Theoretical and Empirical Analysis

Experiments/Observations

Scal

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odel

-1

Scal

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odel

-2

Fini

teEl

emen

t Mod

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Life

Cyc

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ing

Length Scale10-9 – 10-6 mnano-micro

Microstructure

10-6 – 10-3 mmicro-mesoSingle Crack

10-3 – 100 mmeso-macro

Composite Material

100 – 103 m

Infrastructure

103 – 106 m

Environment

Modeled Behavior

To understand and design a resilient and sustainable infrastructure, the material behavior down to nano-micro length scales is investigated using carefully designed experiments.

Based on the micromechanical tailoring of GHSHDC, the performance of infrastructure in terms of its resilience and sustainability is predicted using a series of analytical and numerical models.

Ductility CriteriaSingle Fiber Pullout

0

15

0% 4%

Stre

ss (M

Pa)

Tensile Strain Source: Chin (2006)

Fiber

Matrix Multiple Cracking in HSHDC

σ

δ

σLargest Concrete Arch

Bridge in North America

Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge

18% 17%

70% 80%

0%

50%

100%

GlobalWarmingPotential

Total PrimaryEnergy

End of life TrafficDistribution ConstructionMaterials

6.2 mil kg CO2

82 Tera-Joules

Bridge Deck LCAImpact AnalysisUniaxial Tension Modeling

Results so far …Invention of High Strength High Ductility Concrete

(HSHDC) [US Patent Pending]

Flexing of an HSHDC beam with NO steel reinforcement [short (1/2 inch) Polyethylene (PE) fibers (30 μm dia) used Vf = 2%]

Property HSHDC Concrete

Compressive Strength (MPa) 166 40Ultimate Tensile Strength (MPa) 14 3

Tensile Strain Capacity 3.50% 0.01%Modulus of Rupture (MPa) 30 4Average Crack Width (μm) 110 Indefinite

CO2 Footprint (kg CO2 eq/L) 0.88 0.30Primary Energy Intensity (MJ/L) 7 1.2

Composite Properties of HSHDC

Conclusions and Future Work• HSHDC shows excellent composite ductility in

spite of a very brittle high strength matrix. Such performance is enabled by the micromechanics based synergistic design of fiber, matrix, and interface of HSHDC.

• Future work involves high rate (up to 10s-1

strain rate) investigation of HSHDC and retailoring of the material to maintain the mechanical performance under extreme loading conditions such as earthquakes, hurricanes, impacts, and blasts.

• Identification and testing of viable green material alternatives to replace mainly fibers and cement in HSHDC for developing Green High Strength High Ductility Concrete.

• The end result of this research will be the development of Green High Strength High Ductility Concrete with extreme strength, ductility, durability, and environmental greenness required for a resilient and sustainable 21st Century Infrastructure.

Environmental Greenness & Durability

< 0.45 kg CO2 eq/Liter< 100 μm crack width

Tensile Ductility

> 3% (100 times that of concrete)

Compressive Strength

> 200 MPa (5 times that of concrete)

Proposed Material SolutionGreen High Strength High Ductility Concrete

Integrating strength, ductility, durability, and greenness in one concrete material

Green High Strength High Ductility Concrete

(GHSHDC)

Design Challenges:• Synergize material design philosophies• Trade-offs between mechanical and environmental performance• Reliable material performance under most extreme loading

conditions

Advanced Cementitious Composite Development for Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure 

Ravi Ranade & Victor C. LiDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan Ann Arbor

Northridge EQ (1994)