Independent decoupling sensor featuring ultralow temperature coefficient of resistance for structural health monitoring of pipelines

Pipeline failure resulting from structural deformation poses a critical risk to industrial safety and operational reliability. Existing monitoring methods often struggle with signal crosstalk between thermal and mechanical stimuli, limiting real-time assessment. To overcome this challenge, we present a novel structural health monitoring (SHM) methodology based on a dual-mode sensor that simultaneously exploits thermoelectric and piezoresistive effects. The sensor is fabricated by integrating two-dimensional (2D) Ti 3 C 2 MXene nanomaterial into a porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) sponge, enabling parallel and decoupled transduction of temperature and pressure into distinct voltage and resistance signals, respectively, without computational decoupling. Significantly, the sensor exhibits an ultralow temperature coefficient of resistance ( TCR ​= ​−0.000 836% K -1 ), effectively eliminating thermal interference in mechanical strain measurements. Additionally, it achieves rapid response time (0.14 ​s response and 0.1 ​s recovery) and excellent stability (>11 000 cycles), making it highly suitable for long-term industrial deployment. This work provides a transformative approach to real-time, high-fidelity pipeline SHM, ensuring early detection of deformation and structural degradation in critical infrastructure, such as oil/gas pipelines and water distribution systems, thereby significantly enhancing operational safety.