The present study investigates the effects of reversed and sustained flexural loading cycles on the repeatability of self‐healing in engineered cementitious composites (ECC). The experimental work is designed to test three cases of normal (REF), reverse (REV), and reverse‐sustained (RES) loading and three different exposure conditions of tap water, sea water, and open air. A total of 27 prism specimens (100 × 100 × 350 mm) were fabricated, and a four‐point bending test was used for flexural load application at different stages and to further measure the recovery in mechanical properties. The research is proposed to elaborate on the positive/negative impact of compression cycle on the self‐healing of cracks. Ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) test was carried out before and after each loading and the wave travel time was compared as an indicator of healing efficiency. To monitor crack propagation patterns and crack widths, digital image correlation (DIC) technique was used. To further analyze the mineralogy and microstructure of the healing products, X‐ray diffraction (XRD) test was conducted on two groups of tap water and sea water exposures. Concluding results proved that sea water and tap water are suitable environments for autogenous self‐healing process. Furthermore, reverse loading cycles were demonstrated to impact the self‐healing results and should be considered for repeatable self‐healing evaluations.

In this study, the effect of different exposure conditions of ambient air, tap water, and seawater on two levels of crack widths in engineered cementitious composites (ECC) were investigated. Crystalline admixture (CA) was implemented in the ECC mix to promote self-healing capacity. Flexural testing on prism specimens (100  100  350 mm) was conducted to evaluate self-healing by recovering the stiffness in the specimens with crack widths below 200 μm. Water permeability test was also carried out to assess the crack-filling capability of ECC disk specimens (100-mm diameter  50-mm thickness) with single crack widths over 1 mm. Digital image correlation technique was used to monitor crack propagation patterns and crack widths. To analyze the microstructure of the healing products, X-ray diffraction test was conducted on groups of tap water and seawater exposures. Concluding results proved seawater to be a promising environmental condition for the self-healing process in ECC specimens incorporating CA, in terms of recovery of mechanical and transport properties. Brucite was found to be formed as the additional healing agent that promoted self-healing in this condition. These results can be applied for coastal concrete structures.

The growing web of data warrants better data management strategies. Data silos are single points of failure and they face availability problems which lead to broken links. Furthermore the dynamic nature of some datasets increases the need for a versioning scheme. In this work, we propose a novel architecture for a linked open data infrastructure, built on open decentralized technologies. IPFS is used for storage and retrieval of data, and the public Ethereum blockchain is used for naming, versioning and storing metadata of datasets. We furthermore exploit two mechanisms for maintaining a collection of relevant, high-quality datasets in a distributed manner in which participants are incentivized. The platform is shown to have a low barrier to entry and censorship-resistance. It benefits from the fault-tolerance of its underlying technologies. Furthermore, we validate the approach by implementing our solution.