EAST LANSING, Mich. – Many Michiganders know how frustrating road conditions can be, especially during winter.
Michigan State University is working on a research project that could change that by making driving safer during rough weather.
The project involves four concrete slabs installed last month on MSU’s campus.
Those slabs are designed to heat themselves and melt ice without the need for salt or shoveling.
Brandon Byers, an MSU graduate student, said, “This is the future of our pavement, right?”
The concrete can heal itself, heat up, and bend without breaking.
MSU Assistant Professor Bill Jin said, “We have tried in our lab-controlled area that we see we are able to melt snow as effective as some of the deicing salt.”
When asked how the heat works, Jin said, “The heat could come from the sun, could come from the higher temperature outside. Let’s say you have 45 degrees, then it would absorb heat and store it. So basically, the heat is from the environment. It’s free.”
Each slab has a slightly different mix design as researchers collect data to find the optimal mix for winter weather.
Early tests show the concrete can fix cracks thinner than a human hair and hold up to 2,000 pounds—about half a car’s weight—without cracking.
Jin shared his passion for the project: “How can we create a concrete that has a metallic performance but also a concrete without using steel? Our bendable concrete is the first one that can show that we can have the ductility thousand times than the conventional concrete, but also maintain the stress.”
Wires connected to each slab monitor their durability and effectiveness in melting ice and snow.
The self-heating concrete could reduce damage from freeze-thaw cycles and cut down on snow plowing and salt use.
Jin said, “We can improve the safety of the roads for sure. We have less snow. We have less maintenance.”
Currently, this technology costs more than standard concrete, but the savings come over time.
Jin explained, “Think about it if everything goes well as we anticipated. The roads don’t have to repair for 10 years, compared to roads, normally you repair every year or every six months or every two years. That is a huge saving—the labor saving, the material saving, and also the closure of the roads that were disruption to the public safety and the public roads.”
Graduate student Xiaoqiang Ni said, “We really hope to use the technique in Michigan.”
When asked how many years away that might be, Ni replied, “That’s a hard question. I don’t know.”
The pilot program shows promise for Michigan’s future roads.
Jin added, “We really hope to see everything can work as same as expected in the lab. And in the next year, with the data collected, we hope that we can optimize the formulations and even have a better performance.”
Local 4 will monitor the four slabs over the next several months of snow and check back in the spring to share what they’ve learned.