Potential of soil bacteria from the comarca lagunera, north-east Mexico for bioconcrete development

Sustainability or environment friendly green technology is based on the use of agents of biological origin that can mimic nature in their process applications. The production and use of conventional Portland cement is significant contributor to emission of greenhouse gases and the resultant global warming. Microbial induced carbonate...

The Influence of Ageing on the Fatigue and Healing Properties of Bituminous Mortars

For asphalt pavement design in Belgium, healing is taken into account as a standard shift factor, representing the effect of rest periods between loadings of traffic. Because nowadays Reclaimed Asphalt Aggregate (RA) is widely used in hot mixtures, a new validation of the healing factor is needed. Given the lack of test results and a standard...

Multiscale Modeling of Fracture Processes in Cementitious Materials

Concrete is a composite construction material, which is composed primarily of coarse aggregates, sands and cement paste. The fracture processes in concrete are complicated, because of the multiscale and multiphase nature of the material. In the past decades, comprehensive effort has been put to study the cracks evolution in concrete, both...

Bio-based mortar for concrete repair

Meso Mechanical Analysis of AC Mixture Response

Ongoing research into performance modeling of Asphalt Concrete (AC) mixtures using meso mechanics approaches is being undertaken at Delft University of Technology (TUD). The approach has already been successfully employed for evaluating the long term performance of porous asphalt concrete. The work presented in this paper extends the use for...

Simulation of self-healing of dolomitic lime mortar

In the present research a test procedure was set up to reproduce self-healing on lime-based (both pure calcium and magnesium-calcium) mortar specimens in laboratory. After few months testing, during which the specimens were subjected to wet-dry cycles, thin sections of the specimens were prepared and observed by Polarization and Fluorescence...

The Effect of Ageing on the Fatigue and Healing Properties of Bituminous Mortars

Nowadays, reclaimed asphalt aggregate is often used in new asphalt mixtures. In Flanders, up to 50 % of the binder content is allowed to be originating from reclaimed asphalt. However, the effect of this aged binder on the fatigue and healing properties of the asphalt mixture is questioned. A procedure for the ageing of asphalt mixtures, mortars...

Response Modelling of Bitumen, Bituminous Mastic and Mortar

This research focuses on testing and modelling the viscoelastic response of bituminous binders. The main goal is to find an appropriate response model for bituminous binders. The desired model should allow implementation into numerical environments such as ABAQUS. On the basis of such numerical environment, Delft University of Technology (TU) is...

Self-healing of lime based mortars: Microscopy observations on case studies

Lime mortars have, up to a certain extent, a self-healing capacity which may contribute to their durability. Self-healing in lime mortars consists of a process of dissolution, transport and re-precipitation of calcium compounds to heal cracks and fissures. The spontaneous occurrence of self-healing in lime-based mortars is a well known...

The influence of materials characteristics and workmanship on rain penetration in historic fired clay brick masonry

Moisture is a major source of damage in historic solid masonry. Therefore, control of moisture movement in masonry is instrumental to the durability of masonry buildings. From research and practical experience it is known that many factors may play a role regarding permeability problems in masonry. This paper is focused on materials aspects...

Damage development in the adhesive zone and mortar of porous asphalt concrete

This research is focused on damage development in the adhesive zone and the mortar of porous asphalt concrete. The motive of this research is the loss of stone from the pavement surface, the so-called ravelling of noise reducing surface wearing courses. Ravelling is the dominant defect of porous asphalt resulting in huge costs of maintenance and...

Quantification of shrinkage microcracking in young mortar with fluorescence light microscopy and ESEM

In this paper a method is described to quantify shrinkage microcracking in young mortar by means of crack mapping. Visualisation of the microcracks is realised with two techniques: Fluorescence Light Microscopy (FLM) and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM). The preliminary results obtained with the microcrack mapping method showed...

Composition of mortar as a function of distance to the brick-mortar interface: A study on the formation of cured mortar structure in masonry using NMR, PFM and XRD

The formation of cured mortar structure in masonry was studied using multiple experimental techniques. Starting with fresh mortar, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was used to measure the water extraction during brick laying. After curing, the composition of cured mortar was investigated with polarizing and fluorescent microscopy (PFM) and X-Ray...

Dry and hydraulic extensile fracturing of porous impermeable materials

Extensile hydraulic fracturing of mortar is investigated and compared to extensile dry fracturing of sandstone. The extensile fracture experiments have been performed in a Hookean cell in deformation control. The cell allows for axial loading and radial fluid pressure loading of cylindrical specimens. Variables in the experiments are the load...

Effects of water on mortar-brick bond

The quality of bond in masonry is, to a large extent, a function of the (i) the hydration conditions and (ii) the mortar composition of the mortar-brick interface. For insight into the effects of these parameters on bond performance it is essential to dispose of quantitative information about water content changes and flow rates, occurring...

Effects of Water on Mortar-Brick Bond