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ConcrEITS: An Electrical Impedance Interrogator for Concrete Damage Detection Using Self-Sensing Repairs

Concrete infrastructure requires continuous monitoring to ensure any new damage or repair failures are detected promptly. A cost-effective combination of monitoring and maintenance would be highly beneficial in the rehabilitation of existing infrastructure. Alkali-activated materials have been used...

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Autores principales: McAlorum, Jack, Perry, Marcus, Ward, Andrew C., Vlachakis, Christos
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8587345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34770388
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21217081
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author McAlorum, Jack
Perry, Marcus
Ward, Andrew C.
Vlachakis, Christos
author_facet McAlorum, Jack
Perry, Marcus
Ward, Andrew C.
Vlachakis, Christos
author_sort McAlorum, Jack
collection PubMed
description Concrete infrastructure requires continuous monitoring to ensure any new damage or repair failures are detected promptly. A cost-effective combination of monitoring and maintenance would be highly beneficial in the rehabilitation of existing infrastructure. Alkali-activated materials have been used as concrete repairs and as sensing elements for temperature, moisture, and chlorides. However, damage detection using self-sensing repairs has yet to be demonstrated, and commercial interrogation solutions are expensive. Here, we present the design of a low-cost tomographic impedance interrogator, denoted the “ConcrEITS”, capable of crack detection and location in concrete using conductive repair patches. Results show that for pure material blocks ConcrEITS is capable of measuring 4-probe impedance with a root mean square error of ±5.4% when compared to a commercially available device. For tomographic measurements, ConcrEITS is able to detect and locate cracks in patches adhered to small concrete beam samples undergoing 4-point bending. In all six samples tested, crack locations were clearly identified by the contour images gained from tomographic reconstruction. Overall, this system shows promise as a cost-effective combined solution for monitoring and maintenance of concrete infrastructure. We believe further up-scaled testing should follow this research before implementing the technology in a field trial.
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spelling pubmed-85873452021-11-13 ConcrEITS: An Electrical Impedance Interrogator for Concrete Damage Detection Using Self-Sensing Repairs McAlorum, Jack Perry, Marcus Ward, Andrew C. Vlachakis, Christos Sensors (Basel) Article Concrete infrastructure requires continuous monitoring to ensure any new damage or repair failures are detected promptly. A cost-effective combination of monitoring and maintenance would be highly beneficial in the rehabilitation of existing infrastructure. Alkali-activated materials have been used as concrete repairs and as sensing elements for temperature, moisture, and chlorides. However, damage detection using self-sensing repairs has yet to be demonstrated, and commercial interrogation solutions are expensive. Here, we present the design of a low-cost tomographic impedance interrogator, denoted the “ConcrEITS”, capable of crack detection and location in concrete using conductive repair patches. Results show that for pure material blocks ConcrEITS is capable of measuring 4-probe impedance with a root mean square error of ±5.4% when compared to a commercially available device. For tomographic measurements, ConcrEITS is able to detect and locate cracks in patches adhered to small concrete beam samples undergoing 4-point bending. In all six samples tested, crack locations were clearly identified by the contour images gained from tomographic reconstruction. Overall, this system shows promise as a cost-effective combined solution for monitoring and maintenance of concrete infrastructure. We believe further up-scaled testing should follow this research before implementing the technology in a field trial. MDPI 2021-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8587345/ /pubmed/34770388 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21217081 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
McAlorum, Jack
Perry, Marcus
Ward, Andrew C.
Vlachakis, Christos
ConcrEITS: An Electrical Impedance Interrogator for Concrete Damage Detection Using Self-Sensing Repairs
title ConcrEITS: An Electrical Impedance Interrogator for Concrete Damage Detection Using Self-Sensing Repairs
title_full ConcrEITS: An Electrical Impedance Interrogator for Concrete Damage Detection Using Self-Sensing Repairs
title_fullStr ConcrEITS: An Electrical Impedance Interrogator for Concrete Damage Detection Using Self-Sensing Repairs
title_full_unstemmed ConcrEITS: An Electrical Impedance Interrogator for Concrete Damage Detection Using Self-Sensing Repairs
title_short ConcrEITS: An Electrical Impedance Interrogator for Concrete Damage Detection Using Self-Sensing Repairs
title_sort concreits: an electrical impedance interrogator for concrete damage detection using self-sensing repairs
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8587345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34770388
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21217081
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