Experimental study on obtaining hydraulic concrete strength by use of concrete piezoelectric ceramic smart module pairs

The concrete strength has the strong influence on service safety of mass hydraulic concrete structures. The real-time identification of concrete strength is very important to ensure the pouring quality during the construction and find timely the hidden troubles in service. Based on the analysis for the mapping relationship between concrete strength and stress wave amplitude, the method is proposed to obtain indirectly the concrete strength with self-made concrete piezoelectric ceramic smart module pairs. First, according to the service condition of hydraulic concrete structure, the concrete piezoelectric ceramic smart module is designed and the process manufacturing concrete piezoelectric ceramic smart module is presented. The protecting measures of piezoelectric ceramic piece, the peripheral material constituent, and the pouring links are introduced. Second, an integrated system, which is composed of self-made concrete piezoelectric ceramic smart modules in pair as sensor and actuator, fuzzy inference system, and other auxiliary equipments, is developed to monitor indirectly concrete strength. Its working principle is studied. Finally, an experiment of hydraulic concrete strength is implemented to demonstrate the feasibility and validity of the proposed method and developed system. The concrete piezoelectric ceramic smart modules in pair are taken as sensor and actuator embedded in hydraulic concrete specimens. The wave-based analysis method is adopted to collect the stress wave amplitude data during the pouring process of concrete specimens. The fuzzy inference approach is utilized to build the mathematical model describing the relationship between concrete strength and stress wave amplitude. Based on the above mathematical model, the concrete strength can be identified indirectly.