Practical Issues Related to the Application of Electromechanical Impedance-Based Method in Concrete Structural Health Monitoring

Here the piezoelectric Lead-Zirconate-Titanate (PZT) sensors were developed and embedded into concrete to actively provide the local excitation and simultaneously sense the structural dynamic response by using the electromechanical impedance (EMI) technique. The influences of mass variations of concrete structure and vibration condition on the EMI technique were investigated. The root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) index was used to evaluate the impedance spectra variation of the PZT sensor. The results show that the EMI technique is sensitive to the mass variation of the structure, and the EMI sensitivity shows the decreasing trend with increasing the distance between the PZT sensor and additive mass loadings on the concrete structure. The vibration condition is important for the accuracy of the EMI technique, which should be considered in the practical engineering application.