Nondestructive Wireless Monitoring of Early-Age Concrete Strength Gain Using an Innovative Electromechanical Impedance Sensing System

Monitoring the concrete early-age strength gain at any arbitrary time from a few minutes to a few hours after mixing is crucial for operations such as removal of frameworks, prestress, or cracking control. This paper presents the development and evaluation of a potential active wireless USB sensing tool that consists of a miniaturized electromechanical impedance measuring chip and a reusable piezoelectric transducer appropriately installed in a Teflon-based enclosure to monitor the concrete strength development at early ages and initial hydration states. In this study, the changes of the measured electromechanical impedance signatures as obtained by using the proposed sensing system during the whole early-age concrete hydration process are experimentally investigated. It is found that the proposed electromechanical impedance (EMI) sensing system associated with a properly defined statistical index which evaluates the rate of concrete strength development is very sensitive to the strength gain of concrete structures from their earliest stages.

[1]  C. Yun,et al.  Piezoelectric sensor based nondestructive active monitoring of strength gain in concrete , 2008 .

[2]  Chung Bang Yun,et al.  Development of a low-cost multifunctional wireless impedance sensor node , 2010 .

[3]  Gangbing Song,et al.  Smart aggregates: multi-functional sensors for concrete structures—a tutorial and a review , 2008 .

[4]  Zongjin Li,et al.  Monitoring of cement hydration using embedded piezoelectric transducers , 2008 .

[5]  C. Providakis,et al.  T-WiEYE: An early-age concrete strength development monitoring and miniaturized wireless impedance sensing system , 2011 .

[6]  C. Liang,et al.  Electro-mechanical impedance modeling of active material systems , 1996 .

[7]  Rudy Tawie,et al.  Piezoelectric-based non-destructive monitoring of hydration of reinforced concrete as an indicator of bond development at the steel–concrete interface , 2010 .

[8]  Sun-Kyu Park,et al.  Impedance-based wireless debonding condition monitoring of CFRP laminated concrete structures , 2011 .

[9]  T. Harrison,et al.  Properties of Concrete for use in Eurocode 2 , 2008 .

[10]  Nicholas J. Carino,et al.  228.1R-03 In-Place Methods to Estimate Concrete Strength , 2003 .

[11]  P. Bowen,et al.  Changes in portlandite morphology with solvent composition: Atomistic simulations and experiment , 2011 .

[12]  Charles R. Farrar,et al.  A low-power wireless sensing device for remote inspection of bolted joints , 2009 .

[13]  Chee Kiong Soh,et al.  A Reusable PZT Transducer for Monitoring Initial Hydration and Structural Health of Concrete , 2010, Sensors.

[14]  Seunghee Park,et al.  Ubiquitous Piezoelectric Sensor Network (UPSN)-Based Concrete Curing Monitoring for u-Construction , 2010 .

[15]  Sung Woo Shin,et al.  Application of electro-mechanical impedance sensing technique for online monitoring of strength development in concrete using smart PZT patches , 2009 .