Study of Self-healing Biomimetic materials and their roles in repairing building cracks in Warm and Humid climate in India

Abstract

The plant and the animal kingdom have an intrinsic property through which they have the ability of self-healing themselves to survive against any injuries or defects. Self-healing biomimetic materials are those that have been inspired by this self-repairing property of Nature and they tend to incorporate natural elements in the material itself that ultimately leads to more sustainable and even regenerative buildings. In this paper, the different types of self-healing biomimetic materials such as self-healing concrete, self-healing bricks and self-healing lime mortar and the roles played by them in overcoming the issues related to cracks in the buildings have been focused upon. Such self-healing biomimetic materials are generally incorporated with bacteria having spores which activate on coming in contact with water and help in repairing the cracks. This paper also focuses on the different types of cracks that appear in concrete and masonry works over the years due to the continuous usage and wear and tear of the buildings which can even lead to the collapse of the structures in the worst case scenarios. The paper speaks about how these cracks can be self-repaired by the application of such self-healing biomimetic materials instead of the conventional materials and how efficient these materials are as compared to the conventional building materials. For the research purpose the Architecture building at the GITAM University Campus, Visakhapatnam has been considered and study has been done to identify types of cracks which have developed in the building and how they could have been self-repaired if such self-healing Biomimetic materials had been used instead of the conventional ones, and thus sustainability can be achieved. Architects will find this paper useful in deciding a sustainable solution in repairs of damaged buildings.