PERFORMANCE OF EPOXY RESIN AS

SELF-HEALING AGENT
Self healing concrete
• Ability of a material to repair inner damage without any
external intervention

• Autogeneous process

• Also known as “Bio-concrete”

The common problem found in buildings is Crack. It may be due
to many reasons.
• Concrete expands and shrinks due to temperature differences

• Settlement of structure

• Due to heavy load applied

• Due to loss of water from concrete, surface shrinkage occurs

• Insufficient vibration at the time of laying the concrete

• Improper cover provided during concreting

• High water cement ratio to make the concrete workable

• Due to corrosion of reinforcement steel

 Epoxy as a healing agent

• Microcracks in cementitious materials are able to heal under

certain circumstances.

• When cracks occurred, the water and oxygen gases penetrated

into the concrete and reacted with bacteria to produce calcium
carbonate precipitate that can heal the cracks.

• In this paper, the performance of epoxy resin without hardener

as a healing agent was evaluated and reported.
Materials used
• Cement - ordinary Portland cement (OPC)

• Fine Aggregates - Local river sand

(specific gravity of 2.62 and fineness modulus of 2.85 in SSD)

• Epoxy Resin - Diglycidyl Ether of Bisphenol A-type epoxy resin

without hardener was used in the mix proportion and stored in
room temperature to avoid damage.

• Amount of epoxy resin added - 10 % of the cement content.

• The viscosity of epoxy resin chosen was high as to create a

bonding between epoxy resin and hydroxyl ion.
Preparation of epoxy modified mortar

Table 1 Mix proportion of epoxy-modified mortar

Epoxy Water
Sand Cement Water Sand:
ratio /Cement
(kg/m3) (kg/m3) (kg/m3) Cement
(%) ratio
0
5
1517 506 228
10
0.48 3:1
15
20
• The flow spread diameter was in the range of 170 ± 5 mm.

• Mortar cube specimens –

1) 70 x 70 x 70 mm for compressive strength test.

2) 100 x 100 x 100 mm mortars for self-healing

evaluation test.

• The mixing procedure was basically same as the ordinary

cement mortar but with the addition of epoxy resin in the fresh
mix.

Curing Regime
• Wet curing – 7 days.
• Dry curing at room temperature - 21 days
 Compressive strength test

Compressive Strength (MPa) 40.0

35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
0 5 10 15 20
Epoxy Ratio (%)
Figure 1: Relationship between compressive strength and epoxy ratio at 28 days in wet-dry curing
condition.
 47.0
45.0 Epoxy-modified Mortar
43.0 Normal Mortar
Compressive Strength, MPa

41.0
39.0
37.0
35.0
33.0
31.0
29.0
27.0
25.0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Duration, Days
Figure 2: Strength development of epoxy-modified mortar with prolong dry-curing.
 Porosity test

7.0

6.0
Apparent Porosity, %

5.0

4.0

3.0

2.0

1.0

0.0
28 56 90 120 180 270 360
Duration, Days
Figure 3: Relationship between porosity of epoxy-modified mortar with curing age.
 Self-healing evaluation

Figure 4: Relationship between time travel and duration of epoxy and normal mortar after pre- loading.
Figure 5: Relationship between compressive strength and duration of epoxy and normal mortar after
pre-loading.
Pre-loading and dry curing

• After the initial curing, the micro cracks were generated in the
specimen using compressive machine at loading rate ratio of 0,
50 and 80% of maximum load of each specimen.

• Then the specimens were dry-cured at room temperature until

the desired day of testing.

• The propagating crack was checked by using non-destructive

test equipment, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) machine.
 Microstructure
• From the scanning electron microscopy test shown in the
figure given below, it shows the bonding between epoxy resin
and hydroxyl ions.
• The circle looks like ball was calcium based on EDX analysis.
This component was the main components that contribute in
self-healing function of epoxy resin.
Conclusion
I. The optimum amount of epoxy content that produced the
highest compressive strength was 10%.

II. The self-healing function of epoxy resin is functioning well

based on the UPV and compressive strength tests which is after
prolong the curing, the UPV and compressive strength start to
regain its initial reading.

III. The microstructure study also indicated the self-healing

process occurred in the samples tested.