Abstract
Precast concrete segmental bridges (PCSBs) have been widely used in bridge engineering due to their numerous competitive advantages. The structural behavior and health status of PCSBs largely depend on the performance of the joint between the assembled segments. However, due to construction errors and dynamic loading conditions, some cracks and leakages have been found at the epoxy joints of PCSBs during the construction or operation stage. These defects will affect the joint quality, negatively impacting the safety and durability of the bridge. A structural health monitoring (SHM) method using active sensing with a piezoceramic-based smart aggregate (SA) to detect the crack and leakage in the epoxy joint of PCSBs was proposed and the feasibility was studied by experiment in the present work. Two concrete prisms were prefabricated with installed SAs and assembled with epoxy joint. An initial defect was simulated by leaving a 3-cm crack at the center of the joint without epoxy. With a total of 13 test cases and the different lengths of cracks without water and filled with water were simulated and tested. Time-domain analysis, frequency-domain analysis and wavelet-packet-based energy index (WPEI) analysis were conducted to evaluate the health condition of the structure. By comparing the collected voltage signals, Power Spectrum Density (PSD) energy and WPEIs under different healthy states, it is shown that the test results are closely related to the length of the crack and the leakage in the epoxy joint. It is demonstrated that the devised approach has certain application value in detecting the crack and leakage in the joint of PCSBs.
Highlights
The precast segmental construction (PSC) method is very suitable for medium- and long-span bridge projects due to its efficiency and economy [1,2,3]
Since the Choisy-le-Roi bridge, the first precast concrete segmental bridge (PCSB), was built in France in 1962, great progress has been made in the precast segmental construction method and thousands of bridges have been built with this method [9,10,11]
This paper develops the relationship between the length of the crack the stress wave
Summary
The precast segmental construction (PSC) method is very suitable for medium- and long-span bridge projects due to its efficiency and economy [1,2,3]. Using active sensing monitoring concrete bending stiffness [46], detecting the grouting quality in prestressed tendon duct [47], methods, PZTs have been successfully applied in monitoring concrete bending stiffness [46], inspectingthe thegrouting loosenedquality connection [48] and characterizing cracks [49,50]. SA to detect interface provided an innovative method to inspect the debonding damage in a concrete-filled steel tube [53]. The feasibility study of the PZT-based approach in detecting the crack or leakage has been stress status in concrete structures [55]. Monitored the water seepage in concrete columns with conducted an active sensing approach to identify the crack damage in the pipeline using a damage piezoceramic-based.
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