The Potential of Autonomous Self-Healing Microcapsules for Concrete Cracking
N.M. ZAHARI, Z. ITAM, A. SYAMSIR, M.H. ZAWAWI, S.M.M.S.A. FADZIL, M.M. ZAINOODIN, Z.A.A. HAMID, N.A.M. AZMAN
Abstract. Concrete damage and cracking can result from a variety of factors, including poor material selection during construction, design flaws, and environmental factors such freezing and thawing, carbonation, and alkali-silica interactions. Even worse is that damage repairs are more difficult when cracks are not evident or easily accessible. However, self-healing concrete can be utilized for filling the fractures after hardening, which is generated in buildings using the concrete microsphere reaction. Autonomous self-healing concrete is a phrase used for cemented materials, which are separated after the material or structure has been destroyed by a specific kind of degradation process. The development of calcium or calcium hydroxide, special sedimentation, persistent hydration, and swelling are probable factors for the self-healing process. This research was conducted with two sizes of microcapsules imbibed with either sodium or calcium nitrate added into concrete slabs measuring 50mm x 305mm x 305mm. The capsules were added at the volumetric fractions of 0 to 4% in unit intervals to cement. The water- to-cement ratio was taken as 0.4. From this research, it was found that the inclusion of microencapsulated sodium and nitrate silicate has showed that cracked specimens throughout a 28-day healing interval shows improvement in terms of healing. Based on the experimental results, the sodium silicate and calcium nitrate encapsulated in large capsules contribute to greater healing properties than the small capsules.
Keywords
Self Healing Concrete, Microencapsulation, Autonomous Healing
Published online 7/15/2026, 8 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: N.M. ZAHARI, Z. ITAM, A. SYAMSIR, M.H. ZAWAWI, S.M.M.S.A. FADZIL, M.M. ZAINOODIN, Z.A.A. HAMID, N.A.M. AZMAN, The Potential of Autonomous Self-Healing Microcapsules for Concrete Cracking, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 68, pp 246-253, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904237-33
The article was published as article 33 of the book Green Materials, Processing & Characterization
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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