Designing added functions in Engineered Cementitious Composites

It is known that structural performance is greatly influenced by the materials used. Within the civil engineering community, the performance-based design concept for structures is getting more and more attention and gradually replacing the conventional prescriptive approach [1]. The performance-based design concept allows for greater flexibility, e.g., in dimensioning and reinforcement detailing by structural engineers. It also allows for a larger degree of freedom in construction material choice. Therefore, high performance civil engineering materials with added functions beyond their basic properties are highly desirable (Fig. 1.1). Unfortunately, adding new attributes into material empirically sometimes causes loss of basic properties. The often existed tradeoff between new performance requirements and basic material properties posts the challenge of this thesis research.