The structures are challenged by earthquakes, material degradations and other environmental factors. In order to protect the lives, assets, and for maintenance planning, structural health monitoring (SHM) is important. In SHM applications, strain gages are widely used which have low durability, low sensitivity while they have high cost. To monitor a structure, large number of strain gages have to be used that increases the cost. In this study, seven coal reinforced concrete mixtures with 0, 0.35, 0.5, 0.8, 1, 1.5 and 2 volume % of coal were designed; three cubic samples for each mixture were fabricated. Simultaneous strain and electrical resistance measurements of the samples during the compression test were conducted. A strong linear relationship between strain and electrical resistance change with a correlation coefficient of 0.99 was determined. The concrete mixture having 0.8% coal volume had the highest strain sensitivity of K=44, which was 22 times the strain sensitivity of commercial metal strain gages while it had a linearity error of LE=6.9% that was low. This mixture with 0.8% coal volume is a candidate to be smart concrete which can sense its strain. As a contribution to the literature, a phenomenological model for the relationship between gage factor and coal volume percentage was explained in details. The multifunctional smart concrete will be used as a smart material, which can sense its strain in SHM applications while acting as a load bearing material.

Earthquakes, material deteriorations and other environmental factors challenge the structural safety. In order to protect the lives, structural health monitoring is crucial. The metal foil strain gages have low durability, low sensitivity and can get point wise measurements which are disadvantages. In this study six different concrete mixtures were designed; one without any copper powder, the rest five having different copper powder volume fractions. Three cube samples from each mixture were cast and cured. Simultaneous measurement of electrical resistance and strain were conducted during the compression tests. A strong linear relationship between strain and electrical resistance change was obtained for copper powder reinforced concrete. The results are contribution to the development of “Smart Concrete” which can sense its strain and damage.