• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.219-224
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• 2011

In this study, a piezoelectric smart sensor that can be embedded inside of concrete structures is developed to investigate the early stage of concrete curing. A waterproof coating is used to protect the piezoelectric sensor from moistures of concrete mixture. Also, a mortar case is utilized to encapsulate the sensor to protect it from impact loads. To estimate the strength of concrete, a self-sense guided-wave actuated sensing technique is applied. In the guided wave, its velocity is varied according to the mechanical properties of concrete such as modulus of elasticity. Because modulus of elasticity directly affects the strength of concrete, the guidedwave's velocity also affects the concrete strength development. To verify the feasibility of using the proposed approach, the smart sensor was embedded into a 100MPa concrete cylinder and the self-sense guided wave is continuously measured throughout the curing process. The measurements showed that the propagation time (TOF) of the measured guided waves gradually decreased as the curing age increased. Especially, at the early age of the curing process, the variation of the TOF was very significant. Furthermore, the results showed that there is a linear relationship between the TOF of the self-sense guided waves and the strength of concrete existed. It is safe to conclude that the proposed approach can be used very effectively in monitoring of the strength development of high strength concrete structures.