Experimental Study on Damage Detection in ECC-Concrete Composite Beams Using Piezoelectric Transducers

The use of engineered cementitious composite (ECC) has attracted extensive attention in recent years because of the highly enhanced ductility owing to its unique strain-hardening behavior. In this paper, an electromechanical impedance-based technique is used to monitor the structural damage of RC beams strengthened with an ECC layer at the tensile zone. To achieve this purpose, three specimens are tested under bending loads to evaluate the proposed damage detection methodology. Five externally bonded PZT transducers are uniformly distributed at the surface of the ECC layer of the beams to measure the output conductance signatures in a healthy state and in different damage scenarios induced by different load levels. Test results showed that discrepancies exist between the signals measured in the intact state and each damage state, which can be used to evaluate the structural integrity changes. To assess the damage of ECC-concrete composite beams quantitatively, the statistical scalar index-root mean square deviation (RMSD) is used as the index, which can be calculated from the variations of conductance measurements of PZT sensors. The damage index values of the uniformly distributed PZT sensors provided cogent evidence of damage and revealed the evolution of structural damage. The crack patterns of beams at different damage levels are compared with the damage index values, and it shows the damage location can be derived from the measured conductance signatures of an array of PZT transducers.