Dr. B. (Branko) Šavija

Profile

I am a tenure track assistant professor in the group of Materials and Environment, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology. During my PhD study (TU Delft, 2010-2014), I performed experiments and developed numerical models in the field of concrete durability. My doctoral thesis was selected as the best thesis funded by the Dutch technology foundation (STW), and I was named a “Simon Stevin Gezel” in 2015. Between 2014-2017, I was a post-doctoral researcher in the same group, and was working on development of smart concrete: self-healing concrete that is able to “heal” cracks upon damage, and concrete containing microencapsulated phase change materials (PCMs) that can help control temperature induced cracking. After working as a consultant in the industry (2017-2018), I returned to the University as an assistant professor to continue my work on development of smart concrete and micromechanical methods for testing them.

Research

I am interested in micromechanics of cementitious materials. My main goals are testing and modelling of cementitious materials at various length scales, development of new testing methods, understanding degradation, new material development. I do this in collaboration with other members of the section.
Furthermore, I am interested in the use of additive manufacturing (3D printing) techniques in construction materials. My intention is to investigate the possibilities of using various additive manufacturing techniques in the field of cementitious materials.

CIE4030 Methodology for scientific research
CIE5146 Micromechanics and Computational Modelling of Building Materials

Šavija, B., Pacheco, J., & Schlangen, E. (2013). Lattice modeling of chloride diffusion in sound and cracked concrete. Cement and Concrete Composites, 42, 30-40.
Šavija, B., Luković, M., Pacheco, J., & Schlangen, E. (2013). Cracking of the concrete cover due to reinforcement corrosion: a two-dimensional lattice model study. Construction and Building Materials, 44, 626-638.
Šavija, B., Luković, M., Hosseini, S. A. S., Pacheco, J., & Schlangen, E. (2015). Corrosion induced cover cracking studied by X-ray computed tomography, nanoindentation, and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS). Materials and Structures, 48(7), 2043-2062.
Luković, M., Šavija, B., Dong, H., Schlangen, E., & Ye, G. (2014). Micromechanical study of the interface properties in concrete repair systems. Journal of Advanced Concrete Technology, 12(9), 320-339.
Liu, D., Šavija, B., Smith, G. E., Flewitt, P. E., Lowe, T., & Schlangen, E. (2017). Towards understanding the influence of porosity on mechanical and fracture behaviour of quasi-brittle materials: experiments and modelling. International Journal of Fracture, 205(1), 57-72.
Šavija, B., Zhang, H., & Schlangen, E. (2017). Influence of microencapsulated phase change material (PCM) addition on (micro) mechanical properties of cement paste. Materials, 10(8), 863.
Zhang, H., Šavija, B., & Schlangen, E. (2018). Towards understanding stochastic fracture performance of cement paste at micro length scale based on numerical simulation. Construction and Building Materials, 183, 189-201.
Zhang, H., Šavija, B., Luković, M., & Schlangen, E. (2018). Experimentally informed micromechanical modelling of cement paste: An approach coupling X-ray computed tomography and statistical nanoindentation. Composites Part B: Engineering.