Papers by Author: Xian Hui Song

Abstract: Carbon fiber reinforced concrete (CFRC) structures exhibit both strain sensibility and temperature sensibility, which are coupled with each other when used in traffic or health monitoring for concrete structures. This coupling property results in inaccurateness of measured deformation. In this paper Four-probe Difference Method is used to detach the above two effects according to loaded conditions of structures and different characteristics of the two effects. The theoretical and experimental results indicate that the method is feasible and effective.

Abstract: Structural health monitoring (SHM) is becoming a popular topic. Carbon fiber reinforced concrete (CFRC) is an intrinsically smart material that can sense strain. The resistivity increases reversibly under tension and decreases under compression. A new skin-like sensor —cement-based smart layer had been put forward, which can serve as whole field strain sensor. The smart layer is satisfactorily consistent with concrete structure. The smart layer is a thin carbon fiber mat cementbased composite material layer with finite electrodes. It can cover the surface of concrete structure, and provide on-line reliable information about the deformation of whole concrete structure. The static characteristics of the new-type sensor had been researched. Its gage factor is 20-25 under tension and 25-30 under compression within the elastic deformation range. Furthermore the smart layer has satisfactory linearity and repeatability. In this paper, the sensor characteristics of the bare carbon fiber mat have been reached. The resistivity of carbon fiber mat has good agreement with strain under uniaxial tension. The gage factor can be up to 375, and the sensor limit can be up to 10000 microstrain. The strain and the fractional change in electrical resistance .R/R0 are totally reversible and reproducible under cyclic loading and amplitude-variable cyclic tensile loading.

Abstract: Based on the functional characteristics of carbon fiber reinforced concrete (CFRC), an improved infrared nondestructive testing method, to detect crack in CFRC by using infrared thermography, is presented in this paper. The principle is that when a CFRC specimen is applied a low voltage, crack existing in the specimen will result in non-homogeneous surface temperature distribution due to the electro-thermal effect of the material. Monitoring the temperature difference on the surface, the crack under the observed surface can be inspected by using infrared thermography. In theory, the mechanism causing the temperature difference comes down to an unsteady heat transfer problem with internal energy sources. In the case of the thermo-physical property of CFRC as given, the sensitivity of this method to the depth of the crack is analyzed by numerical computation.

Abstract: Cement structures such as bridges and dams often come into being distortion or exhibit excessive thermal stresses due to the sun radiation or freeze-thaw cycle. Therefore, temperature especially inner temperature difference or deformation of structures must be controlled or regulated sometimes in order to reduce thermal stresses or excessive deformation and to extend the life-span of structures. In this paper, the electro-thermal effects of smart cement are used to adjust temperature difference or deformation of concrete beams without the need of peripheral non-structural materials. Concrete beams for temperature and deformation adjustment were fabricated, and some experimental results as well as the related conclusions about temperature difference and deformation were produced. Based on these results, experiments of temperature difference or deflection adjustment are further conducted successfully. The research results in this paper are the bases of temperature and deformation adjustment for mass concrete structures. A new path will be broken to adjust temperature or deformation easily for some structures.