'Smart Concrete' Could Improve Levees
In a previous post, we introduced you to the concept of smart levees, structures with a built in electronic nervous system. We also explored the uses for smart cement from the University of Michigan.
Fuse the two together and you get another approach to "up-smarting" a levy, which is essentially a pile of dirt. Encase levees in smart concrete.
Problem:
The failure of levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina points out the need for new technologies to strengthen levees and monitor their reliability, according to Deborah D. L. Chung, Ph.D., a University at Buffalo materials scientist and inventor of "smart concrete."
"The technology used to build levees is really very primitive -- sometimes it involves just the piling of dirt. Surely there's a lot of room to use higher technologies than that," says Chung,
Smart Solution:
Chung's smart concrete, may be one such technology whose time has come for commercial use -- not only in the construction of levees, but for a range of disaster and homeland security applications.
ETA: Available now, patented in 1998.
Benefits / Pros:
Stress & Deformation Detection
With smart concrete, short carbon fibers are added to the conventional concrete mixture. This modification gives the concrete the ability to detect stress and tiny deformations in the concrete. In the presence of structural flaws -- within a levee made of smart concrete, for example -- the concrete's electrical resistance increases. This change can be detected by electrical probes placed on the outside of structures.
"You could use a meter to continuously monitor stress and deformation within levees made of smart concrete," Chung explains. "When deformations in the levee deviate from an acceptable baseline, an alarm could be triggered."
Reinforcement
Chung, who also has studied the use of continuous carbon fibers in the form of composites, suggests that some levees could be encased in a shell composed of such composites, which are similar to the material used to form the bodies of jet aircraft.
"If you use that as the outer shell of a levee, you could make use of the carbon fiber's electrical conductivity to monitor fiber breakage," she says. "So in addition to serving as levee reinforcement, the shell also serves as a sensor of damage."
Other Applications:
Similarly, the electrical properties of smart concrete could be used to detect underground stress that builds prior to an earthquake, to monitor building occupancy for intruders or for stragglers during an evacuation, and to monitor traffic flow in an emergency or around U.S. borders, Chung says.
Cons:
Added Costs
According to Chung, use of smart concrete would increase construction costs by 30 percent, which is a main reason industry has not adopted its use, she says. Of course, reconstruction costs after a disaster can run much higher, she points out.
"People might say they like sensing, but in real life do they really want their bridge or their highway to be smart," Chung asks. "When it comes to real construction projects, all they really care about is mechanical behavior, and every penny counts in the bidding process." Says Chung
Government Incentives
Need for the equivalent of the Apollo program for Smart Technologies
Governments must raise a challenge for business to create the capability to design and build an intelligent infrastructure that will lead us into the 21 century
Federal and local governments and municipalities will need to offer incentives by incorporating the need for smart sensing into their structural ( roads, bridges, levy ) specifications, otherwise these ideas will continue to exist as isolated demonstration pilot projects and won't be actively incorporated into our community infrastructure
Source : University of Buffalo Press Release
Level: Intelligence Level (1) Adapting: Modifying Behavior to React to/Fit the Environment
Status: working lab prototype and commercial version available
Impacts:
What do you think of smart levees reinforced with smart concrete? Would you pay extra taxes for the added protection?
Walter Derzko
Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on the emerging Smart Technologies and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy
".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"
- old Japanese proverb
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