Self-healing cement-based materials: an asset for sustainable construction industry

Worldwide increasing consciousness for sustainable use of natural resources has made "overcoming the apparent contradictory requirements of cost and performance effectiveness a challenging task" as well as a major concern. Self-healing cement-based materials, by controlling and repairing cracks, could prevent "permeation of driving factors for deterioration", thus extending the structure service life, and even provide partial recovery of the engineering properties relevant to the application. This paper will outline the current state of art on self-healing cement-based materials and experimental methods for the assessment of the self-healing capacity. Moreover, it will also critically analyse the current hindrances which challenge the engineering community in paving the way towards the reliable and consistent incorporation of self-healing concepts and effects into a durability-based design framework for buildings and structures made of or retrofitted with self- healing concrete and cementitious composites.