Under service conditions and because of environmental and climate changes, the concrete is at risk due to crack-induced durability problems. The consequences can be even more pronounced when concrete is exposed to specifically aggressive environmental conditions. This has been portrayed by rapid deterioration of relatively young concrete structures such as the ones no older than fifteen years, which obviously are much shorter than their estimated service life. As such, crack-closing ability is needed in these concrete constructions to prolong their service life.
Numerous studies have been reporting on the autogenous healing of cracks in cement-based materials. However, an active or rapid micro-crack healing is not always the case in the most critical parts of exposed structures. In this thesis, a new formulation of cement-based materials, by integrating selected bacteria and suitable organic mineral precursor compounds, was used to investigate its potential for enabling multiple crack healing events on load-induced cracked and pre-cracked concrete samples. For this purpose, chloride ingress in concrete subjected to compressive loading was investigated through laboratory experiments. Furthermore, investigation was also carried out on cracked mortar under chloride and carbon dioxide environments for healing-potential evaluation.... ... Read more

At present several methods are available to predict the durability of reinforced concrete structures. In most cases, one dominant deterioration process such as carbonation or chloride penetration is taken into consideration. Experimental results as well as observations in practice show that this is not a realistic and certainly not a conservative approach. In order to test more realistically, RILEM TC 246-TDC, founded in 2011, has developed a method to determine the durability of concrete exposed to the combined action of chloride penetration and mechanical load. In this report, a test method is presented which allows determination of realistic diffusion coefficients for chloride ions in concrete under compressive or tensile stress. Comparative test results from five different laboratories showed that the combination of mechanical and environmental loads may be much more severe than a single environmental load without mechanical loading. Modelling and probabilistic analysis also showed that the obvious synergetic effects cannot be neglected in realistic service life prediction. ... Read more