A novel electromechanical impedance–based model for strength development monitoring of cementitious materials

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 902-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xubin Lu ◽  
Yee Yan Lim ◽  
Chee Kiong Soh

Strength monitoring of early age concrete improves the efficiency of construction as it provides information on the optimum time for shoring removal and pre-stress transferring. Electromechanical impedance technique has been proven to be a useful tool for strength monitoring of cementitious materials. One of the key limitations of this technique is the lack of physical models, which resulted in strong reliance on statistical analysis tools to quantify the strength of structure being monitored. In this proof-of-concept study, a novel electromechanical impedance–based model with the potential of monitoring the strength of cementitious materials using the concept of Smart Probe is proposed. Instead of directly bonding a lead zirconate titanate patch on the host structure, a lead zirconate titanate was first surface-bonded on a pre-fabricated aluminum beam, which is termed Smart Probe. The Smart Probe was then partially embedded into cementitious materials for strength monitoring. The structural resonant frequencies of the Smart Probe can be identified from the conductance signatures measured from the lead zirconate titanate patch throughout the curing process and serve as strength indicator. By modeling the cementitious material as an elastic foundation supporting the Smart Probe, an analytical model was developed to predict the dynamic modulus of elasticity of cementitious materials based on the resonance frequency of the Smart Probe. Experimental study was carried out on a mortar slab specimen to verify the model and to investigate the performance of the Smart Probe. It was found that the dynamic modulus of elasticity of the host structure could be predicted from the conductance signatures using the proposed model. Compressive strength assessment was achieved by establishing an empirical relation with the dynamic modulus. The proposed electromechanical impedance–based model with Smart Probe is physically parametric in nature and shows high repeatability, which renders its superiority over the conventional statistical method–based electromechanical impedance technique for strength monitoring of cementitious materials.

2009 ◽  
Vol 79-82 ◽  
pp. 2031-2034 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chee Kiong Soh ◽  
Yee Yan Lim

In this paper, the feasibility of damage detection and characterization using the EMI technique on high cycles fatigue induced damage is investigated. Cyclic tensile load is applied on a lab sized aluminium beam up to failure. Piezo-impedance transducer in the form of PZT patch (lead zirconate titanate) is surface bonded on the specimen for crack detection. Progressive shift in admittance signatures measured by the PZT patch corresponding to increase of loading cycles reflects effectiveness of the EMI technique in tracing the process of fatigue damage progression.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (16) ◽  
pp. 1898-1909
Author(s):  
Qijian Liu ◽  
Yuan Chai ◽  
Xinlin Qing

A variety of structural health monitoring techniques have been developed to support the efficient online monitoring of structural integrity. Moreover, Lamb wave and electromechanical impedance methods are increasingly used for structural health monitoring applications due to their high sensitivity and effectiveness in detecting damage. However, these techniques require transducers to be permanently attached to structures because of the usage of baselines recorded under the condition without damage. In this study, a reusable piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducer for monitoring corrosion damage on the aluminum plate is introduced, which can be removed from the test specimen and reused with the repeatability of signals. The reusable piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducer is bonded on the aluminum plate using the ethylene-acrylic acid copolymer with an aluminum enclosure. A series of experiments are conducted on an aluminum plate, including the investigation for repeatability of signals and the capability of corrosion detection of the designed piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducer through the Lamb wave and electromechanical impedance methods. The simulated corrosion defect with the area of 15 × 15 mm2 is detected during experiments. The experimental results confirm that the reusable piezoelectric lead zirconate titanate transducer can effectively evaluate the corrosion damage to plate structure and can be reused many times.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xubin Lu ◽  
Yee Yan Lim ◽  
Iman Izadgoshasb ◽  
Chee Kiong Soh

Electromechanical impedance (EMI) technique provides an alternative means of characterizing strength development of early age concrete on a real-time basis. However, most existing studies employing the technique heavily rely on statistical tools for strength development characterization. This article proposes a new impedance-based approach to strength and dynamic modulus assessment of cementitious materials. In this approach, a lead zirconate titanate patch is surfaced-bonded on a customized cementitious material specimen, known as ‘Miniature Prism’, in which the conductance signatures throughout the curing process are acquired. A 3D coupled field finite element (FE) model is then developed to compute the conductance signatures and model updating is performed using the experimental results. The conductance signatures computed by the updated FE model are found to be in good agreement with experimental results. The key contribution of this approach is the use of ‘Miniature Prism’ which ensures consistency of the resonance peaks in the conductance spectrum between identical specimens. This has been very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with the conventional EMI technique. This merit allows for modelling of the electromechanical system and hence parametrically predicting the dynamic modulus of elasticity of the cementitious material throughout the curing process. Comparative study is also conducted on various conventional and advanced techniques and results indicate that the proposed technique is effective in strength assessment of cementitious materials. In addition, the technique is suitable for autonomous online monitoring purpose, and thus exhibits promising potential to substitute the conventional non-destructive testing methods.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (12) ◽  
pp. 1477-1494 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuan Zhang ◽  
Xianfeng Wang ◽  
Qixiang Yan ◽  
Cumaraswamy Vipulanandan ◽  
Gangbing Song

The artificial ground freezing is an important technique for soft soil reinforcement and underground water sealing carried out by continuously refrigerating ground. It is of great significance to monitor the soil strength development in artificial ground freezing projects not only for better evaluation of the soil freeze–thaw status but also for predicting and controlling the concurrent adverse effects which may cause serious engineering accidents. In this study, the electromechanical impedance method was explored in monitoring the soil strength development in the freeze–thaw process. The lead zirconate titanate transducer was embedded inside the soil specimen, and changes in the conductance signatures were monitored throughout the soil freeze–thaw process. The experimental results indicate that the resonant frequency of the embedded lead zirconate titanate transducer can serve as a reliable index for assessment of the soil’s dynamic elastic modulus in the freeze–thaw process. More importantly, an analytical model was developed based on the piezo-elasticity theory to characterize the correlation between the electromechanical impedance of the lead zirconate titanate transducer and the soil’s mechanical properties, and its validity was further confirmed by the experimental research. Based on the proposed model, the development of the soil’s strength can be well predicted from the measured conductance signatures. As a nondestructive testing method, the proposed soil testing technique will help save considerable time and resources by avoiding the conventional sampling, specimen preparation, and testing of soil. The theoretical and experimental research will contribute to the future application of the electromechanical impedance method in real-life artificial ground freezing engineering projects.


2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suresh Bhalla ◽  
Sumedha Moharana

The performance (sensing/actuating) of a piezotransducer highly depends upon the ability of the bond layer to transfer the stress and strain (through shear lag mechanism) between the transducer and the structure. Therefore, the coupled electromechanical response of the piezotransducer should consider the effect of dynamic behaviour, geometry and composition of the adhesive layer used to bond the transducer patch on the structure. This article presents a new refined analytical model for inclusion of the shear lag effect in modelling of adhesively bonded piezoelectric ceramic (lead zirconate titanate) patches for consideration in the electromechanical impedance technique. The previous models neglected the inertial term in shear lag formulations for simplicity. The present refined model, on the other hand, considers the inertial and the shear lag effects simultaneously, and is therefore more rigorous and complete. In this article, the formulations are first derived for one-dimensional case, and then extended to two-dimensional lead zirconate titanate–structure interaction. The overall results are found to be in better proximity to experimental observations. The refined formulations are employed for a detailed stress analysis of the bond layer. The article concludes with a parametric study on the influence of various sensor parameters on the electromechanical impedance signatures.


Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thanh-Cao Le ◽  
Duc-Duy Ho ◽  
Thanh-Canh Huynh

As a key load-bearing element in a prestressed structure, the anchor should be appropriately monitored to secure its as-built prestressing force. In previous studies, the impedance-based prestress force monitoring technique through a mountable lead–Zirconate–Titanate (PZT) interface was developed. However, the previous design of the PZT interface uses a two-point mount technique through two bonding layers, causing inconveniences during installation and replacement processes. To address this issue, we propose an alternative PZT interface model for prestress force monitoring based on the impedance method. The proposed model uses a single-point mounting technique that allows it to be more conveniently installed and replaced on a host structure. First, the electromechanical impedance of the proposed PZT interface is theoretically derived. The proof-of-concept of the proposed PZT interface for impedance monitoring is then shown by finite element modelling. Afterwards, a lab-scaled experiment is conducted on an anchoring system to demonstrate the practical application feasibility of the proposed technique. The obtained results show that the proposed technique can produce impedance responses that are highly sensitive to the prestress force. The performance of the proposed model for impedance-based prestress force monitoring is found to be comparable with the previous techniques (the washer-type mount and the two-point mount). Due to its advantage of simple design, the newly designed PZT interface is promising for the future development of the impedance-based anchor force monitoring systems in practice.


Author(s):  
M.L.A. Dass ◽  
T.A. Bielicki ◽  
G. Thomas ◽  
T. Yamamoto ◽  
K. Okazaki

Lead zirconate titanate, Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT), ceramics are ferroelectrics formed as solid solutions between ferroelectric PbTiO3 and ant iferroelectric PbZrO3. The subsolidus phase diagram is shown in figure 1. PZT transforms between the Ti-rich tetragonal (T) and the Zr-rich rhombohedral (R) phases at a composition which is nearly independent of temperature. This phenomenon is called morphotropism, and the boundary between the two phases is known as the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB). The excellent piezoelectric and dielectric properties occurring at this composition are believed to.be due to the coexistence of T and R phases, which results in easy poling (i.e. orientation of individual grain polarizations in the direction of an applied electric field). However, there is little direct proof of the coexistence of the two phases at the MPB, possibly because of the difficulty of distinguishing between them. In this investigation a CBD method was found which would successfully differentiate between the phases, and this was applied to confirm the coexistence of the two phases.


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