The electromechanical impedance (EMI) method for NDE uses a single piezoelectric material to act as an actuator and a sensor simultaneously, and the EMI method is suitable for structures with complex surfaces. However, this technique still has wide range of problems which needs to be investigated. For one, locating damaged areas on a host structure precisely is known to be extremely difficult as this non-model based technique heavily relies on the variations in the impedance signatures. In this study, an attempt to locate the damaged areas on an ordinary concrete panel and a lightweight concrete panel using bottom ash is carried out by using different frequency ranges. Since the sensing range decreases as the excitation frequency of piezoelectric material increases, one can possibly predict the damaged areas by analyzing the impedance signatures from different frequency ranges. Statistical analysis method such as root mean square deviation (RMSD) is applied to determine the changes of the experimental structures, and the RMSD values of low frequency range and high frequency range are compared to verify the relationship between the frequency range and sensing range. Furthermore, the applicability of this method to locating the damaged areas is investigated on various materials including the lightweight concrete.
Up to date, various studies have been conducted using electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) method on concrete, including monitoring the strength development or to find damage in the structure. Since EMI method utilizes a single piezoelectric material to be used as an actuator and a sensor simultaneously, the method has major advantages compared to other non-destructive testing methods. However the method requires a piezoelectric material to be permanently attached or embedded into a structure. Thus when monitoring multiple structures, the method may become quite expensive. In this study, two re-usable EMI methods conducted by researchers Na et al and Tawie et al are overviewed. The idea of re-usable EMI method is still relatively new, resulting in the reduction of monitoring costs since the same piezoelectric material is used as many times as possible, while ensuring better repeatability and reliability in measurements.
In this study, a relatively new non-destructive evaluation technique known as electro-mechanical impedance (EMI)
method has been investigated on concrete structures with large surface area. Although various studies have been
conducted on concrete components, a major issue still exists as when using EMI method, damage detection can be very
difficult. Due to the property of concrete, only a minor variation in the impedance signature is noticed subjected to
damage. Such small change can be hard for one to verify whether the host structure is damaged or not. Since other
factors can also change the impedance signature including, temperature changes, humidity and aging of the piezo
material, this can increase the uncertainties when differentiating an intact case from a damaged case. In this study, the
effect of a technique to enhance the damage detection ability of EMI method is evaluated on concrete structures with the
aforementioned problem.
In this study, a Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) method is introduced for evaluating the effects of FRP
adhesive joint bond strength subjected to various environmental conditions using electromechanical impedance (EMI)
method. The applicability of Fibre Reinforced Plastics (FRP) as a construction material is being globally recognized for
their high stiffness and strength to weight ratio and this method proposes a possibility of detecting any strength loss to
the adhesive bond without damaging the structure, such as FRP joint itself. PZT (Lead-Zirconate-Titanate) patches were
utilized to detect any changes to the bond strength of the FRP adhesive joint exposed to different kinds of environmental
conditions by measuring the electrical admittance of the PZT sensors. In addition, a re-usable technique has been
introduced with a utilization of magnet to allow multiple sensing of specimens with a single sensor. The results show a
possibility of detecting decrease in the bond strength of FRP adhesive using the EMI method.
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