Development of ductile cementitious composites incorporating microencapsulated phase change materials

In the past two decades, much research has been devoted to overcoming the inherent brittleness of cementitious materials. To that end, several solutions have been proposed, mainly utilizing fibres. One of the most promising classes of materials is strain hardening cementitious composite (SHCC). It utilizes PVA fibres, and it is relatively costly compared to regular concrete, so it is commonly used only in surface layers. In this paper, a multi-functional ductile cementitious composite based on SHCC has been developed. It uses microencapsulated phase change materials (PCMs), capable of reducing temperature fluctuations in the material due to their high heat of fusion. It is shown that, although addition of microencapsulated PCMs are detrimental to compressive strength, they have very little effect on the flexural strength and deflection capacity. In the future work, mixtures with higher PCM contents will be developed in order to exploit their heat storage capability better. This material has potential to reduce temperature effects on concrete surfaces, while at the same time being extremely ductile.