Development of a Wireless Corrosion Detection System for Steel-Framed Structures Using Pulsed Eddy Currents

Area of Science:

• Engineering
• Materials Science
• Structural Health Monitoring

Background:

• Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) offer efficient structural health monitoring (SHM).
• Existing high-performance hardware for WSNs in SHM is unsuitable due to high power consumption, cost, and size.
• Effective real-time data sampling is crucial for SHM systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an optimal remote monitoring system platform for SHM.
• To utilize pulsed eddy current (PEC) technology for measuring steel corrosion in structures.
• To enable the use of conventional WSN hardware for SHM data acquisition.

Main Methods:

• Designed a resistance-inductance-capacitance (RLC) circuit to delay PEC responses for data sampling.
• Integrated the PEC sensing modules with a wireless sensor network (WSN).
• Conducted simulations and experiments to verify the proposed system's functionality.

Main Results:

• Successfully sampled PEC responses from a corroded steel specimen remotely.
• Demonstrated the viability of using conventional WSN hardware with the developed system.
• Validated the importance of configuring sensing modules and WSN for effective remote monitoring.

Conclusions:

• Presented a viable remote SHM system platform for diagnosing steel structure corrosion.
• The proposed system effectively addresses the limitations of conventional SHM hardware.
• The RLC-based data sampling circuit enables efficient corrosion monitoring in steel-framed constructions.