Healing the Pavement on Campus
TGIF Award: $16,100.00
Project Theme: Sustainable Buildings
Project Sponsor: Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
Project Description: Pavement failure occurs when the concrete surface no longer holds its original shape and develops material stress which causes issues. Bumpy and pitted pavements with cracks can be easily found on the UC Berkeley campus. Traditional artificial maintenance method is time and labor-consuming. Moreover, a considerable amount of Portland cement is used as raw material for pavement repair, which even causes environmental issues as cement is the culprit of greenhouse gas emission, accounting for 8% CO2 emissions per year. Recycling concrete offers a sustainable path for pavement maintenance. Even on campus, massive concrete wastes are generated in the civil and environmental engineering (CEE) structural laboratory every year because of undergraduate education and scientific research demand. Hence, this project aims at wasted concrete recycling for campus infrastructure repairing, mainly focusing on the maintenance of cracked pavements through concrete self-healing technology. Besides, It is proposed to host lab sessions and seminars to facilitate students’ knowledge and hands-on experience in waste concrete recycling. The TGIF fund would cover the experimental exploration, raw material purchase, and education cost. This two- semester project includes two main phases: the concrete recycling technology exploration (2021 Fall) and on-site pavement construction(2022 Spring).
Project Goals:
1) Exploring and optimizing waste concrete recycling technology samples
through self-healing methods.
2) Teaching over 30 students the recycling knowledge through lab sessions
and seminars.
3) Applying the recycling technology into the campus pavements repairments
and establishing 2-3 demonstration sites on campus.