Development of a Crack Resistant Durable concrete Repair Material for Navy Concrete Structures

A large number of existing Navy concrete structures are in a state of deterioration/distress. It must also be recognized that many repaired concrete structures are severely deteriorated only after a few years having been repaired. How to halt the decayof the Navy's physical infrastructure? The durability of concrete repair must be ensured on a basis of daily practice, from the research, design, material selection through construction practices and quality control. Every means of rendering concreterepair technology more reliable has an enormous engineering and economic signficance.The SBIR Phase I project focuses on one of the critical route-cases of preliminary failure of concrete repairs - cracking of repair materials due to the restrained volume changes. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop durable crack-resistantrepair material.The key deliverables under the scope of work in Phase I will be: (1) identification fo short-term material criteria for crack-resistant performance; (2) develop candidate mateiral mixture(s) for compliance with the performance criteria; (3) testing thecandidate mixture(s) for compliance with the performance criteria; (4) report. The toll paid for loss of service and annoying repair of repairs amounts for enormous amount of money. The present situation with repaired concrete structures sometimesjeopardizes Naval activities. The low crack-resistance of presently avialable on the market cement-based repair materials is one of the causes of unsatisfactory performance of repair structures. Therefore, the research and development project directed ondeveloping repair material(s) with high crack-resistance characteristics will make a substantial contribution not only for U.S. Navy but fro the entire industry.