A Review on Concrete Structural Properties and Damage Evolution Monitoring Techniques

Abstract

Concrete structures have emerged as some of the most extensively utilized materials in the construction industry due to their inherent plasticity and high-strength characteristics. However, due to the temperature fluctuations, humidity, and damage caused by human activities, challenges such as crack propagation and structural failures pose threats to the safety of people’s lives and property. Meanwhile, conventional non-destructive testing methods are limited to defect detection and lack the capability to provide real-time monitoring and evaluating of concrete structural stability. Consequently, there is a growing emphasis on the development of effective techniques for monitoring the health of concrete structures, facilitating prompt repairs and mitigation of potential instabilities. This paper comprehensively presents traditional and novel methods for concrete structural properties and damage evolution monitoring, including emission techniques, electrical resistivity monitoring, electromagnetic radiation method, piezoelectric transducers, ultrasonic techniques, and the infrared thermography approach. Moreover, the fundamental principles, advantages, limitations, similarities and differences of each monitoring technique are extensively discussed, along with future research directions. Each method has its suitable monitoring scenarios, and in practical applications, several methods are often combined to achieve better monitoring results. The outcomes of this research provide valuable technical insights for future studies and advancements in the field of concrete structural health monitoring.

Combinatorial Quantification of Multi-Features of Coda Waves in Temperature-Affected Concrete Beams

“…Various technologies such as strain gauges (SGs), electromechanical impedance (EMI), fiber Bragg grating (FBG), etc., which are based on different working principles and scopes, have been developed and widely used in SHM. For instance, traditional sensors such as SGs and thermocouples are technically mature and inexpensive, and can measure the localized state of a concrete structure; the optical properties of light in the fibers of FBG sensors show high sensitivity to multiple parameter changes in the structural state [1]; EMI monitors the state of the structure through the structural response under electromagnetic excitation [2]; and magnetic testing (MT) [3], radar wave detection (RWD) [4], radiation detection (RD) [5], and infrared thermography monitoring (IRT) [6] can achieve a wide range of detection in concrete structures. In the sonic technique, acoustic parameters of sound waves correlate with the state of the propagation medium; among them, acoustic emission (AE) is a passively received acoustic wave method tested during damage development [5][6][7], while ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) detects the medium's state by calculating the wave speed of a direct wave [5,8].…”