Smart Aggregate-Based Damage Detection of Circular RC Columns under Cyclic Combined Loading

Structural health monitoring is an important issue for the maintenance of large-scale civil infrastructure, especially for bridge columns. In this paper, an innovative piezoceramic-based approach is developed for the structural health monitoring of reinforced concrete columns. An innovative piezoceramic-based device, smart aggregate, is utilized as a transducer for health monitoring purposes. To investigate the seismic behavior of RC bridge columns, structural health monitoring tests were performed on two bridge columns under combined reversed cyclic loading at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Experimental results show that the proposed smart aggregate-based approach successfully evaluated the health status of concrete columns during the loading procedure.