Experimental study on identifying the number of wire breaks in prestressed concrete cylinder pipe based on piezoelectric sensing technology

Abstract

Identifying wire breaks in prestressed concrete cylinder pipes (PCCP) has become an important research topic in recent years. Based on previous numerical studies, this paper presents the first experimental study to identify the number of wire breaks in a PCCP using piezoelectric sensing technology. During the experiment, wire breaks were simulated on a large-diameter embedded DN4000 PCCP and small-diameter lined DN700 PCCP, with a testing device designed to realise the identification method using body stress waves as a medium. Based on the analysis of the output voltage, two types of damage indices were adopted to evaluate the wire break damage. The optimal identification frequencies and corresponding damage indices were determined for different engineering application scenarios. The experimental results are consistent with those of previous numerical simulation studies, further confirming the validity of this technique.