Experimental Validation of Damage Detection in Concrete Beams Under Impact Load Using Piezo Sensors

Abstract

Over the past few years, damage detection and structural health monitoring have gained a lot of interest in the civil engineering field. Smart materials such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT) is being widely used to detect damages in a structure with the help of electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) technique. The EMI technique uses both the direct and converse piezoelectric effect which allows the PZT sensor to act as both the actuator and the sensor. The PZT patches uses high-frequency responses to detect damage. Changes in admittance signature indicates the damage, and this is quantified by using root mean square deviation index (RMSD). In this study, experimental investigation of a plain concrete beam with embedded PZT sensors under impact load is used to find the extent of damage detection properties of PZT sensors. From the study, it can be concluded that the RMSD percentage value and peak value of admittance signature are increasing with each impact which indicates the increase in extent of damage with each impact. It can be concluded that EMI technique has proven to be one of the effective methods for structural health monitoring.