Cement-Based Piezoelectric Ceramic Composites for Sensing Elements: A Comprehensive State-of-the-Art Review

Abstract

Compatibility, a critical issue between sensing material and host structure, significantly influences the detecting performance (e.g., sensitive, signal-to-noise ratio) of the embedded sensor. To address this issue in concrete-based infrastructural health monitoring, cement-based piezoelectric composites (piezoelectric ceramic particles as a function phase and cementitious materials as a matrix) have attracted continuous attention in the past two decades, dramatically exhibiting superior durability, sensitivity, and compatibility. This review paper performs a synthetical overview of recent advances in theoretical analysis, characterization and simulation, materials selection, the fabrication process, and application of the cement-based piezoelectric composites. The critical issues of each part are also presented. The influencing factors of the materials and fabrication process on the final performance of composites are further discussed. Meanwhile, the application of the composite as a sensing element for various monitoring techniques is summarized. Further study on the experiment and simulation, materials, fabrication technique, and application are also pointed out purposefully.

Modeling and analysis of frequency-variable 2–2 cement-based piezoelectric transducers

“…Up to now, the effects of the tuning resistance, the ratio of piezoelectric layer numbers between the active and passive elements, the electrical connections of piezoelectric layers, and the total number of piezoelectric layers on the electromechanical properties of the frequency-variable 2-2 cement-based piezoelectric transducers have been clarified. It is as known that the final mechanical and electrical properties of the cement are really randomness, which are affected by some key factors, such as water-cement ratio, cement type, curing conditions, and moisture [47][48][49]. However, once the cement is finally completed, their mechanical and electrical properties can be assumed approximately as the constants for use [30,31].…”

“…However, once the cement is finally completed, their mechanical and electrical properties can be assumed approximately as the constants for use [30,31]. The main mechanical and electrical properties of the cement are elastic modulus, density, relative dielectric coefficient, and Poisson's ratio [24,30,31,47,48,50]. For the 2-2 cement based piezoelectric composites fabricated using the cutting-filling technique [14], these parameters have the effects on the performance of the transducers.…”

Experimentation and simulation study of electromechanical response characteristics of a 2-2 type cement-based piezoelectric composite sensor

“…The cement-based piezoelectric composite sensing materials are placed in important civil engineering structures as they effectively realize the online health monitoring, and effectively solve the problems of different expansion rates, poor interface compatibility, and mismatched acoustic impedance between the concrete and smart materials such as memory alloys and electrostrictive materials, etc. (Ding et al, 2021; Han et al, 2015).…”

Dynamic Response of Electro-Mechanical Properties of Cement-Based Piezoelectric Composites

“…Piezoelectric materials are widely used in structural damage diagnosis and health monitoring. Because of their low costs, fast response speeds, good reliability, suitable linear relationship, and decent electro-mechanical response characteristics, they also can be used in sensors and actuators [15][16][17][18]. In recent years, the good matching performance of cement-based piezoelectric composite materials and concrete materials has led to the development of a multifunctional sensor suitable for civil engineering [8,11,19].…”