Due to its direct link to structural security, crack width is thought to be one of the most important parameters reflecting damage conditions of concrete structures. However, the width problem is difficult to solve with the existing structural health monitoring methods. In this paper, crack width monitoring by means of adhering enameled copper wires with different ultimate strains on the surface of structures is proposed, based on smart film crack monitoring put forward by the present authors. The basic idea of the proposed method is related to a proportional relationship between the crack width and ultimate strain of the broken wire. Namely, when a certain width of crack passes through the wire, some low ultimate strain wires will be broken and higher ultimate strain wires may stay non-broken until the crack extends to a larger scale. Detection of the copper wire condition as broken or non-broken may indicate the width of the structural crack. Thereafter, a multi-layered stress transfer model and specimen experiment are performed to quantify the relationship. A practical smart film is then redesigned with this idea and applied to Chongqing Jiangjin Yangtze River Bridge.
It is difficult for the existing point monitoring methods to find the initial crack on the civil infrastructure. In this article, by adopting the area monitoring method, the sensitive skin and the relative sensing system is proposed, which has the ability to real-time monitor the initial crack on the surface of civil infrastructure. The system is composed of three main parts: sensitive skin, secondary processor, and terminal processor. The concrete specimen experiments show that the system can monitor the structural surface crack with the width down to 0.02 mm and reflect the shape and length of the crack effectively. Because the whole circuit is digital and the most consumed sensitive skin is inexpensive, the system may have excellent performance in cost, accuracy, and sensitivity.
e prestress loss is one of the main factors affecting the safety of prestressed concrete structure. While the detecting signals like sound and light are difficult to spread in steel strands, there is no effective method for prestress detection of the bonded prestressed steel strands in existing structures yet. In this paper, taking into consideration that the electromagnetic oscillation characteristic can make the signal propagate effectively on the bonded prestressed steel strands, a nondestructive prestress detection method based on the electromagnetic effect to detect oscillation frequency is proposed. In a detection circuit, the steel strands are simulated as an inductance component, in which an induced electromagnetic signal passes through the steel strands to form resonance. And then, a frequency meter is used to detect the oscillation frequency of the resonant circuit. e oscillation frequency is supposed to have relationship with the prestress loading on the steel strands. A section of steel strands with a length of 1.2 m is adopted to test the correlation of stress and oscillation frequency. Both the theoretical and experimental results show that the resonant frequency of the circuit decreases with the increase of the stress of the strand and is linear in a certain range.
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