Capacitance-based structural self-sensing of stress: effect of water/cement

The compressive stress self-sensing properties of mortars with different water-cement ratios are investigated without the need for any conductive additives. Mortar specimens are cyclically loaded and the corresponding capacitance and resistance are measured. The aluminum foil that is used as the electrode is wrapped around the prismatic sample. A coplanar configuration of electrodes is used. Capacitance and resistance increase with increasing water/cement (W/C) ratio. Stress causes decrease in capacitance and increase in resistance. The relationship between stress and fractional capacitance-resistance (except for the sample with 0.30 W C-1 ratio) change is reasonably consistent. The effectiveness of stress sensing (the fractional change in capacitance-resistance per unit of stress) decreases monotonically as the maximum stress increases, regardless of the W/C ratio. It is found that the dependence of the effectiveness of the stress sensing on the W/C ratio decreases with an increase in the maximum stress.