Study on self-sensing capabilities of smart cements filled with graphene oxide under dynamic cyclic loading

Abstract

Advances in the utilization of graphene materials in smart cement composites have contributed to the development of novel cement-based sensors for the structural health monitoring. In this study, cement composites (CCs) filled with graphene oxide (GO) (GO/CCs) were prepared, and its self-sensing capabilities under dynamic cyclic loading were studied. The effect of different loading frequencies and loading amplitudes on the self-sensing capabilities of GO/CCs were investigated. The results indicated that the addition of GO can decrease the electrical resistivity and reduce the polarization effect of cement pastes. Also, GO is contributed to the significant improvement in the self-sensing capabilities of cement pastes, reaching the most stable piezoresistive responses and highest self-sensing sensitivities at the content of 0.05 wt% GO. In addition, the piezoresistive model built for GO/CCs agreed well with the experimental data of self-sensing properties. It can describe a quadratic polynomial correlation between the changes in the resistance and compressive stress/strain of GO/CCs.