The department of Materials Engineering in University of Technology  awarded master degree to graduate student Alaa Zamel Dahesh under thesis title “ Fabrication of Ceramic Materials for Building Application for Cracks Treatment”. The defend occurred in Materials Engineering Department-Building C on Wednesday 11/25/2020. The defend committee members consist from:-  

•  Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Hassan Al Gabban- chair
• Assist Prof. Dr. Besma Mohamed Fahed- member          
• Assist Prof. Dr. Mayyadah Mohamed Shnan Abed- member
• Assist Prof. Dr. Farhad Mohammed Othman- supervisor
• Assist Prof. Dr. Alaa Aladdin Abdul Hamead- supervisor

The thesis scientific reviewer assist prof. Dr. Ali Fadel Nasser/ Al-Furat Al-Awsat Technical University/ Al-Mussaib. The thesis linguistic reviewer assist Dr. Zaynab Naif Rasheed/ University of Technology- Applied Science Department. Sir Talib Abdullah Baish/ Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Transport and Sir Hussein Adbdulameer Baga/ Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Water Resources attended the defend and number of attendees.   

    The study aimed to address one of the most important problems of the Ministry of Water Resources, which is the problem of mass concrete cracking by using the self-healing technique based on microcapsules, which is the first study of its kind in Iraq, using zinc oxide based microcapsules, which are the first of its kind in the world of self-healing capsules.

    In this study, the manufacture of microcapsules consisting of zinc oxide prepared by precipitation method as a healing agent and encapsulated with PMMA by the method of interfacial polymerization. Secondly, to study the effect of adding zinc oxide microcapsules and PP microfibers at a ratio of (0.5, 1, 1.5) % as replacement percentages of cement weight on the microstructure through SEM examination, on mechanical properties (represented by testing the compressive strength and flexural strength) and on durability through permeability testing by rapid chloride penetration test (RCPT) and on physical properties by examining density, porosity and absorbance. Third, to evaluate the effect of these additives on the self-healing ability of mass concrete by making microcracks for the selected samples containing (microcapsules and microfibers individually and in mixed proportions) and assessing the efficiency of the self-healing mechanism by studying the healing products formed at the crack area by examining XRD, SEM, and EDS. Also evaluating the efficiency of the self-healing technique depending on: Crack width healing ratio and the recovery ratio of both flexural strength and rapid chloride ions penetration resistance.

   From the results obtained during the study, the effective crack healing and the high recovery of early concrete performance using microcapsules and microfibers indicate that this material mixture will reduce environmental damage and the need for high-cost and low-quality repairs during the service life without the need for suspension the work of structure, as occurs in The state of the traditional methods currently used locally and internationally, and this is an important step in building practices, which will be an economically and environmentally sustainable approach.