Concrete, the construction industry’s building material of choice for hundreds of years, is an extremely tough and durable product.  Being such a rigid product, concrete has inherently poor tensile strength, which is its ability to withstand being stretched, as opposed to compressing.  This poor tensile strength leads to cracking, which eventually leads to failure.  Scientists have been racing to discover the cure to concrete’s cracking problem for years, most notably Henk Jonkers’ bio-concrete, which uses microorganisms to “heal” cracked concrete.  

The newest challengers to the material’s flexibility problem are a group of scientists from Nanyung Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.  The team calls their product “ConFlexPave” and it not only bends under pressure, unlike concrete, it’s also thinner and maybe even stronger than its traditional brethren.