Intrinsic self-sensing concrete to energize infrastructure intelligence and resilience: A review

Abstract

Under loading and environmental actions, infrastructures undergo continuous aging and deterioration of the constituent materials during their service lifespan. In-situ monitoring the aging and deterioration at material level of infrastructures can provide effective protection and maintenance prior to serious failure, thus enhancing their safety and lifespan as well as resilience. Therefore, self-sensing performance of materials is an important paradigm for updating infrastructures with intelligent digital insights. Concrete, the most widely used engineering material for infrastructure construction, inherently lacks self-sensing property. The incorporation of functional fillers can form a conductive sensory “neural” system inside concrete, thus empowering concrete with the capability to sense stress (or force), strain (or deformation), and damage (e.g., cracking, fatigue) in itself, and also improving (or maintaining) its mechanical properties and durability. The emergence of intrinsic self-sensing concrete has laid a material foundation for realizing in-situ monitoring, contributing to the development of intelligent and resilient infrastructures. This review concisely introduces the significant research progress of research on the composition and preparation, measurement and characterization, performance and control, mechanism and model, and application of intrinsic self-sensing concrete in civil and transportation infrastructures, as well as current challenges and roadmap for its future development.