US DOD DARPA - Bio-inspired Restoration of Aged Concrete Edifices (BRACE)

The Bio-inspired Restoration of Aged Concrete Edifices (BRACE) program aims to prolong the serviceability of Department of Defense (DoD) structures and airfield pavements by integrating a self-repair capability into existing concrete. The BRACE program aims at developing bio-inspired approaches that 1) integrate deep within aged concrete to form a healing “vasculature” for ongoing damage repair; and 2) combine with new concrete to increase the durability of runway patch repairs.

To achieve these goals, BRACE performers will engineer and operationalize vascularizing agents for both long-term (e.g., steel-reinforced marine or buried infrastructure) and rapid (e.g., expeditionary airfield) use cases.

Areas of Interest:  Technical Area 1 (TA1): Engineer Vascularizing Effectors: The overall goal of TA1 is to create a bio-inspired vascularizing effector that will improve existing concrete durability by implementing an ongoing repair capability. Accordingly, TA1 will harness recent advances to address three key challenges: Vascularization, Crack Repair, and QC Diagnostics.

Technical Area 2 (TA2): Operationalize Vascularizing Effectors: The overall goal of TA2 is to develop approaches for operationalizing TA1 vascularizing effectors, so they are easy to adopt and deploy and provide well-characterized service life extension. Over the course of the program, performers will develop techniques to apply, characterize, and model vascularizing effectors on specimens of increasing size and complexity, approaching structural and operational realism by the program’s end.

DEADLINE: Proposal Abstract Due Date and Time: April 29, 2022; 4:00pm EST.

Full Proposal Due Date and Time: June 17, 2022; 4:00pm EST.

Proposers are strongly encouraged to submit an abstract (maximum of ten pages, including all figures, tables, and charts) in advance of a proposal to minimize effort and reduce the potential expense of preparing an out-of-scope proposal. DARPA will respond to abstracts providing feedback and indicating whether, after preliminary review, there is interest for the proposed work.

ELIGIBILITY: EPFL researchers are eligible to participate.

HOW TO APPLY: Abstracts and Full Proposals sent in response to HR001122S0029 may be submitted via DARPA’s BAA Website (https://baa.darpa.mil).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Please refer to the FOA HR001122S0029 and feel free to contact the Research Office or [email protected] for any question.