GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — You’ve probably heard the old saying about Michigan’s four seasons: They are fall, winter, spring and construction. There are plenty of factors that hinder the state’s infrastructure, but one of the biggest ones is the wear and tear on roads.

A team of researchers at Michigan State University are tackling the problem head-on with a new type of concrete that they claim is “flexible, self-heating and self-healing.”

Not only could it save drivers all sorts of headaches, but it potentially could be a major money saver.

Bill Jin is an assistant professor at MSU’s College of Engineering. He says to understand this new form of concrete, you have to understand the product typically used now.

“Concrete has been around for more than 2,000 years … and it has one key strength. (It is) very strong in compression. If you go to (Ford Field), go to (Spartan Stadium), you’ll see the columns, you’ll see bridges and piers,” Jin told News 8. “But there’s one key drawback. (Concrete) is very weak in tension. That’s why the current concrete (that we use for roads has) steel reinforcement. The steel provides the tension capacity.”

However, even with the steel reinforcement, the temperature swings in Michigan and other wear and tear can be too much for the concrete, and the bending and stretching within creates cracks. Those cracks allow water and chemicals into the concrete, exacerbating the problems and ultimately causing the concrete to fail.

Jin and his team of researchers have been working to find the best of both worlds, maintaining the compression strength of concrete while being flexible enough to prevent tension damage. They have advanced to the point where they have developed a type of concrete that is twice as strong and more than 500 times as ductile. That built-in flexibility also gives the new form of concrete the ability to “self-heal.”

“With normal concrete, you form very large cracks. … You can’t really stop anything, water, aggressive chemicals from getting in. But our bendable concrete is able to form very fine cracks,” Jin explained.

Those cracks are thinner than human hair — so thin that neither water nor corrosive chemicals can get in, effectively keeping the concrete sealed. Instead of the problem getting worse, the material maintains its strength and, when factors swing the other way, expands and shuts the cracks on its own.

The new form of concrete is also considered “self-heating.”

“During sunlight, (the concrete) is able to absorb some energy. Not too much energy to heat the concrete by itself, but the energy is absorbed, stored inside of the concrete, and when the temperature goes down, that energy is activated,” Jin said. “It releases the energy just enough to melt the snow on the surface.”

It all boils down to a potential product that could drastically change Michigan’s roads and open up funding earmarked for infrastructure to other places.

According to the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, the state of Michigan budgeted $5.7 billion for road and bridge programs in 2023. Part of that giant number is a larger emphasis on improving infrastructure and another is cost inflation, but road maintenance as a whole still racks up a giant price tag and, potentially, could be drastically reduced by concrete that requires less work.

Jin also noted that the infrastructure system wouldn’t need to be totally overhauled. The new concrete can be applied as a “protective layer” on top of healthy roads already in place.

“We just need a couple of inches (of the new concrete), one or two inches. That would be enough to serve as a protective layer to have those functionalities,” he said.

Jin said the next step for the product is to demonstrate how it works and to promote it, educating people about how it could impact our communities.

“Currently, we are talking with MSU infrastructure planning facilities. Hopefully, we can install a demonstration project inside the MSU campus. We can have one side by side,” he explained. “One is normal concrete. Another is our self-heating, self-healing, bendable concrete, and we can see exactly with our eyes or even by some sensors what is happening, how ours is more advantageous compared to the conventional concrete.”