DAMAGE MONITORING FOR A RC SHEAR WALL UNDER RAPID CYCLIC LOADING WITH EMBEDDED SMART AGGREGATES

In this paper, a kind of functional smart aggregate (SA) which is based on PZT is employed to detect the damage in reinforced concrete (RC) shear wall under rapid cyclic loadings. A number of smart aggregates which can be used as actuators to excite stress waves and transducers were tied at predetermined locations within the rebar cage and were embedded inside the concrete of the RC shear wall specimen. In order to study the performance of the RC shear wall under rapid loading, rapid cyclic loading test was carried out and the SAs were employed to monitor the damage initiation and development in the RC shear wall specimen during the loading procedure. The response of a number of SAs was acquired when a SA was selected to act as an actuator and was excited with sweep frequency signals. Wavelet packet analysis was used as a signal-processing tool to analyze the signal of sensors and a damage index based on the wavelet packet analysis results was defined and was used approach effectively evaluated the damage status in the shear wall under the rapid cyclic loading and the proposed approach has the potential to be applied in health monitoring for RC structures.