Experimental research on concrete seismic stress monitoring by using smart aggregates

Stress history of concrete structure during an earthquake is a critical index to evaluate the structures damage state. So far, reliable measurement to monitoring concrete seismic stress is very rare. Piezoelectric-based smart aggregates ("SA" for abbreviation) provide an innovative experimental approach to conduct concrete stress monitoring. In this paper, the principle of SA-based concrete seismic stress monitoring was introduced. Experimental researches on concrete seismic stress monitoring were conducted. The concrete specimen embedding with SAs underwent three types of seismic loading, including cyclic loading in elastic stage, amplitude -increasing loading-unloading loops in nonlinear stage, and monotonic loading to failure. The statistical characteristics of SA readings were figured out based on test results. The relationship between the SA stresses and concrete stress were established for the full concrete loading path. The presented work proved that SA-based concrete seismic stress monitoring is reliable.