Revolutionizing Building Longevity: Exploring the Promise of Smart Concrete Technologies
All too often, smart building conversations revolve around the technology that can be installed within buildings to deliver management efficiencies, tenant experience improvements, and how these technologies create efficiencies that deliver building operations cost savings. However, we must not forget that technologies exist to help preserve and maintain the physical building itself. For example, smart concrete is an advanced concrete formulation that can self-sense and potentially even self-heal, reducing repair costs and extending the lifespan of a building.
While it may sound far-fetched, smart concrete is generating interest as sustainability, building longevity, and lowering overall repair costs remain top-of-mind for building owners and operators. Let’s look at some ways we can implement smart concrete technologies into buildings with these goals in mind.
Embedded IoT Sensors
Sensors embedded within concrete can collect numerous data points both during the construction or reconstruction process as well as after the construction is complete. For example, the La Sagrada Familia building in Barcelona, an iconic church originally constructed in 1883, recently used sensors embedded within the concrete application of a renovation project. These sensors were designed to monitor the concrete application's strength and identify ideal conditions for the concrete curing process.
Sensors monitor and can help adjust the curing process by analyzing the following conditions:
- Maintaining the ideal curing temperature range
- Identifying and lowering excessive heat that can lead to thermal cracks
- Maintaining moisture content range and identifying when additional curing compounds should be added
- Chemical reaction monitoring to assess in real-time to ensure the curing process is operating under ideal conditions
- Crack detection and prevention to preemptively make adjustments that ensure long-term concrete structural integrity
Self-Sensing and Self-Healing Concrete
In addition to smart sensors embedded in standard concrete that are akin to other IoT sensors deployed throughout a smart building, concrete can be mixed with sensing and self-healing agents to proactively monitor stress fractures and potentially even self-heal newly formed cracks without human intervention.
Self-sensing concrete. Fillers such as carbon fibers and nanotubes are mixed into concrete to create a structure that can conduct electricity that can be continuously monitored to create a 3D representation of the concrete structure. When these fillers are stressed or cracked, it changes the electrical resistance in that area, which indicates the presence of damage. Software can detect the precise location and size of the stress or crack, allowing for rapid fixes before the problem worsens.
Self-healing concrete agents. Going a step beyond conductive-infused concrete, certain bacteria, minerals, and polymers can also be added to concrete that gives the structure autonomous self-healing capabilities. When the concrete begins to form cracks, these agents are activated to fill them so it maintains its structural integrity. While some agents can only be activated once, other agents, like bacteria, can multiply throughout the life of the concrete, which aids in the self-healing process throughout the lifespan of the structure.
The Evolving Future of Smart Concrete
As the construction industry moves towards more sustainable and technologically integrated solutions, smart concrete stands out as a promising yet unproven series of technologies. While more advanced features such as self-sensing and self-healing concrete remain in their early stages and thus are difficult to recommend, other technologies like embedded concrete IoT sensors are already proving their worth.
In 2024 and moving into 2025, building owners and operators should keep a keen eye on developments in this field, as smart concrete could soon become a cornerstone in building longevity and efficiency while lowering overall maintenance and renovation costs.
