Building Materials
Building the future with safer, durable, greener and more sustainable construction materials
Investigate building materials at multiple length scales and modalities and link the multi-scale information. From the material’s processing over its structure and properties up to its performance in engineering applications – from concrete, steel, wood, brick and stone to building composites – make use of a whole range of microscopy solutions.
Understand the processing and structure of building materials
Thinking about concrete as the most widely used material in human history: what if you could minimize cracks that are still a major source of reduced durability and financial loss? Apply microscopy techniques to mitigate this problem and move forward with the improvement of properties and performance, developing innovations such as self-healing concrete.
- Processing: Study hydration of cement with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and 4D X-ray microscopes (XRM).
- Structure: Observe and quantify the produced structures, find out how they relate to properties, conduct failure analysis in building materials with the 3D submicron imaging capabilities of ZEISS XRM.
- Properties and Performance: Investigate or predict how a novel building material, like self-healing concrete, will perform in a real-world application, combine multiple modalities including Light Microscopes (LM), SEM and XRM from ZEISS through correlative microscopy.
Fascinating Applications in Concrete Analysis
Enlarge the images below to learn more about the cement and concrete samples.



Study the Processing of Building Materials
With Scanning Electron Microscopes
Analyze building materials like cement, the composition, shape and morphology of its compounds, either dry or in a hydrated state with ZEISS SEMs, which are suited not only to high vacuum experiments but also to environmental conditions.
- Control the sample conditions and therefore the sample humidity by varying the temperature, pressure, and atmospheric gases in the SEM chamber.
- Determine various hydration states, work at low or extremely low vacuum (Variable Pressure mode (VP)) instead of high vacuum, add water vapor, and cool or heat your sample on a dedicated stage.
- Apply pressures of up to 3000 Pa and combine them with wet or dry mode enabling you to image concrete samples in a range of temperatures, pressures, and humidity conditions.
- Reveal hydration mechanisms at high resolution using a coolstage.
- At the same time, achieve high resolution, high contrast images with minimal sample preparation using detectors tailored for varying conditions.




Observe and Quantify the Structure of Building Materials
With X-ray Microscopes
Imagine being able to investigate the root causes of cracking, such as lack of moisture, excess heat generation during the early stages of curing, mechanical stress, and internal chemical origins, such as rebar corrosion, in longer-term cracking and overcome these well-known limitations? Characterize highly varying 3D topologies and crack networks non-destructively. Image in 3D at sub-micron resolutions. Benefit from 3D X-ray microscopy for fast imaging of intact samples.
- Characterize large representative samples and zoom into region of interest non-destructively at extremely high resolution using the Resolution-at-a-Distance mode.
- Image emerging hairline fractures and entire 3D crack networks in a single scan at spatial resolution of up to 500 nm.
- Distinguish different phases within building materials with superior contrast using highly sensitive detectors and a variety of contrast modes.
- Identify fracture mechanisms in situ and in 4D using dual magnification – optical as well as geometric.

ZEISS X-ray Microscopes enable you to image large, representative-sized building materials samples providing sub-micron resolution and high contrast. Optimal 3D quantitative analysis is enabled by better contrast and the ability to resolve cracks, voids and different phases in this concrete sample.
Investigate the Properties and Performance of Building Materials
With Scanning Electron Microscopes and X-ray Microscopes
Think of further advancing self-healing concrete like researchers of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, for whom living organisms were a role model. Inspired by their ability to repair themselves to a certain extent after being damaged, the scientists started to work with potential minerals (magnesia, bentonite clay, quicklime) used in cement that expand when cracks form. This expansion of the mineral material fills the cracks and bridges them over time.
- Characterize the material’s microstructure and identify the self-healing bridges formed during the healing process.
- Capture high-definition topographical images using SEM with low acceleration energies.
- Identify the composition and mix of self-healing materials based on their structural pattern and formation style, including scaffolding structures, flower-like and other bridging and filling structures produced by different expansive materials during the healing process.
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