Damage Evaluation in Shear-Critical Reinforced Concrete Beam using Piezoelectric Transducers as Smart Aggregates

Abstract

Damage detection at early cracking stages in shear-critical reinforced concrete beams, before further deterioration and their inevitable brittle shear failure is crucial for structural safety and integrity. The effectiveness of a structural health monitoring technique using the admittance measurements of piezoelectric transducers mounted on a reinforced concrete beam without shear reinforcement is experimentally investigated. Embedded “smart aggregate” transducers and externally bonded piezoelectric patches have been placed in arrays at both shear spans of the beam. Beam were tested till total shear failure and monitored at three different states; healthy, flexural cracking and diagonal cracking. Test results showed that transducers close to the critical diagonal crack provided sound and graduated discrepancies between the admittance responses at the healthy state and thedamage levels.Damage assessment using statistical indices calculated from the measurements of all transducers was also attempted. Rational changes of the index values were obtained with respect to the increase of the damage. Admittance responses and index values of the transducers located on the shear span where the critical diagonal crack formed provided cogent evidence of damage. On the contrary, negligible indication of damage was yielded by the responses of the transducers located on the other shear span, where no diagonal cracking occurred.

Damage Detection Using d15 Piezoelectric Sensors in a Laminate Beam Undergoing Three-Point Bending

“…Potential methods to address this are mentioned in the future work section and could include miniaturized sensing elements which have been developed already and are used to monitor various structures [39,40]. The development and evaluation of embedding sensing elements inside the bondline of laminate structures for structural integrity assessment using piezoelectric transducers has shown promising results and is still under investigation [2,3,41]. Furthermore, despite differing sensitivity of antisymmetric waves to the inflicted damage, bondline-embedded d15 PZTs provide a promising initial step forward for health monitoring of bondline integrity.…”

Cyclic Crack Monitoring of a Reinforced Concrete Column under Simulated Pseudo-Dynamic Loading Using Piezoceramic-Based Smart Aggregates

“…The principle of this approach is based on the electromechanical coupling effect of piezoelectric materials in relative high frequency range. The impedance-based approach has been applied to RC beams [29,30], frames [31], shear walls [15], and composite RC/masonry walls [32], in addition to RC bridges [33]. Meanwhile, a numerical modeling study on impedance-based damage identification has also been conducted [34].…”

Structural Health Monitoring and Interface Damage Detection for Infill Reinforced Concrete Walls in Seismic Retrofit of Reinforced Concrete Frames Using Piezoceramic-Based Transducers Under the Cyclic Loading

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