Application of Translucent Concrete for Lighting Purposes in Civil Infrastructures and its Optical Characterization

Abstract

The discovery of translucent concrete some years ago, opened a new horizon in Civil Engineering. Many researchers have looked for applications in matter of structural mechanics in order to replace classical concrete by this new and challenging material. However, the scientific and technical communities working in Civil Engineering seem to be still far away from clear ideas and strategies to take profit of one of the main properties of this material: its possibility to transmit light. The reason is complex: on one hand, most of the researchers are mainly interested in the mechanical properties and other researchers, more interested on lighting, maybe find it as a decorative element, but not as a functional one from the point of view of lighting. In this work, two lines concerning its optical characterization (which must be always the first step) and some applications to road tunnels are presented. We will see that more active and multidisciplinary research is still needed before fully understanding and accurately use this material for lighting purposes.