Autonomous water purification
To be more sustainable, the construction industry needs reliable service-life predictions for structures. Ueli Angst calls for a paradigm shift in forecasting the durability of reinforced concrete. The construction industry is experiencing a revolution, with digitisation, decarbonisation and robotics-assisted fabrication all having a lasting impact on practice and research. Both in Switzerland1 and around the world, new materials and construction methods are in the pipeline to save resources, cut emissions and automate construction processes. One challenge of engineering structures is their extremely long service life. Civil engineers must ensure that bridges, dams and tunnels remain durable for time frames extending to 100 years or more. This makes it difficult to learn from mistakes at an early stage; insights on the performance of a material or new method are often gained only decades after construction.
