Geopolymer-Based Smart Adhesives for Infrastructure Health Monitoring: Concept and Feasibility
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 23, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper describes the initial efforts to explore a new application of metakaolin-based geopolymers to structural health monitoring. A distributed geopolymer-fiber optic sensing (G-FOS) system is proposed, where geopolymers are used as smart adhesives to affix optical fibers to existing in-service structures to form an integrated G-FOS sensor. Results of feasibility testing in the laboratory indicated that the tensile cracking strain of geopolymers can be controlled by finely tuning the Si/Al ratios or adding appropriate aggregate fillers such as sand, thus rendering the “smart” nature of geopolymers for deformation-based sensing. Geopolymers with ratios are viable adhesives that can develop strong bond to concrete, steel, and glass fiber. Laboratory prototype testing on steel specimens under uniaxial tension and on concrete beams under four-point bending validated the concept and feasibility of the proposed G-FOS system for structural health monitoring. It further demonstrated that the G-FOS system cannot only detect overstraining events in steel but also measure the crack size in concrete.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by an ITRS grant [Contract No. UNSPECIFIEDLEQSF(2009-12)-RD-B-04] from the LA-BoR. Jian He also received the LSU Graduate School’s Enhancement Award as partial support for his graduate study. Shuang Hou and C. S. Cai were supported by a PFund project sponsored by the LA-BoR and National Science Foundation. Collaborations and support from ACT LLC. and OZ Optics Ltd. are gratefully acknowledged.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 23 • Issue 2 • February 2011
Pages: 100 - 109
Copyright
© 2011 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 15, 2009
Accepted: Jun 8, 2010
Published online: Jun 22, 2010
Published in print: Feb 2011
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