Research and progress of concrete materials with crack self-repairing ability as biomaterials

Bionical self-repairing concrete is made by embeddingspecial elements into the concrete. Its self-repairingperformance is similar to biomaterials. The repairing response in the concretematerial is triggered to heal cracks and damage, recover and improve thestrength of the damaged area, where and when the matrix cracks. Theself-repairing in concrete can retrench the high cost of effectivemonitoring, maintenance and structure running, andgreatly improve safety and durability of concrete structures. In the paper,firstly, with a brief introduction to the self-repairing properties ofbiomaterials, two types of crack self-repairing aresummarized. Secondly, the state of the arts at home and abroad of crackself-repairing in concrete materials is given. Thirdly, theproblems existing in the technologies of self-repairing and their practicabilityare analyzed; the prospects of applications are discussed. Finally,some futureresearch directions are suggested.