EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michiganders’ top complaint? Our road conditions.
But Michigan State University researchers are working on a solution, and it’s happening right on MSU’s campus with four concrete slabs installed last month.
“This is the future of our pavement,” MSU graduate student Brandon Byers said.
It isn’t your ordinary concrete -- it can heal itself, heat up, and bend without breaking. These innovative properties could revolutionize how Michigan maintains its roads.
MSU Assistant Engineering Professor Bill Jin explains the heating capabilities: “We have tried in our lab-controlled area that we see we are able to melt snow as effective as some of the deicing salt.”
So how does it work?
“The heat could come from the sun, could come from the higher temperature outside. Let’s say you have 45 degrees, then it would absorb heat and store it -- so basically the heat is from the environment. It’s free,” Jin said.
The research team is testing various compositions to find the optimal solution.
“Each of these has a slightly different mix design. So we want to collect different information and try to figure out what is the most optimal mix for winter weather,” Byers said.
The initial lab results look promising -- the material can heal microcracks and maintain three times the standard pavement strength requirement.
“My passion is how can we create a concrete that has a metallic performance but also a concrete without using steel. Our bendable concrete is the first one that can show that we can have the ductility thousand times than the convention concrete but also maintain the stress,” Jin said.
The research setup includes sensors connected to each slab to monitor their temperature and effectiveness at melting ice and snow.
Beyond its structural benefits, the self-heating concrete could reduce damage from freeze-thaw cycles and cut down on snow plowing and salt use.
“We can improve the safety of the roads for sure. We have less snow. We have less maintenance,” Jin said.
Despite these advantages, cost remains a consideration. While Jin acknowledges the technology currently costs more than standard concrete, he emphasizes the long-term savings.
“Think about it if everything goes well as we anticipated, the roads don’t have to be repaired for 10 years compared to roads you normally repair every year or every six months or every two years,” he said. “That is a huge saving, the labor saving, the material saving, and also the closure of the roads that were a disruption to the public safety and the public roads.”
As for implementation, when asked about bringing this technology to Michigan, MSU graduate student Xiaoqiang Ni expressed hope but uncertainty about the timeline.
“We really hope to use the technique in Michigan,” Ni said.
However, when asked how many years until implementation, Ni admitted, “That’s a hard question. I don’t know.”
But the pilot program shows promise for the future of Michigan’s roads.
“We really hope to see everything can work as same as expected in the lab. And in the next year, with the data collected, we hope that we can optimize the formulations and even have a better performance,” Jin said.