Abstract
Cement-based sensors with hybrid conductive fillers using both carbon fibers (CFs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were experimentally investigated in this study. The self-sensing capacities of cement-based composites with only CFs or MWCNTs were found based on preliminary tests. The results showed that the percolation thresholds of CFs and MWCNTs were 0.5–1.0 vol.% and 1.0 vol.%, respectively. Based on these results, the feasibility of self-sensing composites with four different amounts of CFs and MWCNTs was considered under cyclic compression loads. When the amount of incorporated CFs increased and the amount of incorporated MWCNTs decreased, the self-sensing capacity of the composites was reduced. It was concluded that cement-based composites containing both 0.1 vol.% CFs and 0.5 vol.% MWCNTs could be an alternative to cement-based composites with 1.0 vol.% MWCNTs in order to achieve equivalent self-sensing performance at half the price. The gauge factor (GF) for that composite was 160.3 with an R-square of 0.9274 in loading stages I and II, which was similar to the GF of 166.6 for the composite with 1.0 vol.% MWCNTs.
Highlights
As infrastructure deterioration increases, the demand for structural health monitoring (SHM) and prognoses that can evaluate and predict the service life of structures is growing rapidly [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
2017, 17,the of 16 cement paste with 0.5% carbon fibers (CFs) had a total porosity of 23.4%, about 31% higher than that of cement paste without fibers, whereas cement paste with 0.5% multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) had a total porosity of 10.8%, about 64%
In stages I and II, the gauge factor (GF) was 160.3 with an R-square of 0.9274, shown in Figure 16, which is similar to the GF of 166.6 for the composite with 1.0 vol.% MWCNTs
Summary
The demand for structural health monitoring (SHM) and prognoses that can evaluate and predict the service life of structures is growing rapidly [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Azhari and Banthia [26] had been investigated the cyclic compression loading behavior of a cement-based sensor with 15% CFs and 1% multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs) They found that a cement-based sensor with hybrid fillers showed an improvement in repeatability and accuracy compared to cement-based sensor with 15% CFs. Luo et al [25] had been reported a cement-based nano-composite filled with 0.5% CFs and 0.1% MWCNTs, which is a huge difference from the work of Azhari and Banthia [26] in terms of filler content. Based on the experimental results for each filler, the feasibilities of self-sensing composites with four different hybrid filler contents were considered under cyclic compressive loads. The gauge factor was investigated to compare the composites’ sensitivity
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