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Due to the negative impact of construction processes on the environment and a decrease in investments, there is a need for concrete structures to operate longer while maintaining their high performance. Self-healing concrete has the ability to heal itself when it is cracked, thereby protecting the interior matrix as well as the reinforcement steel, resulting in an increased service life. Most research has focused on mortar specimens at lab-scale. Yet, to demonstrate the feasibility of applying self-healing concrete in practice, demonstrators of large-scale applications are necessary. A roof slab of an inspection pit was cast with bacterial self-healing concrete and is now in normal operation. As a bacterial additive to the concrete, a mixture called MUC+, made out of a Mixed Ureolytic Culture together with anaerobic granular bacteria, was added to the concrete during mixing. This article reports on the tests carried out on laboratory control specimens made from the same concrete batch, as well as the findings of an inspection of the roof slab under operating conditions. Lab tests showed that cracks at the bottom of specimens and subjected to wet/dry cycles had the best visual crack closure. Additionally, the sealing efficiency of cracked specimens submersed for 27 weeks in water, measured by means of a water permeability setup, was at least equal to 90%, with an efficiency of at least 98.5% for the largest part of the specimens. An inspection of the roof slab showed no signs of cracking, yet favorable conditions for healing were observed. So, despite the high healing potential that was recorded during lab experiments, an assessment under real-life conditions was not yet possible.

Development and commercialization of self-healing concrete is hampered due to a lack of standardized test methods. Six inter-laboratory testing programs are being executed by the EU COST action SARCOS, each focusing on test methods for a specific self-healing technique. This paper reports on the comparison of tests for mortar and concrete specimens with polyurethane encapsulated in glass macrocapsules. First, the pre-cracking method was analysed: mortar specimens were cracked in a three-point bending test followed by an active crack width control technique to restrain the crack width up to a predefined value, while the concrete specimens were cracked in a three-point bending setup with a displacement-controlled loading system. Microscopic measurements showed that with the application of the active control technique almost all crack widths were within a narrow predefined range. Conversely, for the concrete specimens the variation on the crack width was higher. After pre-cracking, the self-healing effect was characterized via durability tests: the mortar specimens were tested in a water permeability test and the spread of the healing agent on the crack surfaces was determined, while the concrete specimens were subjected to two capillary water absorption tests, executed with a different type of waterproofing applied on the zone around the crack. The quality of the waterproofing was found to be important, as different results were obtained in each absorption test. For the permeability test, 4 out of 6 labs obtained a comparable flow rate for the reference specimens, yet all 6 labs obtained comparable sealing efficiencies, highlighting the potential for further standardization.

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