Effect of curing age on the self-sensing behavior of carbon-based engineered cementitious composites (ECC) under monotonic flexural loading scenario

Abstract

The potential effects of curing age on the self-sensing (piezoresistivity) capability of carbon-based Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) specimens are under focus in the present study. This non-structural feature can be regarded as one of the best solutions for continuously monitoring of infrastructures in terms of damage and deformations. Carbon fibers which are a micro-scale electrically conductive material were added to the ECC matrix and well dispersed to create the electrically conductive network. This network is responsible for sensing the applied loads on the prismatic specimens. The self-sensing behavior of electrically conductive prismatic specimens under four-point monotonic flexural loading was investigated and compared with dielectric ECC specimens at four ages of curing (7, 28, 90 and 180 days). The results showed that the developed multifunctional cementitious composites can sense the changes in the applied flexural stresses and the resultant mid-span deflection along the adopted curing ages with an improvement in the later ages.