i Nonconventional Concrete Technologies Renewal of the Highway Infrastructure Committee on Nonconventional Concrete Technologies for Renewal of the Highway Infrastructure National Materials Advisory Board Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems National Research Council NMAB-484 National Academy Press Washington, D.C. 1997 About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. ii NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance. This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sci- ences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distin- guished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the fed- eral government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sci- ences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is interim president of the National Academy of Engineering. The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy mat- ters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an advisor to the federal govern- ment and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of further- ing knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general poli- cies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is adminis- tered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and acting vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council. This study by the National Materials Advisory Board was conducted under a contract with the Federal Highway Administration. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project. Available in limited supply from: National Materials Advisory Board 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20418 202-334-3505 iii Committee on Nonconventional Concrete Technologies for Renewal of the Highway Infrastructure CAROLYN HANSSON (chair), University of Waterloo, Ontario NORBERT S. BAER, New York University, New York EZRA D. EHRENKRANTZ, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark KEITH KEEFER, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington KATHRYN V. LOGAN, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta JOHN NEERHOUT, JR., Bechtel Group, Inc., San Francisco, California ALTON D. ROMIG, JR., Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico DELLA M. ROY, Pennsylvania State University, University Park MEHMET SARIKAYA, University of Washington, Seattle TECHNICAL CONSULTANT HERBERT A. FRANKLIN, Bechtel Group, Inc., San Francisco, California NATIONAL MATERIALS ADVISORY BOARD LIAISON I. MELVIN BERNSTEIN, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts NATIONAL MATERIALS ADVISORY BOARD STAFF ROBERT M. EHRENREICH, Senior Program Manager CHARLES T. HACH, Research Associate JOHN A. HUGHES, Research Associate BONNIE A. SCARBOROUGH, Research Associate PAT WILLIAMS, Senior Project Assistant LIAISON REPRESENTATIVES RICHARD A. LIVINGSTON, Federal Highway Administration, McLean, Virginia JEFF W. RISH, III, Wright Laboratory, Tyndal Air Force Base, Florida About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. iv National Materials Advisory Board ROBERT A. LAUDISE (chair), Lucent Technologies, Inc., Murray Hill, New Jersey G.J. (Reza) ABBASCHIAN, University of Florida, Gainesville JAN D. ACHENBACH, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois MICHAEL I. BASKES, Sandia-Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California I. MELVIN BERNSTEIN, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts JOHN V. BUSCH, IBIS Associates, Inc., Wellesley, Massachusetts HARRY E. COOK, University of Illinois, Urbana EDWARD C. DOWLING, Cyprus AMAX Minerals Company, Englewood, Colorado ROBERT EAGAN, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico ANTHONY G. EVANS, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts CAROLYN HANSSON, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada LIONEL C. KIMERLING, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge RICHARD S. MULLER, University of California, Berkeley ELSA REICHMANIS, Lucent Technologies, Inc., Murray Hill, New Jersey EDGAR A. STARKE, University of Virginia, Charlottesville KATHLEEN C. TAYLOR, General Motors Corporation, Warren, Michigan JAMES WAGNER, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland JOSEPH WIRTH, Raychem Corporation, Menlo Park, California ROBERT E. SCHAFRIK, Director About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. PREFACE v Preface In response to the enactment by the U.S. Congress of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) requested that the National Research Council (NRC) conduct a study on nonconventional concrete technology for renewal of the highway infrastructure. ISTEA directed the FHWA to initiate a comprehensive, long-range infrastructure research and development (R&D) program. Since current research in the field has tended to concentrate on modifications or refinements of traditional concrete technologies, the Office of Advanced Research of the FHWA requested the NRC undertake this study in order to access the broad expertise in materials science of the National Materials Advisory Board (NMAB) to help identify truly innovative materials and procedures that may not have been previously considered. The NMAB convened the nine-member Committee on Nonconventional Concrete Technologies for Renewal of the Highway Infrastructure to conduct this study. The objectives of the study were to look beyond near-term developments in concrete technology to identify innovative materials and procedures that have the potential to accelerate the highway construction process, improve the durability of highway pavement and bridges, and enhance their serviceability and longevity under adverse conditions. To ensure that new perspectives on possible future R&D directions were included and that the widest spectrum of fields within materials science was accessed, five distinguished scientists with little previous experience in infrastructural materials R&D were named to the committee. Their expertise ranges from ceramics and biomimetics to metallurgy and geopolymer science. The other four committee members have extensive expertise in conventional concrete technology, structural engineering, or architectural design, and provided an informed perspective on the constraints, About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. PREFACE vi problems, and priorities of infrastructural materials R&D as well as background information on current R&D programs. The committee defined the idea of designing “nonconventional concrete” as taking current knowledge and experience about concrete technology—its service requirements and its limitations—and going “back to the drawing board.” The committee believed that by incorporating current ideas and understanding of both advanced structural and natural materials with possible materials-science systems approaches, it would be possible to identify nonconventional technologies with distinct advantages over conventional concrete. The committee did not consider possible nonconventional remediation or repair techniques, since this would have increased the scope of the study tremendously. The committee also did not consider the question of potential increases in initial cost for implementing nonconventional techniques. The committee believed that cost arguments would have detracted from the central objective of the report and would have been beyond the resources and expertise of the committee, since the cost of innovative materials and processes must be viewed within the construct of the total life-cycle of the structure and not simply from the perspective of the lowest cost for original construction. To access the many disciplines incorporated in materials science and engineering, and compile the ideas and data required for this study, the committee organized a two-day workshop. In addition to the committee, the workshop was attended by twenty individuals with expertise in solid state physics, electrochemistry, metallurgy, ceramics, biological systems, geological systems, microstructural modeling, microwave processing, polymer science, structural engineering, civil engineering, and concrete research and practice. The emphasis of the workshop was on postulating innovative areas of long-term research that have high-payoff potential. The attendance roster for the workshop is presented in Appendix A. The results of the workshop and the expertise of the committee were then used as the basis for the composition of this report. The report is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 provides a short tutorial on conventional concrete from both a materials-science perspective and a systems approach perspective. The chapter also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the current technology and presents the characteristics of an “ideal” concrete. Chapter 2 focuses on the potential methods for manipulating the microstructure and chemistry of the concrete system to improve the processing and properties of the material. Chapter 3 discusses potential nonconventional reinforcement About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. PREFACE vii systems for concrete. Chapter 4 examines concrete processing technologies. Chapter 5 integrates the information presented in the previous chapters to demonstrate the interrelationships among the different components of concrete technology and the importance of the materials-science systems approach to concrete research. Comments or suggestions that readers of this report wish to make can be sent via Internet electronic mail to n PREFACE viii About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix Acknowledgments This study was exciting because it challenged experts in a variety of fields to cross intellectual boundaries and think innovatively about concrete technology. The experts agreed to undertake this challenge for no reason other than their own intellectual curiosity and their desire to aid the development of new infrastructural materials and techniques. The committee is grateful for all the help it received and expresses its thanks to everyone who participated. Without the patience and support provided by many individuals and organizations, this report could never have been completed. In particular, the committee thanks Herbert A. Franklin of Bechtel Corporation. His support as technical advisor to the committee was invaluable. He provided great insight and made significant contributions to the report. Harold Jabloner of Hercules, Incorporated, and Youjiang Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology should also receive special thanks for their participation and insight while working with the committee. The committee is grateful for the dedication of Richard A. Livingston of the Federal Highway Administration for his vision and assistance to the committee. Jeff W. Rish of Wright Laboratories also provided valuable insight. This study relied heavily on the information collected from a range of materials-science experts at an international workshop that the committee organized. The committee is grateful to all of the participants, who provided the balance of expertise, insight, and originality needed to develop and scrutinize ideas about potentially new and innovative nonconventional concrete technologies. A complete list of workshop participants can be found in Appendix A. The committee also thanks the staff of the National Materials Advisory Board, particularly Robert M. Ehrenreich, senior program About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.