Giving concrete infrastructure a second life

Rather than just fixing corroding concrete infrastructure, Professor Eugen Brühwiler and his team of engineers have shown that it can be improved using ultra-high performance fiber reinforced concrete. Today we tend to be all too quick to throw away clothes, furniture, or other belongings when they start to show signs of wear and tear or simply go out of style. We're victims of the same mentality outside our homes, too, just on a larger scale. In an act of questionable sustainability, entire buildings are demolished to make way for newer, more sustainable ones. But when it comes to infrastructure, it's not so simple. The throw-away mentality would dictate that we tear up and replace roads, bridges and railroad tracks when they begin to show signs of aging, such as corrosion or cracks. But surely a more sustainable, not to mention more cost-effective, solution would be to fix them, right? I hate the term 'to fix'," says Professor Eugen Brühwiler, head of the Laboratory of Maintenance, Construction and Safety for Civil Structures and director of the recently concluded National Research Program 54 on the sustainability of the built environment.