The impact of using self-healing concrete in crack development of gravity dams

Self-healing concrete is a type of concrete that, in case of cracks, repairs the cracks automatically without the need for an external agent.Concrete containing Microorganism has self-healing properties. The self-healing agent includes one of the bacteria along with a nutrient in the concrete which, if water and environment reach the concrete, it causes the production of calcium carbonate. On the other hand, dams are often subjected to earthquakes due to their localization in seismic zones. Thus, their behavior must be studied carefully. The earthquake response of concrete gravity dam-reservoir-foundation system has been investigated with emphasis on the nonlinear behavior associated with concrete tensile damage. The tensile damage patterns of the systems considering the dam structure, and the dam with the foundation, are almost the same. But when the reservoir is considered along with the dam and the foundation, the damage pattern obtained is somewhat different. The profile of the Koyna dam has been adopted for the study of this investigation. Nonlinear self-healing concrete properties have been taken into account through concrete damaged plasticity model to simulate the damage induced in the dam body under a real-time earthquake motion and we expected to monitor its cureness. Thus, what is the effect of bacteria on the mechanical properties of concrete. It is crystallizing performance[۱]. Concrete containing crystallizing additives in the environment immersed in water, perform the highest rate of recovery in comparison with dry environment and in this occasion using such additive materials to concrete mixture can reduce the crack’s width and also cure them totally.

Keywords:

Crack , Gravity dam , Additive materials , Crystallizing , tensile damage.