PZT Based Smart Aggregate for Unified Health Monitoring of RC Structures

Abstract

The most familiar civil engineering structure is reinforced concrete (RC) structure. Performance of structure undergoes changes during their service life with time. Thus, it is of great concern to monitor the health of RC structure. Structural health monitoring (SHM) is the art of detecting the changes in structure that influences its performance. Various techniques to monitor the health of structure are broadly studied worldwide. PZT based smart aggregate can play an effective role as an advanced tool in the development of structural health monitoring. This research work contributes for proposing a more generous Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) technique for structural health monitoring by using smart materials. If performance of a structure deviates from the design parameters with time, appropriate and effective maintenance is required. Considering the relevant need of RC structures, a more sensitive and cost-effective approach by using Electro-Mechanical Impedance (EMI) technique has been proposed for implementation in real-life situations. In general, surface bonded PZT transducer is used for SHM. Since PZT transducers are of very small dimension and brittle in nature, for consistent characteristics, they should be protected from severe environmental condition and other external interruptions. For this reason, PZT transducer is embedded in structure at the time of construction and manufacturing of the embedded transducer is simple. The proposed EMI technique assesses the health of RC structures more rationally by embedding PZT transducer in the structure, whose health is to be monitored over the user specified preset frequency range. The conductance and susceptance signatures are acquired by using LCR meter. At any future point of time, when it is desired to assess the health of structure, the conductance and susceptance signatures are acquired and further utilized for damage detection and quantification. The Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) is used to specify damage severity.