Engineers from Princeton University have taken inspiration from the human body to design a cement that is stronger and 5.6 times more durable than standard options.
A report from SciTechDaily highlighted the efforts of civil and environmental engineering associate professor Reza Moini and third-year Ph.D. candidate Shashank Gupta, who modeled their novel cement structure after the dense outer shell of human femurs.
The pair outlined their 3D-printing and casting hybrid process in the journal Advanced Materials, increasing the cement's load-bearing capabilities and resistance to crack propagation without additional materials like fibers or plastics by utilizing cylindrical and elliptical tubes within the cement paste.
This technique prevents the sudden and catastrophic failure traditional materials display when their structural integrity is compromised. Instead, it traps the crack, delays propagation, and thus leads to "additional energy dissipation at each interaction and step," per SciTechDaily.
"One expects the material to become less resistant to cracking when hollow tubes are incorporated," Moini told SciTechDaily. "We learned that by taking advantage of the tube geometry, size, shape, and orientation, we can promote crack-tube interaction to enhance one property without sacrificing another."
"What makes this stepwise mechanism unique is that each crack extension is controlled," Gupta added. "Instead of breaking all at once, the material withstands progressive damage, making it much tougher."
Creating longer-lasting cement is crucial to a cooler and healthier planet. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the cement industry is responsible for 7-8% of global CO₂ pollution. It also releases industrial air pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide — all of which can cause or exacerbate many health complications.
Luckily, researchers are finding sustainable alternatives to traditional cement, utilizing products such as rice husk ash and fly ash. Meanwhile, Gupta and Moini used nacre from oyster and abalone shells for a versatile cement composite.
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In conjunction with the bone-inspired cement paste, this breakthrough could be used to make eco-friendly houses and structures in the near future.
"We've only begun to explore the possibilities," Gupta said, per SciTechDaily. "There are many variables to investigate, such as applying the degree of disorder to the size, shape, and orientation of the tubes in the material. These principles could be applied to other brittle materials to engineer more damage-resistant structures."
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