Sensing capabilities of carbon based TRC beam from slack to pull-out mechanism

The paper explores the sensing capabilities of a carbon based textile reinforced concrete (TRC) composite element to monitor its structural mechanisms. The concept is based on continuous carbon rovings knitted into glass textile mesh that simultaneously serve as the structural reinforcement and as the sensory system. The loading procedures which starts from a healthy state, to micro and macro cracked state, and ends with a completely pull-out of the tensioned rovings is strongly affected by the micro-structural mechanism of the carbon rovings within the concrete matrix. It is found that the measured electrical resistance is characterized by this mechanism and can reflect the structural condition. Therefore, it can serve as a structural health monitoring system. The paper demonstrates these sensing capabilities along the entire range of the loading procedure, even up to progressive failure mechanism, where traditional sensing devices usually failed to produce meaningful information.