Purdue University Invention Named A Next Big Thing In Tech By Fast Company Magazine
Interstates across the country boast an innovative concrete technology that promises to save American travelers time and money. This “smart concrete” can communicate with engineers about its strength, weakness and need for repair – making road repair more efficient and preventing unnecessary shutdowns. Developed at Purdue University, the innovation is earning attention and has now been named one of the Next Big Things in Tech by Fast Company magazine.
Chosen from a pool of nearly 1,400 applicants, 124 final projects across 21 categories were selected for already making an impact on a real-world problem while also showing promise to make a greater impact in the years to come. Among large corporations and small startups, Purdue is the only university represented on the list.
Purdue shares the Transportation stage with organizations like ClearFlame Engine Technologies, which enables active heavy trucks to shift away from diesel fuel, and Walmart-backed DroneUp, a leader in aerial drone delivery.
Developed by Luna Lu, the American Concrete Pavement Association Professor of Civil Engineering in Purdue’s Lyles School of Civil Engineering, smart concrete works via sensors embedded into the pour during construction. The “smart” factor involves telling engineers, via smartphone app, when the concrete has reached maximum strength after construction or when it is beginning to break down.
“Traffic jams caused by infrastructure repairs have wasted 4 billion hours and 3 billion gallons of gas on a yearly basis,” Lu says. “This is primarily due to insufficient knowledge and understanding of our infrastructure’s condition.”
Fast Company states that the self-aware concrete may “provide highway users with a gift that will keep on giving.” Intelligent infrastructure, like roadways that feed us data, is a fairly new field, and Lu and her team already have a running (or rolling) start.
According to Lu, who is also director of the Center for Intelligent Infrastructure, digitally improved roadways may cut down on construction, be better for the environment and be more adaptive to future needs as vehicles continue to evolve.
Prototypes of the sensors have been in place throughout Indiana highways since 2019, thanks to Purdue partnerships with the Indiana Department of Transportation. A Federal Highway Administration nationwide pooled fund has allowed seven other states to join the project.
To improve the tech’s transfer to market, Lu founded WaveLogix, a startup focusing on Internet of Things sensing systems for infrastructure monitoring. Lu has disclosed the work to the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization, where she also licensed it to create WaveLogix. Under Lu, the startup recently received National Science Foundation support and recognition from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The recognition complements Purdue’s recent honor as, for the second year in a row, the only university on Fast Company’s 2022 list of Brands That Matter. Through accessible education and innovative, transferable technology, Purdue continues to ask, What can you imagine?