A New High Strength 0–3 PZT Composite for Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract

Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) cement-based composites are used in structural health monitoring. These composites are fabricated from Portland cement matrix and PZT powder under high pressure by steam curing to potential applications in civil engineering. Some researchers proposed different PZT cement-based composites for structural health monitoring (Zhang, J Cement Concrete Res 32:825, 2002; Li et al. J Cement Concrete Res 27:27, 2005; Xin et al. J Eur Ceram Soc 25:3223–3228, 2005; Shifeng et al. J Ferroelectr 187, 2006) , which all of them do not have acceptable tensile and compressive strengths. Therefore these cement-based composites cannot be used as structural members. In this study, to eliminate this disadvantage, a new 0–3 Nano-PZT cement based composite is proposed which has excellent high tensile and compressive strengths and good vibration signal sensing ability. This composite contains quartz aggregates and mentioned materials. 96 standard specimens were constructed and tested according to ASTM C-39 and ASTM C-1583 standard codes requirements under different terms and conditions. The results show that the tensile and compressive strengths of this new proposed composite are about 12 times higher than the recent 0–3 Nano-PZT cement-based composites which were proposed by Zhang (J Cement Concrete Res 32:825, 2002), Li et al. (J Cement Concrete Res 27:27, 2005), Shifeng et al. (J Ferroelectr 187, 2006). Also experimental tests indicated that the piezoelectric properties of the present new PZT composite are in good agreement with theoretical and experimental results (Banno, Advanced Ceramics, p. 8, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988; Mazur, Ferroelectric Polymers: Chemistry, Physics and Applications, p. 539, New York: Inc., New York, 1995).