Crack detection of a full-scale reinforced concrete girder with a distributed cable sensor

• Published in: Smart materials and structures 2005-06, Vol.14 (3), p.S88-S97
• Main Authors: Chen, G D, Sun, S S, Pommerenke, D, Drewniak, J L, Greene, G G, McDaniel, R D, Belarbi, A, Mu, H M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0964-1726; 1361-665X
• DOI: 10.1088/0964-1726/14/3/011

A new concept of designing cable sensors for health monitoring of large-scale civil infrastructure has recently been proposed by the present authors. The concept was developed based on the change in topology of the outer conductor of a coaxial cable sensor. One such sensor was fabricated with its outer conductor tightly wrapped with a commercial tin-plated steel spiral that was covered with solder. It was mounted near the surface of a 15 m long reinforced concrete (RC) girder with a 762 mm square hollow cross section and 152 mm thick walls. The girder was tested under a progressively increasing cyclic torsion creating 45 deg inclined cracks around and along the girder. The main objectives of this study were to implement the distributed cable sensor technology in large-scale reinforced concrete structures, to understand the performance of a sensor under cyclic loading for detecting and locating cracks, and, finally, to address implementation issues such as signal loss, non-uniformity in sensor construction, and recoverability.