Low-Cost, Passive Sensors for Monitoring Corrosion in Concrete Structures

A passive sensor platform has been developed at the University of Texas at Austin to monitor corrosion of embedded reinforcement in concrete structures. The sensors are powered and interrogated in a wireless manner. Initial sensor designs used a sacrificial corroding steel wire to indicate the risk of corrosion within concrete. The wire was physically connected to the sensor circuitry and passed through the circuit protection layer. Consequently, it allowed contaminants to reach the circuit electric components causing corrosion and limiting the service life of the sensor. A novel sensor configuration that relies on wireless inductive coupling between a resonant circuit and the transducer element is presented. The non-contact design eliminates the breach concern and enhances the durability of the senor. Preliminary test results of the new design will be discussed in this paper.