Exploratory study on water seepage monitoring of concrete structures using piezoceramic based smart aggregates

The technology of piezoceramic based smart aggregates (SAs) has demonstrated its potential in the comprehensive monitoring of concrete structures. However, its usage in the moisture monitoring of concrete structures has not yet been explored. In this research, SA transducers are used to detect the degree of water infiltration in concrete components and an active sensing method is proposed for moisture monitoring. For experimental study and verification, two short plain concrete columns, with embedded SAs, were fabricated, and an apparatus was developed to perform moisture monitoring of these two columns under different moisture conditions. Data were analyzed to study the relationship between the depth of water seepage and the sensing indicators of receiving signals. Experimental results show that the sensing indicators are very sensitive to the degree of water infiltration inside the column. These sensing indicators show a decreasing trend with increasing depth of water seepage, and this leads to the promising conclusion that these parameters can be used as evaluation indices for the water seepage monitoring of concrete structures. (paper)