The European Concrete Paving Association (EUPAVE) recently reported on a a multi-national project named “Enhancing Concrete Life in Infrastructure through Phase Change Systems”—ECLIPS. ECLIPS is carried out by Arizona State University (ASU), USA, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), USA, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science (Empa), Switzerland, Technical University-Delft (TU-Delft)-Netherlands, and TECNALIA, Spain—funded through the Infravation grant of the European Union (EU). EUPAVE and American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) are in charge of the dissemination of the ECLIPS project and main outcomes.
Early- and late-age thermal cracking in reinforced concrete elements and freeze-thaw related deterioration in concretes exposed to temperatures cycling around the freezing point of water are sources of concern to owners and managers of infrastructure assets around the world. This is a considerable issue with numerous transportation structures (pavements, bridges etc.) often requiring premature repair/replacement or incurring exceedingly high maintenance costs during their service-life. ECLIPS tackles this problem by incorporating phase change materials (PCMs) with a suitable phase transition temperature, enthalpy of phase change and degree of dispersion in the concrete. PCMs are combined sensible-and-latent thermal storage materials that can be used to store and dissipate energy in the form of heat. The heat absorption and release response help to maintain a constant internal system temperature until the phase-transition is completed. The ability to incorporate PCMs into the concrete matrix has implications on enhancing concrete performance.
MAIN GOALS OF ECLIPS:
• Select appropriate PCMs of suitable phase transition temperature, enthalpy, and formulate robust methods of delivery
• Life cycle assessment (LCA) model to quantify the environmental and economic benefits of the technology that improves life of concrete in road infrastructure
• Prototype concretes in different environments to evaluate the real-life performance
For the ECLIPS PDF Newsletter, please go to: http://www.eupave.eu/documents/graphics/eclips/eclips-newsletterspring2016.pdf.
For the ECLIPS Website, please go to: http://www.infravation.net/projects/ECLIPS.