Multifunctional Carbon Black Engineered Cementitious Composites for the Protection of Critical Infrastructure

A new generation of self-sensing structural materials that can provide spatially distributed sensing of material damage is being developed in the context of structural health monitoring and protection of deteriorating concrete infrastructure. Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) doped with carbon black (CB) nano-particles are proposed as highly damage-tolerant materials whose electrical properties can be correlated to strain and cracking. Specifically, this study investigated the effect of CB dosage on the CB-ECC rheological, mechanical and electrical properties. The results show the promise of CB-ECC as a new multifunctional material that combines damage tolerance with damage self-sensing capabilities; both contribute to infrastructure safety and serviceability.