A startup called Allium Engineering, founded by two MIT PhDs, claims to have created a new building process that can triple the lifetime of bridges and other structures by using stainless steel cladding to make rebar more resilient to corrosion.

Corrosion-Resistant Steel

Less corrosion in infrastructure means longer-lasting structures that require less maintenance. One of the key causes of infrastructure aging is rust accumulating in the rebar, causing it to break apart the concrete around it.

“Across the U.S., the typical bridge deck lasts about 30 years on average — we’re enabling 100-year lifetimes,” stated Allium co-founder and CEO Steven Jepeal in a press release.

“There’s a huge backlog of infrastructure that needs to be replaced, and that has frankly aged faster than it was expected to, largely because the materials we were using at the time weren’t cut out for the job. We’re trying to ride the momentum of rebuilding America’s infrastructure, but rebuild in a way that makes it last.”

According to the press release, the Allium Engineering technology can be easily integrated into existing steelmaking processes to make infrastructure more resilient and ultimately cost-effective. The process simply involves adding a thin protective layer of stainless steel on top of traditional steel rebar.

Approximately 100,000 pounds of Allium’s stainless steel-clad rebar have been used in construction projects across the U.S. thus far, according to Interesting Engineering. The firm’s first facility has the capacity to produce around 1,000 tons of rebar annually, but the company aspires to bring its process to steel mill partners around the country.

“We integrate our system into mills so they don’t have to do anything differently,” says Jepeal, who co-founded Allium with Sam McAlpine.

“That’s what needs to happen for all of the world’s infrastructure to be longer lasting,” he added.