Kiacrete

A new kind of permeable paving embeds recycled plastic tubes in a self-compacting cementitious material

众所周知，预制和原位可渗透的人行道产品都可以通过使降雨通过硬城市表面排出来减少雨水径流。这使城镇和城市不易洪水泛滥，有助于地下水充电，并可以减少传统的雨水排水的需求。毫不奇怪，近年来，它们变得越来越受欢迎 - 但是，由于不断扩大的城市和气候变化，城市洪水坚持不存在。那么，为什么不更广泛地使用此类系统呢？

受到帮助防止破坏性城市洪水的愿望的启发，Alalea Kia博士在伦敦帝国学院获得了博士学位，研究了可渗透的混凝土人行道。她着手设计一种新型的基础架构，该基础架构可用于更广泛的应用程序，并且需要最少的维护。典型的渗透混凝土使用禁忌混合物来实现开放结构。她的系统被称为Kiacrete，包括一种自相配的胶合物材料，该材料在垂直塑料管的永久性模板周围倒入。2020年夏季安装了帝国自己的白城市场所的试用，令起亚感到高兴的是，表现良好。

“The lightweight permanent formwork, made from recycled plastic, interlocks like Lego to cover the required area,” she says. “We then pour the self-compacting material to the required depth, and once it has set, the surface is lightly ground to open up the pores, creating a direct route for rainwater to flow to the sub-base.” Using a denser concrete with holes gives Kiacrete a higher strength of 50-60MPa, expanding the range of locations where permeable paving can be used. The size of the tubes, 6mm in diameter, has also enabled it to perform well in challenging conditions: “Even though the trial is near a dusty building site, the system still works very well after two years in service with no maintenance.”

Kia’s spin-out company, Permia, is speaking to local government, transport infrastructure operators, engineering consultancies and contractors about installing Kiacrete in different kinds of field site. “The first trial was relatively light use – pedestrians and occasional site vehicles. But Kiacrete is easily adaptable and we want to test it under more challenging conditions.” She is also keen for the technology to be adopted internationally – for example, in monsoon climates.

The diameter and spacing of the tubes, as well as the cementitious material, can be adjusted to suit different applications, she adds, and not only to vary the drainage capacity: “By spacing tubes further apart, for example, we could introduce coarser aggregates into the mix to make it stronger, or add skid-resistance. We can also use rebar between the tubes to make it stronger still – something that cannot be done with open-structure permeable concrete as the water ingress would cause it to corrode.”

2021年，起亚赢得了皇家工程研究奖学金学院的奖学金，以将其技术应用于机场，通过工程化，可以使他们全年保持地表水，冰和雪的范围。她还获得了英国研究和创新授予200万英镑的赠款，以开发第一个可渗透的人行道，并具有足够的力量和弹性，以便基础设施（例如高速公路和铁路）。她说：“我想进行最先进的研究，以使环境和社会受益，特别是受城市洪水和干旱等极端天气事件影响的地方。”

Interview by Tony Whitehead

^{出版于CQ Summer 2022}